If that's the case it will cost me an additional £300 to watch Charlton.
Well done sadiq and some people quired why I have an opinion of him living where I do.
I think if you read the piece it’s pretty clear that it’s not Sadiq Khan instigating this but the government insisting on cost savings as a requirement of the bail out to TfL of £3.6 billion during the pandemic.
I know whose behind it mate. It was muted from him months ago. He's the top man blame goes with the position.
Theres lots of ways to skin a cat and I will be utilising it.
But clearly TFL is in desperate need of funding, it's a separate argument of who is to blame for that but regardless it's in a hole. So if the answer is to raise ticket prices who should foot that? Should it be Londoners who use it day in day out to get to and from work or should tourists have their subsidy cut? I know what I prefer.
Or people out of town who come in and add millions to the economy... Some won't bother. I know what I prefer.... We shouldn't have to pay if TFL is so poorly run.
Well let's blame a worldwide pandemic and a national government holding TFL to ransom then. Any other city in the world if they said we're raising prices for people who don't live here we'd probably all say fair enough.
I do wonder how this sits with the anti ulez lot about the poorest in London being impacted the most? Don't you agree they should be protected first given their most likely to need to use the services to survive?
Apologies for adding to the derailment (pun intended) of this thread, it will be my last post on this particular point.
Thanks for the final sentence @colthe3rd , I'd really appreciate it if we could stick to HS2/long distance rail and its competition - if it's not presumptuous of me to request this, given my own chequered record when it comes to staying on topic🤣
Out of interest, if probably the biggest problem is the issues that arise just determining the route, public enquiries etc and then acquiring the land; and an aim of the object is to reduce the need to travel by road, why don’t we just start using the existing motorways and cut them down to 2 lanes in each direction instead of 3; and keeping the 3 lanes for areas of heavy traffic and use the hard shoulder lanes for tracks ?
Having a 50mph limit, which seems to be in place almost everywhere these days anyway, should help ease congestion issues whilst construction is going on. Telling drivers and sat navs to use alternative routes should also help reduce traffic, as would having a toll in place whilst construction is ongoing
There's a single metric on which rail and other transport planners rely, throughout Europe and the rest of the world. It's the sweet spot of 3.5 hours' train travel time.
If you take the combined passenger numbers of air and rail, routes which require a rail journey time of 3.5 hours+ will see more than 50% of the traffic going by air. Conversely, for air-rail city pairs where the rail journey time is less than 3.5 hours, more than 50% of the traffic will choose to go by rail.
It's a statistic that holds very close to truth in many parts of the world - if you can get there in less than 3.5 hours on the train, most people go by train; if the train takes longer than 3.5 hours, most people fly.
So, the most lucrative city pairs on which to develop high speed rail links are those cities which are unreachable within 3.5 hours currently, but which would be brought below 3.5 hours with the construction of a high speed rail link.
What this means in UK terms is that the greatest air-to-rail shift would be for journeys between Glasgow or Edinburgh and London. Because London-Manchester or London-Birmingham are already well within the 3.5 hour limit.
The best example is Rome-Milan. The high-speed link brought the journey times to just below the 3.5 hour limit. Consequently, there was a shift to rail such that about 50% of the combined passenger traffic takes the train, as opposed to flying. Moreover, the flight time - when you include travelling to the airport from the city centre, check-in times, security times, and travelling from the airport to the city, is very close to the same time span. In Italy, if you're in Rome and you have a meeting in Milan (or vice versa) it's often a toss-up in terms of time whether you fly or get a train. But the rail companies work very hard to secure your business: WiFi all the way from start to stop, possibility to hire a boardroom for meetings on-board, and fares from less than twenty quid.
A bit more about the Rome-Milan link. It's brilliant. Fast, efficient, spacious, quiet, fast, convenient. It also offers an open access route [insert political comment about benefits of EU membership, and then remember to keep this "on-track"] meaning that while state-run Trenitalia is the "main" rail provider on the route, NTV ("Italo") also runs trains on the route. The national rail operator competes both with air and with another rail operator - no wonder the service is good and inexpensive. It's exactly this type of thinking that has been removed from the running of HS2.
(In short, I am saying that rail should be state-run in the UK; but that operators should be welcomed to compete on certain journeys. That's far better than having two dozen, privately-owned effective monopolies).
