British rail privatisation was a failure

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Author: Patrick Crozier

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There were good things and bad things about rail privatisation.

Contents 1 On the upside 2 On the downside 3 Red herrings 4 Questions 5 Comments

On the upside

Here are a few of the good things:

• The wider availability of cheap tickets
• Cheaper tickets for pre-peak travel (in some cases)
• New trains (although there are some stinkers and there have been other problems like delays and poor reliability)
• National Rail Enquiry Service. Yes, I know it gets things wrong (not entirely surprising given the huge complexity of the timetable and fare system) but bear in mind that before privatisation there was barely anything at all.
• The emergence of online ticketing (yes, I know the internet didn't exist before privatisation but at least they did it).

There were a few minor good things that ought to be mentioned:

• Introduction of WiFi on GNER

On the downside

But there were many bad things:

• Punctuality and reliability fell. It was about 90% all told. It is now about 85%.
• Subsidy increased. Last time I looked subsidy (minefield as it is, see Roger Ford's comment) had increased from about £1bn a year in the last few years of nationalisation to something like £7bn now. For that sort of money we ought to have an absolutely top of the range system. We don't.
• Debt increased (from nothing). Network Rail has (last time I looked) managed to burn through £20bn in four years.
• Graffiti and vandalism got worse. So, presumably, did crime.
• The West Coast Route Modernisation. This was the plan to rebuild the West Coast Mainline and increase speeds for a knock down price. They rebuilt it and increased speeds but costs went through the roof. See here And lots of people don't like the new trains.
• Ever grottier stations
• Trains stopping short of their destination

Red herrings

Some things didn’t change much at all:

• Safety. Yes, that was about the same (see Christian Wolmar). Sure, there were some well-publicised crashes but there were crashes before privatisation. It is difficult to know where the trend line is going because crashes are, thankfully, rare events. It only takes one crash to completely change the figures. But even if you take into account the crashes, the figures are about the same.
• Passenger numbers. These increased massively. But so what? How does this help me? If a crammed in like a sardine on the 0835 to Waterloo increased passenger numbers are very definitely to my disadvantage. OK, so there's an argument about rail travel reducing pollution or making things safer by taking people off the roads. But that's almost impossible to prove.

Questions

What do you mean by failure?
Why did it fail?

Comments

If you would like to comment on this article I suggest you make it here rather than attempting to use the Talk/Discussion page. I have recently received a large amount of Wiki spam and the only effective way of preventing it is to prevent the unmoderated creation of new accounts without which the page is uneditable (unless your name is Kieran or Jax).