The Labour Government

Chippy_boy said:
Do you think British Rail was subsidized at all?
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Was that a deliberate swerve, or did you simply miss the point?

British Rail didn't have a 12-person board presiding over 200 staff working out who was to blame for delays, so that TOCs can send money back and forth between them. 75% of train delays are because of other trains being delayed.

So if a train in the South Wales valleys was delayed last Tuesday, that means someone is working out if that was because a GW train was late, which delayed a freight train, which delayed the TfW local from Barry Island, and it was all because points failed at Swindon, and was that because the private signalling contractor was at fault?

Under BR my guard on the delayed Manchester train could happily announce it was "due to the incompetence of the staff at Euston" and it would still be BR's fault. Whereas now staff are letting trains go without waiting 2 mins for one TOC's connecting train because their company doesn't mind inconveniencing the other company's "customers" and they'd rather the other TOC paid out for an hour's delay to passengers. I'm not sure who gets charged for delays when someone throws themselves under a train.

And don't forget it was private contractors' track maintenance failures that were blamed for the fatal Hatfield crash. Thankfully, that has meant the railways do now have an excellent safety record, with the only passenger death in over a decade because of a landslide (though Network Rail admitted contributory failures).

Of course, the obvious success of nationalised railways is the European railways subsidising their fares out of profits made running British franchises subsidised by British taxpayers.
 
BR was subsidised but to a far lesser extent than the present set-up.

It is, in most cases, almost impossible to run a passenger service without a degree of subsidy. Back in the golden days of private railway companies (which paid for everything with private capital and did not expect the state to provide the infrastructure), the companies that paid the best dividends were those with heavy goods and mineral traffic, which effectively subsidised their passenger services.

Even before WW1 and the development of relatively efficient internal combustion road vehicles, rural lines like the Cambrian Railways, the Highland Railway and even the Great Eastern Railway, rarely made a profit for shareholders. But the capitalist ethos was completely different. Guys like the Duke of Sutherland (who owned much of the Highlands) knew that if a railway did not pay for itself it would still be a huge benefit to the district through which it ran and would increase the value of his land and other investments. People just don't think like that anymore. It's all accountancy in silos.
 
BrianW said:
BR was subsidised but to a far lesser extent than the present set-up.

It is, in most cases, almost impossible to run a passenger service without a degree of subsidy. Back in the golden days of private railway companies (which paid for everything with private capital and did not expect the state to provide the infrastructure), the companies that paid the best dividends were those with heavy goods and mineral traffic, which effectively subsidised their passenger services.

Even before WW1 and the development of relatively efficient internal combustion road vehicles, rural lines like the Cambrian Railways, the Highland Railway and even the Great Eastern Railway, rarely made a profit for shareholders. But the capitalist ethos was completely different. Guys like the Duke of Sutherland (who owned much of the Highlands) knew that if a railway did not pay for itself it would still be a huge benefit to the district through which it ran and would increase the value of his land and other investments. People just don't think like that anymore. It's all accountancy in silos.
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I've told it before but Thatcher's accountants said that every train had to bear a share of a line's fixed costs. The West Highland line had secured a lot of timber traffic by pricing it at marginal cost (train crew, diesel) and made a marginal profit which went toward the fixed costs. Adding the full share of fixed costs would mean a loss, so at the higher price the timber went back on the roads, and the passenger services had then to bear all the fixed costs so needed more subsidy.
 
Mr Blue Moon said:
What is your hatred based on?
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Their vengeful dislike of the elderly and pensioners. Tbf the tail of the donkey is being wagged by civil service policy makers ( all young, Metropolitan, can't afford a house, hate elders s who can and think it was handed to them on a plate. It wasn't). Had the Tories been competent no doubt they would have attempted to do similar. I am closely associated with someone who has a very responsibile decent pay grade job in a Central Government Department so am aware how it all works from listening and seeing it unfold. I also watch Parliament TV to try and stay ahead of the game. Me and my OH predicted this attack on us FOCs as soon as this lot were elected.

I loathe the hypocrisy as well - not just this shower but the party gate previous incumbents as well.

FYI in my youth I was a member of the Socialist Workers Revolutionary party. Times have changed for me.....!!
 
‘Vengeful dislike of the elderly and pensioners’

You lot are fucking insane.
 
PPT said:
Wait till they axe the single person council tax discount in the forthcoming budget…
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I’ll wait until they have had 12 months to implement their plans to get the U.K. out of the shit it’s been left in before I make any snap judgments one way or another.
If they do prove over time ( and 3 months isn’t anywhere near enough, even for the attack dogs who have camped in this thread since the election) that they are no better than those they replaced then they will rightly be castigated.
The conservatives have a few years to get their shit together, if they do they will be voted back in and round and round we go.
As it stands though, there’s no redeeming qualities whatsoever about that mob and I doubt things would be any better right now had they stayed in power. Those thinking it would be are deluded.
 
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