Most other countries in Europe long ago saw the benefits of a modern dedicated high speed rail network.
Not in backward Britain though. It should have already been built many years ago. Meanwhile we have a 19th century rail network overloaded, under-invested and literally falling apart, while shareholders suck the financial lifeblood from it.
This HS2 line will be built, eventually ... it has to be.
If that's the case it will cost me an additional £300 to watch Charlton.
Well done sadiq and some people quired why I have an opinion of him living where I do.
I think if you read the piece it’s pretty clear that it’s not Sadiq Khan instigating this but the government insisting on cost savings as a requirement of the bail out to TfL of £3.6 billion during the pandemic.
I know whose behind it mate. It was muted from him months ago. He's the top man blame goes with the position.
Theres lots of ways to skin a cat and I will be utilising it.
But clearly TFL is in desperate need of funding, it's a separate argument of who is to blame for that but regardless it's in a hole. So if the answer is to raise ticket prices who should foot that? Should it be Londoners who use it day in day out to get to and from work or should tourists have their subsidy cut? I know what I prefer.
Or people out of town who come in and add millions to the economy... Some won't bother. I know what I prefer.... We shouldn't have to pay if TFL is so poorly run.
Well let's blame a worldwide pandemic and a national government holding TFL to ransom then. Any other city in the world if they said we're raising prices for people who don't live here we'd probably all say fair enough.
I do wonder how this sits with the anti ulez lot about the poorest in London being impacted the most? Don't you agree they should be protected first given their most likely to need to use the services to survive?
Apologies for adding to the derailment (pun intended) of this thread, it will be my last post on this particular point.
No lots of Londoners get free travel, reduced fares with the Oyster card system and lots of empty buses every 5 minutes, a night service that gets them around.
Dont know what it cost now but i recall about 6 years ago making a single tube journey on a Sunday afternoon from Kings Cross to Waterloo and it cost me £4.20. God know what it does now and this was pre pandemic bla bla days.
Lots of people outside of the city contribute to those profits. Its very inward thinking of those that support Khan that has led to this. I will probably drive now so they have lost my contribution but i will now add more smog to the city. Great thinking Sadiq some Londoners certainly deserve you.
If that's the case it will cost me an additional £300 to watch Charlton.
Well done sadiq and some people quired why I have an opinion of him living where I do.
I think if you read the piece it’s pretty clear that it’s not Sadiq Khan instigating this but the government insisting on cost savings as a requirement of the bail out to TfL of £3.6 billion during the pandemic.
I know whose behind it mate. It was muted from him months ago. He's the top man blame goes with the position.
Theres lots of ways to skin a cat and I will be utilising it.
But clearly TFL is in desperate need of funding, it's a separate argument of who is to blame for that but regardless it's in a hole. So if the answer is to raise ticket prices who should foot that? Should it be Londoners who use it day in day out to get to and from work or should tourists have their subsidy cut? I know what I prefer.
Or people out of town who come in and add millions to the economy... Some won't bother. I know what I prefer.... We shouldn't have to pay if TFL is so poorly run.
Well let's blame a worldwide pandemic and a national government holding TFL to ransom then. Any other city in the world if they said we're raising prices for people who don't live here we'd probably all say fair enough.
I do wonder how this sits with the anti ulez lot about the poorest in London being impacted the most? Don't you agree they should be protected first given their most likely to need to use the services to survive?
Apologies for adding to the derailment (pun intended) of this thread, it will be my last post on this particular point.
No lots of Londoners get free travel, reduced fares with the Oyster card system and lots of empty buses every 5 minutes, a night service that gets them around.
Dont know what it cost now but i recall about 6 years ago making a single tube journey on a Sunday afternoon from Kings Cross to Waterloo and it cost me £4.20. God know what it does now and this was pre pandemic bla bla days.
Lots of people outside of the city contribute to those profits. Its very inward thinking of those that support Khan that has led to this. I will probably drive now so they have lost my contribution but i will now add more smog to the city. Great thinking Sadiq some Londoners certainly deserve you.
End of story.
If only there was a way to get money from motorists.
You can't get a single tube from Kings Cross to Waterloo.
Most other countries in Europe long ago saw the benefits of a modern dedicated high speed rail network.
Not in backward Britain though. It should have already been built many years ago. Meanwhile we have a 19th century rail network overloaded, under-invested and literally falling apart, while shareholders suck the financial lifeblood from it.
