Mastodawn

Emeritus Prof Christopher May

Much of the support for renationalising the railways was grounded in the hope that state ownership would reduce rail fares (which are among the highest in Europe);

however, it now seems that will be unlikely, as any extra cash saved by nationalisation will be spent on maintenance, infrastructure & increased services (which in fairness are also what the network needs).

But as fares are what voters most immediately experience, how will this play out?

#railways #politics
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ceqg73znzzeo

Labour cannot promise cheaper rail fares under renationalisation

Transport Secretary says she will "strain every sinew" so customers get value for money as SWR brought back into public hands.

BBC News

Knittingdancer🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈May 26, 2025

@ChrisMayLA6 and if the trains are able to run on time we'll lose what is in practice a fifty percent discount from delay repay.

RK May 26, 2025

I admire the German Deutsche Bahn model:

1. Buy and run four private train companies in the UK, including London Overground and the Grand Central line.

2. Charge Brits up to £2 per mile.

3. Use profits made in the UK to subsidise German train tickets (58€ per month, unlimited travel).

At least one nation has benefited from Thatcher’s privatisation.

Emeritus Prof Christopher May May 26, 2025

Yes, its ironic isn't it..... or perhaps (if I was to be more judgmental) exploitative

GeofCox May 26, 2025

@ChrisMayLA6 @RaffKarva

The other question is why not subsidise rail rather than roads? I don't know what the figures are for the UK, but in the US it's reckoned that state and federal income from fuel etc taxes is only around HALF the level of expenditure on roads - and that's without taking into account road transport 'externalities' (air pollution, congestion, accidents, noise and climate change) - and there's a study in the EU showing that when you do include these externalities ALL countries subsidise road transport. Yet there's very little controversy about public subsidy of roads, while the much more sensible subsidy of rail always seems to attract criticism.

GeofCox May 26, 2025

@ChrisMayLA6 @RaffKarva

Of course, road subsidies help wealthy corporations and individuals, rail subsidies the young and more hard-pressed people. And wealthy corporations and individuals own the media.

Colman Reilly May 26, 2025

@GeofCox @ChrisMayLA6 @RaffKarva no, they help pretty much everyone. The “problem” with public transport is that most of the economic benefits are external - they accrue to land owners and businesses rather than the people using the transport.

Unfortunately everyone is too system blind to understand that.

GeofCox May 26, 2025

Not sure I understand your point. In the EU study I read most benefits of road transport subsidies actually accrued to businesses (primarily because diesel taxes are far too low). Far more goods transport goes by road now, so business is the main beneficiary of road transport subsidy - and generally the bigger the business the more it benefits. Conversely, for people's mobility, good, cheap public transport disproportionately helps younger and poorer people that don't have cars, or can't afford taxis - but they (especially the young) are most severely affected by the external costs of roads, like pollution and climate change.

@ChrisMayLA6 @RaffKarva

Colman Reilly May 26, 2025

@GeofCox @ChrisMayLA6 @RaffKarva that’s just system blindness. Public transport increased property values along its routes and provides business with access to customers and employees. The economic value of that to business is generally larger than the economic benefits to the passengers and if you don’t factor it in it makes public transport either look not worthwhile or you end up trying to make passengers cover the cost.

GeofCox May 26, 2025

I'd like to see some - any - evidence for claims like that. What I have seen is evidence that roads drive up property prices - and car use - and access to customers, etc. That's why the developed world is filling up with awful peripheral retail developments, and supermarkets, many only accessible by car.

@ChrisMayLA6 @RaffKarva

Emeritus Prof Christopher May May 26, 2025

@GeofCox @Colman @RaffKarva

Americanisation?

GeofCox May 26, 2025

I certainly think the big supermarket and out-of-town shopping mall models developed first in America - but really I see them simply as a function of the car. They're only viable given extensive personal car ownership and acres of free car parks.

@Colman @RaffKarva

Jonathan Schofield May 26, 2025

@GeofCox @ChrisMayLA6 @RaffKarva

Because road travel is based on a vehicle type that has deliberately been made widely affordable and thus able to be relentlessly marketed with every emotional ploy under the sun. In an average evening’s TV viewing on a commercial channel at least one car ad will feature, quite often several. One is unlikely to see a rail ad in a month or more

llanciawn May 26, 2025

@urlyman @GeofCox @ChrisMayLA6 @RaffKarva And rail travel is ridiculously expensive and notoriously unreliable.

GeofCox May 26, 2025

In the UK, I assume you mean. Here in France the (state-owned) railway system is great, especially in terms of reliability - but also ease of use, costs (compared with the UK), etc... I was in a little station - Clisson, in the Loire - at the weekend, which had the most fantastic art exhibition on.

@urlyman @ChrisMayLA6 @RaffKarva

llanciawn May 26, 2025

@GeofCox @urlyman @ChrisMayLA6 @RaffKarva Yes, UK. In France you can afford that because you are making a fortune overcharging us for services you have bought in UK. Nevertheless, the act of subsidising is laudable.

