Private firms are set return to rail maintenance

[cyberdonblue]

I'm not sure I like the sound of this... ...in fact, I know I don't.

"Network Rail will begin to see its grip on the UK's rail network loosened from this Tuesday, when Transport Secretary Chris Grayling will announce a plan to gradually devolve some of Network Rail's powers to private companies. "

Full story BBC News website http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38201570

Cheers

Dave

[blackwatch13]

They may as well just go back to 'The Big Four', it's ludicrous, but the reason will be the old Tory ploy of
giving their backers & mates a way into the taxpayer provided pot, for financial gain. (a.k.a. ex Railtrack shareholders)

[cyberdonblue]

Train and track operations to be reunited in rail revamp. Further coverage of the Railway maintenance issue on the BBC News website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38212467

Dave

[PFX]

This subject is just begging for a well-reasoned 'debate' over on the other channel.

[Itareus]

And what should we call the newly 'united' organisations ?

How about 'British Railways' ?

What a shambles, and we are paying through the nose for it.

Chris M

[cyberdonblue]

It's just normal Tory behaviour. Line their mates pockets with taxpayers money and then laugh about it when they lose the next election cos who needs to be in power when you've made millions for your mates and they'll see you alright. They don't give a toss about railways. They never have. It's just the most convenient cash cow at the moment and things are in such a mess they can blame everyone but themselves for it. Meanwhile, as the sound of angry passengers drowns out everything else, their mates are dragging away chestfuls of taxpayers cash each month and nobody will even notice.

The last time (pre-Cameron) the Tories were in power they governed for about 15 or 20 years (because Labour were unelectable) and they raped this country of all of its worthwhile assets. Thatcher sold the family silver and then Major and all the rest of them carried on selling anything that wasn't nailed down. At the end of it all the Tory slimeballs were saying quietly that they'd made so much money they didn't need to get elected again for three generations.

This country went from being a manufacturer of just about anything and everything to a bunch of arse wipers and bankers. Service industustries I believe the bullshit term for it is.

There were bent "property" and "land" deals worth millions of pounds going on all over London. Only one Tory (a rather rich female Tory Councillor - Dame something or other) was ever brought before a court. I believe she paid a paltry fine and that was the end of it. It is alleged that Thatcher told the head of the Met's Fraud Squad that if he valued his carreer and wished it to continue then he should go and poke his nose into someone else's business.

Mind you, Tory Blair is no better. He and his Barrister wife were mixed up in some property scandal in Bristol believed to be valued in the region of £30 million. Amazing how the smell of that one just wafted away somewhere.

They're all crooks, in my opinion.

Dave

[davidbird]

...
They're all crooks,...

Half of them are crooks.

[klambert]

...
They're all crooks,...

Half of them are crooks.

Please retract that statement.

I've heard argued that the reason why Railtrack failed was not becuase it was private, but becuase it seperated the trains from the tracks.

But who's to say the companies won't just contract out track maintenance to subcontracters who'll contract to out to subcontracters, who'll contract to out to subcontracters, ... etc etc. Meaning that 4 times as much tax payers money will go down the drain compared to network rail.

[Briggsy]

Mind you, Tory Blair is no better. He and his Barrister wife were mixed up in some property scandal in Bristol believed to be valued in the region of £30 million. Amazing how the smell of that one just wafted away somewhere.

Tory Blair was just a red-tie wearing Tory sat on the opposite bench.

There's a few more of them still hanging around in the Labour party too.

[rjhowie]

Came across this as a long overlooked item but the rather crude political stuff is a nerve. From going on repeatedly as Tory creep attitudes and so on. I would remind that it has got very easy for Nationalisation moaners to forget the hard truth about the would-be glory days of British Rail. When the Conservatives brought in the Beeching move the Labour lot stoaked up opposition and said they would reverse a whole raft of the Beeching cuts. What did they do when they got in? Sod all.

The rail system in Gt Britain is far, far busier than the BR days and each year keeps increasing and some of that is a challenge but makes me wonder why the rail wasn't so busy in the non-Tory days. Even allowing for the practical challenges of constantly increasing passengers unlike State Rail days our railways is much better than the BR routine whether some moaners don't want to face the truth.

[cyberdonblue]

As one of those moaners, Mr Howie, I could not resist replying (in a civilised manner, of course.) Please excuse my general political rant. It is not party political in any way, just my opinion.

Unfortunately, as a life-long Labour supporter, I have to confess to being totally disillusioned by the world of politics at this point in time. No wonder the kids don't vote. I also have to concede that not only did Labour fail to reverse any of the Beeching cuts but they have constantly failed to live up to their promises to reverse much of ANY Tory legislation brought in to suppress the rights of the Trade Union movement and many of the other damaging pieces of legislation too. Tory Blair hijacked the Labour Party and did more damage to the working man than John Major ever did - he even extended the anti-Trade Union legislation, the low-life. Blair's mother and father were Tories so don't tell me he suddenly saw the light and converted. They're the most dangerous sort. At least Thatcher admitted she was a Tory, Blair was just a liar - as he proved over the Iraq war.