This HS2 line will be built, eventually ... it has to be.
What shareholders? The network has been publicly owned for more than 20 years now.
If that's the case it will cost me an additional £300 to watch Charlton.
Well done sadiq and some people quired why I have an opinion of him living where I do.
I think if you read the piece it’s pretty clear that it’s not Sadiq Khan instigating this but the government insisting on cost savings as a requirement of the bail out to TfL of £3.6 billion during the pandemic.
I know whose behind it mate. It was muted from him months ago. He's the top man blame goes with the position.
Theres lots of ways to skin a cat and I will be utilising it.
But clearly TFL is in desperate need of funding, it's a separate argument of who is to blame for that but regardless it's in a hole. So if the answer is to raise ticket prices who should foot that? Should it be Londoners who use it day in day out to get to and from work or should tourists have their subsidy cut? I know what I prefer.
Or people out of town who come in and add millions to the economy... Some won't bother. I know what I prefer.... We shouldn't have to pay if TFL is so poorly run.
Well let's blame a worldwide pandemic and a national government holding TFL to ransom then. Any other city in the world if they said we're raising prices for people who don't live here we'd probably all say fair enough.
I do wonder how this sits with the anti ulez lot about the poorest in London being impacted the most? Don't you agree they should be protected first given their most likely to need to use the services to survive?
Apologies for adding to the derailment (pun intended) of this thread, it will be my last post on this particular point.
No lots of Londoners get free travel, reduced fares with the Oyster card system and lots of empty buses every 5 minutes, a night service that gets them around.
Dont know what it cost now but i recall about 6 years ago making a single tube journey on a Sunday afternoon from Kings Cross to Waterloo and it cost me £4.20. God know what it does now and this was pre pandemic bla bla days.
Lots of people outside of the city contribute to those profits. Its very inward thinking of those that support Khan that has led to this. I will probably drive now so they have lost my contribution but i will now add more smog to the city. Great thinking Sadiq some Londoners certainly deserve you.
End of story.
You'd have to change trains but on the plus side it would only cost you £2.70. You either got a ticket seller on the take or your memory is playing tricks on you.
If that's the case it will cost me an additional £300 to watch Charlton.
Well done sadiq and some people quired why I have an opinion of him living where I do.
I think if you read the piece it’s pretty clear that it’s not Sadiq Khan instigating this but the government insisting on cost savings as a requirement of the bail out to TfL of £3.6 billion during the pandemic.
I know whose behind it mate. It was muted from him months ago. He's the top man blame goes with the position.
Theres lots of ways to skin a cat and I will be utilising it.
But clearly TFL is in desperate need of funding, it's a separate argument of who is to blame for that but regardless it's in a hole. So if the answer is to raise ticket prices who should foot that? Should it be Londoners who use it day in day out to get to and from work or should tourists have their subsidy cut? I know what I prefer.
Or people out of town who come in and add millions to the economy... Some won't bother. I know what I prefer.... We shouldn't have to pay if TFL is so poorly run.
Well let's blame a worldwide pandemic and a national government holding TFL to ransom then. Any other city in the world if they said we're raising prices for people who don't live here we'd probably all say fair enough.
I do wonder how this sits with the anti ulez lot about the poorest in London being impacted the most? Don't you agree they should be protected first given their most likely to need to use the services to survive?
Apologies for adding to the derailment (pun intended) of this thread, it will be my last post on this particular point.
No lots of Londoners get free travel, reduced fares with the Oyster card system and lots of empty buses every 5 minutes, a night service that gets them around.
Dont know what it cost now but i recall about 6 years ago making a single tube journey on a Sunday afternoon from Kings Cross to Waterloo and it cost me £4.20. God know what it does now and this was pre pandemic bla bla days.
Lots of people outside of the city contribute to those profits. Its very inward thinking of those that support Khan that has led to this. I will probably drive now so they have lost my contribution but i will now add more smog to the city. Great thinking Sadiq some Londoners certainly deserve you.
End of story.
If only there was a way to get money from motorists.
You can't get a single tube from Kings Cross to Waterloo.
If that's the case it will cost me an additional £300 to watch Charlton.
Well done sadiq and some people quired why I have an opinion of him living where I do.
I think if you read the piece it’s pretty clear that it’s not Sadiq Khan instigating this but the government insisting on cost savings as a requirement of the bail out to TfL of £3.6 billion during the pandemic.
