Renationalising railways is plain loco… it will be the same old misery for passengers while handing more power to unions
ACCORDING to the Government, the renationalisation of South West Trains on Sunday morning marked a 'new dawn for rail'.
It was a Sunday morning, however, which ended like so many do for rail passengers: With the first service soon grinding to a halt and passengers ordered out onto a rail replacement bus.
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Does anyone other than avowed socialists really expect much to improve under the Government's renationalisation programme, which will involve most services in Britain over the next couple of years being branded under the name ' Great British Railways '?
It may have escaped some passengers' notice, but train services in some parts of the country already have been renationalised.
Local services in the North of England, for example, have been run by the Government under the name Northern Trains since 2020, after the Conservative government terminated the franchise held by Arriva.
Services in Wales have been run by the Welsh government since 2021 and those in Scotland by the Scottish government since 2022.
How is that experiment coming on?
In the final three months of last year, Northern Trains had the fourth worst punctuality record of any operator, with just 50.6 per cent of trains arriving on time.
It had the second worst figures for train cancellations, with eight per cent of trains not even making it out of the station.
Next down the list was Transport for Wales, with 7.6 per cent cancelled.
In Scotland, nationalisation by Nicola Sturgeon did absolutely nothing to improve labour relations, with almost constant strikes in the years since.
There has been a distinct change in culture, with the whole network being closed down at the slightest hint of strong winds.
Train drivers' strike causes rail travel chaos as many areas left with no services
Nor have the renationalised railways proved to be less grasping when it comes to setting and collecting fares.
I don't have much sympathy for genuine fare dodgers, but Sam Williamson was trying to do the right thing when he bought a £3.65 return to Manchester with a 16-24 railcard.
No one who is old enough to remember British Rail will be fooled into thinking, as the Government and unions would have us believe, that nationalisation is a panacea for our awful rail service
Northern's phone app was quite happy to sell him the ticket, but little did he know that deep down in the company's Byzantine rules was a clause saying that railcards can only be used before 10am if the original fare would have been £12 or more — although that rule doesn't apply in July and August. Got that?
Williamson was pounced upon by a ticket inspector and was about to be dragged through the courts when, after a public outcry, the company realised that perhaps, after all, its ticketing rules are unreasonably complicated.
No one who is old enough to remember British Rail will be fooled into thinking, as the Government and unions would have us believe, that nationalisation is a panacea for our awful rail service.
At least the privatised rail companies seemed to want us to travel, luring us with cheap tickets and by opening new stations.
I still remember British Rail's response when a rail service in Devon was reported to be dangerously overcrowded.
Rather than find an extra carriage or two it scrapped the service altogether.
It was British Rail's Chairman, Richard Beeching, lest anyone forget, who closed down half the rail system in the 1960s.
Many other services were run down, reduced to a skeleton service.
Trains were old and dirty and the catering a stock joke for comedians.
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British Rail did have one big modernisation project — developing a tilting train which was supposed to run at speeds of up to 155 mph from London to Manchester and Glasgow, but that was scuppered in part by the unions who refused to drive it, demanding it should have two drivers.
It is bizarre that the railway system, under privatisation, receives more subsidy than it did in British Rail's day
It is true that privatisation never brought us all the benefits it was supposed to.
The decision by John Major's government to grant monopolistic franchises allowed rail companies to bid up fares to ridiculous levels.
The same companies found it easier, rather than take on the unions, to nod through fat pay rises and then go begging to the government for extra handouts.
It is bizarre that the railway system, under privatisation, receives more subsidy than it did in British Rail's day.
But none of this is going to be solved simply by taking the railways back into state ownership.
The real purpose of nationalisation is to throw red meat to Labour's old faithful — those who never accepted Tony Blair's rewriting of the party's constitution to take out the clause demanding public ownership of the means of production.
Labour's sacred cows
While Blair was prepared to slay Labour's sacred cows and embrace a more entrepreneurial economy, Starmer is taking his party backwards into its 1940s comfort zone.
He may preach 'growth, growth, growth', but has anyone seen a Labour policy in the past 11 months that is calculated to achieve that?
Renationalisation of the railways certainly isn't going to do the job.
Even transport secretary Heidi Alexander admits it isn't going to reduce fares.
All it will mean is that the unions will be in charge of the railways even more than they are already.
It will be more fat pay rises for their members as they take advantage of a pushover Labour government — and the same old misery for passengers.
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