GeofCox May 26, 2025

I do sometimes wonder how many Brits know that EDF is really Électricité de France, Orange is France Télécom, etc, etc...

@urlyman @ChrisMayLA6 @RaffKarva

Emeritus Prof Christopher May May 26, 2025

@GeofCox @RaffKarva

Yes, a really good point (and boosted); one might also conclude its all part of the relentless individualism of modern society, with collective solutions (such as pubic transport) derided as the choice of 'losers'....

Epistatacadam May 26, 2025

@GeofCox @ChrisMayLA6 @RaffKarva I believe the hidden subsidy for railways in the UK has risen steadily since privatisation, though the direct fare price subsidy has gone down.

llanciawn May 26, 2025

@GeofCox @ChrisMayLA6 @RaffKarva Subsidy of transport is good; monetisation is not.

Donald Roy May 26, 2025

@GeofCox @ChrisMayLA6 @RaffKarva

Fuel taxes in the #uk have not been adjusted even for inflation for many years - despite indexation still being assumed in forward projections sent by #hmtreasury to the #obr !

Will Tuladhar-Douglas May 26, 2025

@GeofCox @ChrisMayLA6 @RaffKarva

As I understand it, the choice to subside road not rail was made under Harold MacMillan, and specifically under the corrupt Transport Minister Ernest Marples. It's connected to the Beeching cuts.

qwertzalotl May 26, 2025

@RaffKarva @ChrisMayLA6

Sadly, your statement ist wrong in several points. There is no ticket for 49 Euros which allows you to use all German trains. You probably mean the "Deutschland-Ticket". It costs 58 Euros/month and you can use it in commuter-trains, busses, trams, undergrounds. You can't use it in IC or ICE. This ticket (costs in total 3 Mrd) is financed by the German state (and its bundeslaender 50/50). Afaik GB is about to deprivatize its trains, so it could do the same.

Steve Ashmole-Day May 26, 2025

@RaffKarva @ChrisMayLA6 Rail privatisation was under Major rather than Thatcher. And DB no longer owns Arriva.

Claudius Link May 27, 2025

@RaffKarva @ChrisMayLA6
While i totally agree with your general gist, here are some corrections.

The German train ticket you mentioned (Deutschlandticket) is only valid for regional trains. These are often not run by the Deutsche Bahn but by local rail companies (often on a somewhat public ownership of the local government)
So unlimited travel for 58 euros is slightly misleading

The Deutschlandticket is financed half by the state government and half by the local government and not by the Deutsche Bahn (they receive money for the regional connections they run). So I don't think the Deutschlandticket is cross financed by British rail travellers. These profits are just used to bolster the results of Deutsche Bahn 😬

Source (German)
https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/aktuelles/deutschlandticket-2134074

Deutschlandticket: Fragen und Antworten | Bundesregierung

Mit dem Deutschlandticket ist der öffentliche Nahverkehr in ganz Deutschland nutzbar. Seit Januar 2025 kostet es 58 Euro.

Die Bundesregierung informiert | Startseite

Colman Reilly May 26, 2025

@ChrisMayLA6 “Labour refuses to …” would be a more accurate headline.

Russ Cheshire May 26, 2025

@ChrisMayLA6 The quasi-nationalisation of railways is symptomatic of the UK Government's refusal to spend what is needed into the economy. Until the Exchequer understands that the nation's accounts are not those of a company or a household, we will be stuck in this ever-deepening trench of austerity, with insufficient funding even to maintain - let alone increase - our current levels of societal contentment.

Emeritus Prof Christopher May May 26, 2025

Yup, that's about it....

Mike 🇬🇧 🇪🇺May 26, 2025

@ChrisMayLA6 While I'd love cheaper fares, more services and better infrastructure - I'm not convinced - as an occasional user of European trains - that British railways are as bad or as expensive as we make out.

Certainly if you rock up to the station today and expect to go to the seaside NOW you will be paying a LOT of money, but plan ahead (& buy a railcard) and there are a lot of affordable tickets to choose from.

We don't suffer from Germany's creaking infrastructure leading to huge delays and cancellations, or French mad timetables, bonkers luggage rules or surly staff.

Ticketing in Britain is over-complicated and desperately needs reform, but headline prices are misleading.

ouro May 26, 2025

@MikeFromLFE @ChrisMayLA6 regulating dynamic pricing would be a start

Jen May 26, 2025

@MikeFromLFE @ChrisMayLA6 we're going on the train tomorrow.

On-the-day price would be £220.

We booked a couple of weeks ago for £90-odd, including the cost of a 3 year disabled person's rail card.

It took three goes (and two websites), each with lots of tweaking, to work through the options to find that price.

Emeritus Prof Christopher May May 26, 2025

@jetlagjen @MikeFromLFE

And that is the issue; congratulations on your tenacity, but for many, its just easier to take the car.... and therein lies the problem

Jen May 26, 2025

@ChrisMayLA6 @MikeFromLFE yeah, for this journey, car was not an option.

I'm travelling alone with the teenagers. I can't drive that far. So it was public transport or not at all.