I know whose behind it mate. It was muted from him months ago. He's the top man blame goes with the position.
Theres lots of ways to skin a cat and I will be utilising it.
But clearly TFL is in desperate need of funding, it's a separate argument of who is to blame for that but regardless it's in a hole. So if the answer is to raise ticket prices who should foot that? Should it be Londoners who use it day in day out to get to and from work or should tourists have their subsidy cut? I know what I prefer.
Or people out of town who come in and add millions to the economy... Some won't bother. I know what I prefer.... We shouldn't have to pay if TFL is so poorly run.
Well let's blame a worldwide pandemic and a national government holding TFL to ransom then. Any other city in the world if they said we're raising prices for people who don't live here we'd probably all say fair enough.
I do wonder how this sits with the anti ulez lot about the poorest in London being impacted the most? Don't you agree they should be protected first given their most likely to need to use the services to survive?
Apologies for adding to the derailment (pun intended) of this thread, it will be my last post on this particular point.
No lots of Londoners get free travel, reduced fares with the Oyster card system and lots of empty buses every 5 minutes, a night service that gets them around.
Dont know what it cost now but i recall about 6 years ago making a single tube journey on a Sunday afternoon from Kings Cross to Waterloo and it cost me £4.20. God know what it does now and this was pre pandemic bla bla days.
Lots of people outside of the city contribute to those profits. Its very inward thinking of those that support Khan that has led to this. I will probably drive now so they have lost my contribution but i will now add more smog to the city. Great thinking Sadiq some Londoners certainly deserve you.
End of story.
If only there was a way to get money from motorists.
You can't get a single tube from Kings Cross to Waterloo.
You can and i did..maybe not now...
Was that on the now defunct "Waterloo and Bullshit" line?
If that's the case it will cost me an additional £300 to watch Charlton.
Well done sadiq and some people quired why I have an opinion of him living where I do.
I think if you read the piece it’s pretty clear that it’s not Sadiq Khan instigating this but the government insisting on cost savings as a requirement of the bail out to TfL of £3.6 billion during the pandemic.
I know whose behind it mate. It was muted from him months ago. He's the top man blame goes with the position.
Theres lots of ways to skin a cat and I will be utilising it.
But clearly TFL is in desperate need of funding, it's a separate argument of who is to blame for that but regardless it's in a hole. So if the answer is to raise ticket prices who should foot that? Should it be Londoners who use it day in day out to get to and from work or should tourists have their subsidy cut? I know what I prefer.
Or people out of town who come in and add millions to the economy... Some won't bother. I know what I prefer.... We shouldn't have to pay if TFL is so poorly run.
Well let's blame a worldwide pandemic and a national government holding TFL to ransom then. Any other city in the world if they said we're raising prices for people who don't live here we'd probably all say fair enough.
I do wonder how this sits with the anti ulez lot about the poorest in London being impacted the most? Don't you agree they should be protected first given their most likely to need to use the services to survive?
Apologies for adding to the derailment (pun intended) of this thread, it will be my last post on this particular point.
No lots of Londoners get free travel, reduced fares with the Oyster card system and lots of empty buses every 5 minutes, a night service that gets them around.
Dont know what it cost now but i recall about 6 years ago making a single tube journey on a Sunday afternoon from Kings Cross to Waterloo and it cost me £4.20. God know what it does now and this was pre pandemic bla bla days.
Lots of people outside of the city contribute to those profits. Its very inward thinking of those that support Khan that has led to this. I will probably drive now so they have lost my contribution but i will now add more smog to the city. Great thinking Sadiq some Londoners certainly deserve you.
End of story.
You'd have to change trains but on the plus side it would only cost you £2.70. You either got a ticket seller on the take or your memory is playing tricks on you.
Well if the lady behind the counter, you know those things with the round glass window you speak through with a london transport uniform on was a fake then i was conned.
Clearly another non Londoner subsiding Londoners travel...but why wouldnt the are so worthy. My memory is fine thank you.
Wish people would make their own minds up, one person says i couldnt get a single another says i could. LOL
Most other countries in Europe long ago saw the benefits of a modern dedicated high speed rail network.
Not in backward Britain though. It should have already been built many years ago. Meanwhile we have a 19th century rail network overloaded, under-invested and literally falling apart, while shareholders suck the financial lifeblood from it.