Sadly, even today, the Labour party think they know better than the electorate. The majority of people (especially older people who remember Thatcher with so much hatred in their hearts) voted to LEAVE the European con Community, yet Labour are saying "we won't leave if we don't get the right deal." Even the thickest Brussels politician could work out from that that they only have to be as beligerant as can be for two years and then the British people's vote will be annulled by virtue of the fact that nobody can agree. THE EU IS WORLD RENOWNED FOR NOT BEING ABLE TO AGREE ON ANYTHING! All this makes my heart bleed, Mr Howie. The pigs (Labour, Tory or otherwise) have their noses so deeply buried in the trough that they have neither the time nor the inclination to look up anymore and see what is happening to our country, the tragic events of Manchester the other night being a prime example of what has gone wrong.

Britain has already been slaughtered by the E.U. and the arse licking politicians of this country (all parties.) We used to manufacture the best of everything - cars, ships, planes, TRAINS. YOU, surely Mr Howie, remember those days. Where are they now? A few shipbuilders left in Scotland living on the scraps thrown to them now and again by the government of the day? A minor aircraft manufacturer in Belfast (Shorts Brothers), a Canadian plastic train builder trying its best to look British in Derby? A foreign car assembly industry replacing our entire car design and manufacturing industry? Our country wipes everybody else's arse now. That's our national industry - and the crooks... er sorry, politicians, even have a name for it. They call it the Service Industry. If I could stop wretching and heaving I'd laugh.

Ever since its first days of nationalisation, the question of "good old British Rail" or "bad old British Rail" was really one of supervison. Government after government turned a blind eye to the gross mismanagement of the railways, mostly by highly paid, Tory supporting bosses, many of whom came from the ranks of the privatised companies. And the railways weren't the only privatied industry that suffered that blight either. One by one, every nationalised industry was deliberately (in my humble opinion) bled to death.

If the government's current levels of investment had been given to BR - even with their real and/or perceived levels of mismanagement - we would now have the finest High Speed railway system in the World - bar none - and our railways would be an example to all (instead of the current example of how NOT to run a railway.) The Pretendalinos are a cheap Italian knock off of our APT. A train developed on the minimum of investment possible (about £10 million over 10 years - but a million was worth a million in those days) and its further development was crippled by yet another road lobby influenced government. That train was futuristic in every way at the time. A World leader. Trouble is, our lot in Parliament couldn't lead a horse to water - then or now.

Derby, Swindon, Doncaster, Crewe (to name but four.) I don't have to say anymore than the names of those places because you all (over a certain age) know exactly what I'm talking about. All of those towns are now a mere shadow of what they were because of how our railway industry has been butchered. Massive sites at all of those places are now derelict or filled with meaningless "redevelopments" which have moved small businesses in from further afield to make the place look busy.

BR built the trains, owned the trains and ran the trains. How convenient, then, that we could get rid of that industry and make at least three private companies to take it over. Each TOC now has to LEASE it's trains and the leasing companies won't spend any money on new stuff until they've bled the market dry from what they've got lying about at the moment. Get rid of the leasing companies and it's problem solved. Simples. But no, that won't do. That would cut off one of the avenues for draining taxpayers money into private pockets. We can't have that now, can we?

Many years of bitter experience have made me extremely cynical. Everyday I see the "dog eat dog" attitude that Thatcher brought us from America and, sadly, every day a little bit more hope dies within me. I fear that only a catastrophe of World damaging proportions will reverse the "every man for himself" ideology that seems to prevail today. When we're talking on that scale then privatised or nationalised railways seems totally immaterial.

If you've managed to get this far then thank you for your patience.

Cheers

Dave

[trainzrule]

Ah, but the better a rail network gets, the more complaints you get. You won't beleive what many Germans say about the perfect German network...

[blackwatch13]

To be quite frank, the British couldn't give 2 monkeys wotsits about the German railways or what it's customers think.

[trainzrule]

But the British railway system is not all bad. You may have slow trains, but at least they are usually on time.
The part that is unsettling is that many stately owned companys from overseas control large swathes of the British network.
Anyways, for us railway enthusiasts the relatively diverse British rolling stock is simply great!

[rjhowie]

Hhhm, cyberdonblue,

You have a corner but there are legions of Labourites who are ordinary people and do not support your old trad left agenda any longer. That has happened everywhere including up here in Scotland - even slumped into third place by the Scots Tories! And may I remind that what lot was it who raised the level before you paid income Tax and that will continue to rise to £12,500? Raised the minimum wage and will continue to £9? Why was none of such done under the Lab tradition one may ask directly? More choice in just about everything. For years Labour got away with State control right across the board and what a nonsense and now people can move suppliers which they could not do before. On railways it was still old Labour in power back in Harold Wilson's time when they body swerved the rail matter! Blair had to move direction because he seen that the people were changing. Even up here old Labour Council seats fell to the Scots Tories including one outside Paisley a long time left seat!

If Britain's railways were supposed to be better under State control how come less passengers? I am well aware that there are difficulties but in main much is due to far greater passenger numbers since any time from the 1948 mess up. This rise is totally ignored by you and I am not saying everything is A1 but the constant passenger pressure is a challenge. Blaming modern Labour for it's woes is not the answer as you are hanging on to a stance that has eroded in a more modern society. Modern rail for all the hiccups IS doing better than the old State control everything nonsense.