Red Rabbitcan I get a “Fuck privatisation of public transport” in the crowd tonight?? 🎤
Strawberry Pigtails@harrym If my governments were willing to invest in public transit in the first place I might agree with you. In the meantime I’ll take whatever I can get!
@strawberrypigtails they built them, at least in Aus. I’m not aware of any country where public transport started as a private venture.
Justified Ancient of Moomin@harrym @strawberrypigtails every public transport railway in the UK until 1948 (when it was all nationalised) was a privately-run company, all descended from private ventures that built them in the first place.
@ThermiteBeGiants @strawberrypigtails interesting!! a rare win for a backwards UK I guess?
@harrym nationalised and/or publicly owned railways were a fairly recent development; they emerged in the British imperial colonies (like Victoria) because London capital was skittish about supporting private ventures that could just take the money and run. In Europe, Japan, the Americas and of course, the birthplace of public railways (the UK), it was all initially private companies building lines. Sometimes there was public subsidy, sometimes the private ventures failed and got nationalised (again, this is what happened in Victoria - private railway companies went bust and steadily got nationalised in the 1860s up until total nationalisation in 1883). But it all started with private money originally, for better or worse.
@ThermiteBeGiants I imagine the purpose of these original private train lines was the movement of goods rather than the transport of every day folks?
@harrym both! Up until the advent of the personal car (and the public bus/coach, to an extent), the railways were genuinely the only way to get around anywhere longer than a horse or bicycle trip. That's also why there were *heaps* of tramways all over cities big and small until the 1920s. Bendigo, Ballarat & Geelong all had their own tramway networks, for instance. Same with Adelaide, there were loads of lines all over pre-WW2 Adelaide.
@ThermiteBeGiants damn, how the mighty have fallen.
that’s hella interesting, thanks for the lesson :D
@harrym just one more thing: y'know package holidays/tours? Kontiki, Thomas Cook, all that garbage? UK railways invented it, in the 19th century. Whole factories of workers would take a few days off with their families to visit the seaside on chartered trains.