I would very much like the balance to be in favour of public transport because that's easy, rather than because the car is difficult.

Quixoticgeek May 26, 2025

@MikeFromLFE @ChrisMayLA6 "just plan ahead" is a tax on spontaneity. Your gran is taken ill and you need to get to the hospital quickly on the other side of the country so you can spend the last few hours with her? Hope you can afford it.

The purpose of public transport is to transport the public. Imagine if we had road pricing that required you to buy a discount card, and book slots on the motorway weeks in advance. They'd be riots. The same should be true for trains.

Colman Reilly May 26, 2025

@quixoticgeek @MikeFromLFE @ChrisMayLA6 the seaside example is particularly ironic, given British weather.

Mike P May 26, 2025

@quixoticgeek @MikeFromLFE @ChrisMayLA6 I get the impression that transporting the public is actually fairly low down on its list of priorities.

To some, the purpose of the railway is to deliver an inferior service to the plebs, so that car drivers can feel smugly superior to them.

Others see it as a method for funneling public money into private purses.

Still others use it mainly as a big stick to hit the government with, by the means of strikes.

Transporting people? Not a priority.

Quixoticgeek May 26, 2025

@FenTiger @MikeFromLFE @ChrisMayLA6 then we need to fix that. The purpose of public transport is to transport the public. Everything else is secondary

Martin Gleadow May 26, 2025

@FenTiger @quixoticgeek @MikeFromLFE @ChrisMayLA6 and some within the industry are guilty of thinking the purpose of a railway is to play with trains, not move people and goods from where they are to where they want to be

Peter Brown May 26, 2025

@quixoticgeek @MikeFromLFE @ChrisMayLA6 “Imagine if we had road pricing that required you to buy a discount card, and book slots on the motorway weeks in advance. They'd be riots. The same should be true for trains.”

That.
Exactly that.

Peter Brown May 26, 2025

@quixoticgeek @MikeFromLFE @ChrisMayLA6 buses charge the same at peak periods. Why not trains?
In fact it is often a less pleasant journey as the train is standing room only.

Charging peak fares is operator-driven charging. Passenger-based charging would be fixed predictable fares, like on buses.

moomin_hattifatteners

@peterbrown @quixoticgeek @MikeFromLFE @ChrisMayLA6 They're getting rid of peak fares in Scotland from September. This is really interesting, as the Transport Scotland report on the trial ( https://www.transport.gov.scot/news/scotrail-peak-fare-removal-pilot-report-published/ ) concluded it didn't trigger as much modal shift as expected. But public transport should be there to transport the public, and it should be treated (and funded) as a public service, as far as I'm concerned. So... good. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8x8xe2140jo

Peter Brown May 26, 2025

@ravenbait @quixoticgeek @MikeFromLFE @ChrisMayLA6 I am pleasantly surprised it produced as much modal shift as it did. There was very little (no?) publicity around the change.
This time it should be supported by advertising aimed at commuters to encourage more modal shift.
When peak fares were restored the Greens produced an intense protest campaign and if they promote the reduced fares with anything like the fervour they protested their removal it would be ideal!

moomin_hattifatteners

@peterbrown As someone whose closest station is one of those re-opened after the Beeching Axe fell, but not until relatively recently, our fares are way more expensive than those from one of the nearest mainline stations, and the peak fares are WAY more. So I'm really pleased, and it will make it far more likely for me to choose the train.

@quixoticgeek @MikeFromLFE @ChrisMayLA6

MarjorieR May 26, 2025

@peterbrown @quixoticgeek @MikeFromLFE @ChrisMayLA6 as a English national bus pass hoder you still have to pay to travel by bus before 9:30 in the morning. And, of course, for those who pay, the price also doubles if you need 2 buses for a journey.
And if you compare trains to planes rather than cars then when you book has a big influence on what you pay on planes too, often with even more aggressive surge pricing for late booking.
Not saying peak fares, singles being nearly the same as returns, and there being wildly different costs per mile on different routes are sensible pricing policies.

Mike 🇬🇧 🇪🇺May 26, 2025

@marjolica @peterbrown @quixoticgeek @ChrisMayLA6 Coach journeys are also priced using yield management.
It's a system that works tolerably well for flights with limited seats ( and you could say the same for coaches) but it's a poor pricing regime for most railway journeys.
I could live with a peak / off peak differential where there's heavy demand, but that's not true of many routes.

Peter 🔻May 26, 2025

@quixoticgeek @MikeFromLFE @ChrisMayLA6 Trains are privatized in the UK and some other European countries. It's public roads as they are payed by and for the public. Public transport should be the same, that's not the case anymore.

Quixoticgeek May 26, 2025

@pvdrijst @MikeFromLFE @ChrisMayLA6 yes. But just cos something is one way now doesn't mean it can be another way in the future.

A lot of the arguments people present are summed up as "we can't have nice things, because currently we do not have nice things"

Things can be better, they should be better.

Peter 🔻May 26, 2025

@quixoticgeek @MikeFromLFE @ChrisMayLA6 Indeed they should.