National Express loses rail route

[P & CA News Bot]

The government is to take the East Coast rail service run by National Express into public ownership.

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[Pilgrim]

Noooooooooooooooooo ooh I can see them all searching for a new logo to represent labours transport policies. how about this one I'll do it for £100K cheap at half the price

[Yorkist]

Yes for me. I hope they re-nationalise the others, too.

[Uplifter]

Originally Posted by Yorkist

Yes for me. I hope they re-nationalise the others, too.

Me too. The railways went to pot when they were privatised. Ticket prices shot up and the service went downhill. Not to mention they moved freight off of the railway network onto the roads.

[Sir Digalot]

i miss riding on trains..not the CTA/underground style but the longer distance LNER style intercity trains and such.... it is like flying only more comfortable

[Volker]

Originally Posted by Sir Digalot

i miss riding on trains..not the CTA/underground style but the longer distance LNER style intercity trains and such.... it is like flying only more comfortable

It is like flying, if you have a seat. It's not like flying so much, when standing on a small place between a lot of other people for like 5 hours, which can easily happen to people in Germany on long distance lines.

[Yorkist]

Originally Posted by Volker

It is like flying, if you have a seat. It's not like flying so much, when standing on a small place between a lot of other people for like 5 hours, which can easily happen to people in Germany on long distance lines.

Our railways are a mess. Fares are the highest in Europe, there's a £3 billion annual subsidy from the government, and yet passengers often have to stand because too few carriages are run. The services are expensive, dirty and unreliable (targets for reliability are regularly missed, even though trains are not even counted as late if they arrive within 10 minutes of the expected time).

The UK government needs to get serious about the railways if it is to meet its greenhouse targets. I think it can only do that by re-nationalising the whole network.

[Pilgrim]

Originally Posted by Volker

It is like flying, if you have a seat. It's not like flying so much, when standing on a small place between a lot of other people for like 5 hours, which can easily happen to people in Germany on long distance lines.

Train travel in Germany is an absolute pleasure compared to train travel in the UK.

[Volker]

Originally Posted by Yorkist

Our railways are a mess. Fares are the highest in Europe, there's a £3 billion annual subsidy from the government, and yet passengers often have to stand because too few carriages are run. The services are expensive, dirty and unreliable (targets for reliability are regularly missed, even though trains are not even counted as late if they arrive within 10 minutes of the expected time).

The UK government needs to get serious about the railways if it is to meet its greenhouse targets. I think it can only do that by re-nationalising the whole network.

German railways are kinda mixed, the biggest company is private, but 100 % government owned, most of the smaller companies are private owned, I guess. German commuter trains are pretty good, and this is, there the railway companies make most of the money. Long distance connections are fast, but sometimes the number of carriages is too small, mostly Friday and Sunday, when people go to work or home on the big East-West lines.

[Volker]

Originally Posted by Pilgrim

Train travel in Germany is an absolute pleasure compared to train travel in the UK.

I can not compare, I have never seen a British train.

[Volker]

I like American and French trains, too.

[Pilgrim]

I travelled all around Europe in my yoof on trains, spent a month wandering around it was great .

I can not compare, I have never seen a British train.

Easy go to the toilet on a German train, get 14 other people to join you, piss on the floor then sit in it, that roughly is what train travel in the UK is like.

[R Lance]

If the government takes over rail line doesn't that mean taxes for all will have to rise even non rail users/riders?.

[CatWoman]

The privitisation of the railways was Majors's government last gasp Thatcherist act. At the time I thought it was a big mistake and time has proved I was right.

The railways need massive investment only the public sector can afford. I'm in favour of moving frieght off the road and onto rail.

As a final thought the USA would benefit from a interstate highspeed railway unforntunately the airline lobby is to strong.

[Yorkist]

Originally Posted by R Lance

If the government takes over rail line doesn't that mean taxes for all will have to rise even non rail users/riders?.

Not really. The railway is already subsidised, but anyway a lot of people would welcome the opportunity to use trains which are currently out of their price range.

[Uplifter]

Originally Posted by CatWoman

The privitisation of the railways was Majors's government last gasp Thatcherist act. At the time I thought it was a big mistake and time has proved I was right.

The railways need massive investment only the public sector can afford. I'm in favour of moving frieght off the road and onto rail.

As a final thought the USA would benefit from a interstate highspeed railway unforntunately the airline lobby is to strong.

I thought the railways were privatised during Thatchers government. I could be wrong.

Originally Posted by R Lance

If the government takes over rail line doesn't that mean taxes for all will have to rise even non rail users/riders?.

Not necessarily. The reason National Express have sold out is because they got greedy and over-bid for the contract. That was money already given to the government. The government will now just run the line for a while and then sell the contract again.

[CatWoman]

Originally Posted by Uplifter

I thought the railways were privatised during Thatchers government. I could be wrong.

Privatisation of British Rail - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Uplifter]

Originally Posted by CatWoman

Privatisation of British Rail - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ahhhh Thatnks CatW'.

Of course it was easy for Major to privatise it after Thatcher had broken it all up and sold off most of it to other operating companies.

[Pilgrim]

Originally Posted by Yorkist

Not really. The railway is already subsidised, but anyway a lot of people would welcome the opportunity to use trains which are currently out of their price range.

For some of us they are out of our geographic range too, my parents travel everywhere by train (and bus) neither of them drive my sister lives in Grimsby and by train it takes 3 hours to travel 45 miles mostly due to the fact that they have to change 3 times as there's no direct rail link there, in all they cover 150 miles to get 45.

[Sir Digalot]

you can thank dr beeching for that little gem....

the only weird thing i had to get used to out here was the double decker trains... very wierd