Comment by dash2
1 year ago
It worked OK for the UK. Passenger numbers, which had been steadily falling, started to increase. On the other hand, there are complaints about high fares.
1 year ago
It worked OK for the UK. Passenger numbers, which had been steadily falling, started to increase. On the other hand, there are complaints about high fares.
Are you sure about that?
I still remember "traingate", the smear campaign that followed Jeremy Corbyn (1) and how leaked CCTV video proved him right much later (2).
(1) https://www.politico.eu/article/jeremy-corbyn-walked-past-em...
(2) https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/virgin-release-traing...
This has been true for Germany too. Passenger numbers are at an all-time high, but that's part of the problem - the infrastructure is at it's limit, but building new infrastructure is met with strong resistance by locals. e.g. the planned relief for the notoriously overcrowded Hamburg - Hannover track got effectively canceled, and this is only about the get worse with increased traffic from the new tunnel to Denmark that is set to open by the end of the decade.
I think very few Brits would agree that rail privatisation has "worked". Poor and old carriages, overcrowded, slow, late trains, and generally a lack of investment. Oh, and ridiculously high fares (often well over air fares!), which seem to increase above inflation every.single.year.
Some of us remember pre-privatisation as being a lot worse: carriages were older, trains were slower and there were less of them, staff were ruder and didn't care about their customers, announcements were inaudible. Fares were probably lower though.
Unfortunately I'm old enough too :)
Yes, it's true that things were pretty grim. I remember being embarrassed when a colleague from Norway travelled with me in a filthy, worn train carriage stinking of piss :(
But IMO that doesn't excuse the lack of poor management since then. Things could be much, much better.
1 reply →
Passenger numbers were generally CLIMBING in the 80s, Intercity was massively popular and successful, which was the reason for sectorization - let the bits that should be funding the system as a whole succeed, and let the bits that need subsidies fail.
Sectorization was, of course, the prelude to privatization.
Here is evidence that you are mistaken: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GBR_rail_passengers_...
This is only a Wikimedia page, so if you have better evidence that contradicts it, feel free to present it. But note that it cites trustworthy sources.