This HS2 line will be built, eventually ... it has to be.
What shareholders? The network has been publicly owned for more than 20 years now.
Whooah, not so fast 😉
its true that the infrastucture manager Network Rail is back in public hands after the literally fatal experiment of Railtrack. However that leaves:
- the Train Operating Companies (e.g.South Eastern) which remain mainly private, until they crash and the State takes back the keys from them to keep trains running. Many of them have foreign ownership. One example is Deutsche Bahn, a fact which pisses off as many German as British voters. But currently TOCs are not particularly profitable.
- the ROSCOs. The what? Precisely, most people have no clue but that’s where the money is. Train leasing companies. The original ones were formed by senior BR directors who had the inside track as privatisation came down the line, and they became millionaires very quickly. They knew exactly which assets (locos, coaches) were worth what, and therefore what to grab, for what price; unlike the hapless civil servants who prepared the privatisation structure in line with the wet dreams of the outgoing Tories. Kind of reminds me of the privatisation of the Russian energy sector in that sense.
And to bring that firmly back to HS2, the government and DfT have never explained why the cost of the trains was added in to the headline budget at a later stage. This implies that the State will both build and run all the HS2 trains. That is completely against the entire current system of privatisation. It also makes comparison of the HS2 budget with other European countries more difficult, as does lumping in the cost of stations.
If that's the case it will cost me an additional £300 to watch Charlton.
Well done sadiq and some people quired why I have an opinion of him living where I do.
I think if you read the piece it’s pretty clear that it’s not Sadiq Khan instigating this but the government insisting on cost savings as a requirement of the bail out to TfL of £3.6 billion during the pandemic.
I know whose behind it mate. It was muted from him months ago. He's the top man blame goes with the position.
Theres lots of ways to skin a cat and I will be utilising it.
But clearly TFL is in desperate need of funding, it's a separate argument of who is to blame for that but regardless it's in a hole. So if the answer is to raise ticket prices who should foot that? Should it be Londoners who use it day in day out to get to and from work or should tourists have their subsidy cut? I know what I prefer.
Or people out of town who come in and add millions to the economy... Some won't bother. I know what I prefer.... We shouldn't have to pay if TFL is so poorly run.
Well let's blame a worldwide pandemic and a national government holding TFL to ransom then. Any other city in the world if they said we're raising prices for people who don't live here we'd probably all say fair enough.
I do wonder how this sits with the anti ulez lot about the poorest in London being impacted the most? Don't you agree they should be protected first given their most likely to need to use the services to survive?
Apologies for adding to the derailment (pun intended) of this thread, it will be my last post on this particular point.
No lots of Londoners get free travel, reduced fares with the Oyster card system and lots of empty buses every 5 minutes, a night service that gets them around.
Dont know what it cost now but i recall about 6 years ago making a single tube journey on a Sunday afternoon from Kings Cross to Waterloo and it cost me £4.20. God know what it does now and this was pre pandemic bla bla days.
Lots of people outside of the city contribute to those profits. Its very inward thinking of those that support Khan that has led to this. I will probably drive now so they have lost my contribution but i will now add more smog to the city. Great thinking Sadiq some Londoners certainly deserve you.
End of story.
If only there was a way to get money from motorists.
You can't get a single tube from Kings Cross to Waterloo.
You can and i did..maybe not now...
Was that on the now defunct "Waterloo and Bullshit" line?
If that's the case it will cost me an additional £300 to watch Charlton.
Well done sadiq and some people quired why I have an opinion of him living where I do.
I think if you read the piece it’s pretty clear that it’s not Sadiq Khan instigating this but the government insisting on cost savings as a requirement of the bail out to TfL of £3.6 billion during the pandemic.
I know whose behind it mate. It was muted from him months ago. He's the top man blame goes with the position.
Theres lots of ways to skin a cat and I will be utilising it.
But clearly TFL is in desperate need of funding, it's a separate argument of who is to blame for that but regardless it's in a hole. So if the answer is to raise ticket prices who should foot that? Should it be Londoners who use it day in day out to get to and from work or should tourists have their subsidy cut? I know what I prefer.
Or people out of town who come in and add millions to the economy... Some won't bother. I know what I prefer.... We shouldn't have to pay if TFL is so poorly run.
Well let's blame a worldwide pandemic and a national government holding TFL to ransom then. Any other city in the world if they said we're raising prices for people who don't live here we'd probably all say fair enough.
I do wonder how this sits with the anti ulez lot about the poorest in London being impacted the most? Don't you agree they should be protected first given their most likely to need to use the services to survive?
Apologies for adding to the derailment (pun intended) of this thread, it will be my last post on this particular point.
No lots of Londoners get free travel, reduced fares with the Oyster card system and lots of empty buses every 5 minutes, a night service that gets them around.
Dont know what it cost now but i recall about 6 years ago making a single tube journey on a Sunday afternoon from Kings Cross to Waterloo and it cost me £4.20. God know what it does now and this was pre pandemic bla bla days.
Lots of people outside of the city contribute to those profits. Its very inward thinking of those that support Khan that has led to this. I will probably drive now so they have lost my contribution but i will now add more smog to the city. Great thinking Sadiq some Londoners certainly deserve you.
End of story.
You'd have to change trains but on the plus side it would only cost you £2.70. You either got a ticket seller on the take or your memory is playing tricks on you.
Well if the lady behind the counter, you know those things with the round glass window you speak through with a london transport uniform on was a fake then i was conned.
Clearly another non Londoner subsiding Londoners travel...but why wouldnt the are so worthy. My memory is fine thank you.
Wish people would make their own minds up, one person says i couldnt get a single another says i could. LOL
A tube from anywhere within zone 1 to anywhere else in zone 1 costs £2.70. You can look it up easily enough. I very much doubt it has come down in price since 6 years ago.
Most other countries in Europe long ago saw the benefits of a modern dedicated high speed rail network.
Not in backward Britain though. It should have already been built many years ago. Meanwhile we have a 19th century rail network overloaded, under-invested and literally falling apart, while shareholders suck the financial lifeblood from it.
This HS2 line will be built, eventually ... it has to be.
What shareholders? The network has been publicly owned for more than 20 years now.
Whooah, not so fast 😉
its true that the infrastucture manager Network Rail is back in public hands after the literally fatal experiment of Railtrack. However that leaves:
- the Train Operating Companies (e.g.South Eastern) which remain mainly private, until they crash and the State takes back the keys from them to keep trains running. Many of them have foreign ownership. One example is Deutsche Bahn, a fact which pisses off as many German as British voters. But currently TOCs are not particularly profitable.
- the ROSCOs. The what? Precisely, most people have no clue but that’s where the money is. Train leasing companies. The original ones were formed by senior BR directors who had the inside track as privatisation came down the line, and they became millionaires very quickly. They knew exactly which assets (locos, coaches) were worth what, and therefore what to grab, for what price; unlike the hapless civil servants who prepared the privatisation structure in line with the wet dreams of the outgoing Tories. Kind of reminds me of the privatisation of the Russian energy sector in that sense.
And to bring that firmly back to HS2, the government and DfT have never explained why the cost of the trains was added in to the headline budget at a later stage. This implies that the State will both build and run all the HS2 trains. That is completely against the entire current system of privatisation. It also makes comparison of the HS2 budget with other European countries more difficult, as does lumping in the cost of stations.
Sure, Prague but the network is the infrastructure.
The model for the TOCs has been moved to a TfL style approach, so pofit margins are very slim.
I agree that the ROSCO sales were a poor deal for the taxpayer. I think the NAO found that the sales were at about 20-25% below true market value but a bit hyperbolic to compare it to the Yeltsin era.
Re HS2, I think that even the Tories have given up on rail privatisation. I don't think it was ever envisaged that HS2 would be franchised. A lot of the big TOCs are now run by the DfT and as above, the franchise model (cost plus percentage rather than bidding) is complteley different now.
Most other countries in Europe long ago saw the benefits of a modern dedicated high speed rail network.
Not in backward Britain though. It should have already been built many years ago. Meanwhile we have a 19th century rail network overloaded, under-invested and literally falling apart, while shareholders suck the financial lifeblood from it.
This HS2 line will be built, eventually ... it has to be.
What shareholders? The network has been publicly owned for more than 20 years now.
Whooah, not so fast 😉
its true that the infrastucture manager Network Rail is back in public hands after the literally fatal experiment of Railtrack. However that leaves:
- the Train Operating Companies (e.g.South Eastern) which remain mainly private, until they crash and the State takes back the keys from them to keep trains running. Many of them have foreign ownership. One example is Deutsche Bahn, a fact which pisses off as many German as British voters. But currently TOCs are not particularly profitable.
- the ROSCOs. The what? Precisely, most people have no clue but that’s where the money is. Train leasing companies. The original ones were formed by senior BR directors who had the inside track as privatisation came down the line, and they became millionaires very quickly. They knew exactly which assets (locos, coaches) were worth what, and therefore what to grab, for what price; unlike the hapless civil servants who prepared the privatisation structure in line with the wet dreams of the outgoing Tories. Kind of reminds me of the privatisation of the Russian energy sector in that sense.
And to bring that firmly back to HS2, the government and DfT have never explained why the cost of the trains was added in to the headline budget at a later stage. This implies that the State will both build and run all the HS2 trains. That is completely against the entire current system of privatisation. It also makes comparison of the HS2 budget with other European countries more difficult, as does lumping in the cost of stations.
Sure, Prague but the network is the infrastructure.
The model for the TOCs has been moved to a TfL style approach, so pofit margins are very slim.
I agree that the ROSCO sales were a poor deal for the taxpayer. I think the NAO found that the sales were at about 20-25% below true market value but a bit hyperbolic to compare it to the Yeltsin era.
Re HS2, I think that even the Tories have given up on rail privatisation. I don't think it was ever envisaged that HS2 would be franchised. A lot of the big TOCs are now run by the DfT and as above, the franchise model (cost plus percentage rather than bidding) is complteley different now.
Of course I didnt literally mean it was like the Yeltsin era complete with murders and the strategic shagging of daughters of key politicians😉 But in the broader sense of some people working in senior positions in key State industries using their professional/insider knowledge to completely outsmart the State when the time comes, and before the general public has a clue what’s going on, that’s how it reminds me.
As for privatisation itself, some people might be surprised to see me write that I think there is a place for it on a railway -but I’m not sure exactly what model will primarily benefit customers and maintain a more efficient railway operation. Europe completely rejected the British way of dividing up the network into numerous franchises, Open Access as it is called instead allows for a private operator to compete with the State run incumbent. I have seen it bring improvements, here in CZ, but mainly peripheral, like improved catering and the now famous/infamous night sleeper to the Croatian coast. But it has disadvantages too. I know of no country where the balance seems right. Austria is the best in the EU, IMO, but pretty much the same structure exists in Germany and currently it is pretty dismal there. I have to hand it to Thatcher, she called it right by putting rail privatisation in the tray marked “too difficult”.
If that's the case it will cost me an additional £300 to watch Charlton.
Well done sadiq and some people quired why I have an opinion of him living where I do.
I think if you read the piece it’s pretty clear that it’s not Sadiq Khan instigating this but the government insisting on cost savings as a requirement of the bail out to TfL of £3.6 billion during the pandemic.
I know whose behind it mate. It was muted from him months ago. He's the top man blame goes with the position.
Theres lots of ways to skin a cat and I will be utilising it.
But clearly TFL is in desperate need of funding, it's a separate argument of who is to blame for that but regardless it's in a hole. So if the answer is to raise ticket prices who should foot that? Should it be Londoners who use it day in day out to get to and from work or should tourists have their subsidy cut? I know what I prefer.
Or people out of town who come in and add millions to the economy... Some won't bother. I know what I prefer.... We shouldn't have to pay if TFL is so poorly run.
Well let's blame a worldwide pandemic and a national government holding TFL to ransom then. Any other city in the world if they said we're raising prices for people who don't live here we'd probably all say fair enough.
I do wonder how this sits with the anti ulez lot about the poorest in London being impacted the most? Don't you agree they should be protected first given their most likely to need to use the services to survive?
Apologies for adding to the derailment (pun intended) of this thread, it will be my last post on this particular point.
No lots of Londoners get free travel, reduced fares with the Oyster card system and lots of empty buses every 5 minutes, a night service that gets them around.
Dont know what it cost now but i recall about 6 years ago making a single tube journey on a Sunday afternoon from Kings Cross to Waterloo and it cost me £4.20. God know what it does now and this was pre pandemic bla bla days.
Lots of people outside of the city contribute to those profits. Its very inward thinking of those that support Khan that has led to this. I will probably drive now so they have lost my contribution but i will now add more smog to the city. