[AnthonyDunn]

@ NTarrant – 09/07/2015 12:31 BST

We are in the realms of the counter-factual here: what would have happened if British Rail had a stayed a single entity and in the public sector? We are also in the realm of an entirely and deeply political issue – much as is LSE additional runway capacity.

What I do recall is reading an FT analysis of Major’s dogma-driven privatisation of the railways which used a model that has been copied precisely nowhere else in the world owing to the complexity, duplication, cost and rampant inefficiency that it has engendered. The FT series of articles (mid-90s) pointed out inter alia that the terms on offer for the train leasing companies (Porterhouse et al) were so generous that there was a queue all the way around the block and back again of City institutions desperate to get their hands on what was, effectively, free money – courtesy of the the taxpayer. It is also my understanding that, far from seeing a reduction/elimination of state funding of our railways, which the the Major-government Tory Transport Secretary told me would happen under privatisation, we subsequently saw an increase in rail funding the likes of which had not been experienced during public ownership. All of those shiny new trains have been funded from somewhere and (ahem) it has, often as not, been the taxpayer rather than private sector shareholders. It is astonishing that the UK has ended up importing Italian made Pendolino’s when we were world leaders in developing tilting train technology – that is until the Thatcher government axed the project’s funding.

The UK’s railway privatisation was the most intensely political act of the last all-Tory government and the most intensely destructive. Just how much is left of the UK rail manufacturing industry after orders for new trains, locomotives and infrastructure went sharply into reverse post-privatisation? This was an act of ideological vandalism and economic self-destruction for which those responsible ought to have been personally surcharged, bankrupted and prevented from ever being able to hold public office ever again. The saga makes my blood boil.

[NTarrant]

@Openfly

By all means tell him the real facts and not mess room conspiracy theories.

@AnthonyDunn
I don’t disagree that Major botched privatisation, franchising was a quick way of getting the privatisation process going quickly before losing the election in 1997. I was told that a regional split was what would have been desirable but the time to set that up would have meant it coming out after the election which Labour could block.

The problem with the current structure is that everyone blames someone else, If there had been a regional split and everything privatised the operators would be able to purchase rolling stock and depreciate over the life of the stock, improve the permanent way at a different pace. It would also be more cost effective as there would not be the layers of people with their nose in the trough.

BR if it had continued would not have improved services at the pace the current TOCs have, it was bloated with layers of management and over staffing. I remember Brian Cox who was MD of SWT when Stagecoach took over saying that the management structure was so bloated there were massive savings.

So we have a half way house, but too much interference from politics of all parties

[transtraxman]

@AnthonyDunn – 10/07/2015 16:09 BST
+1

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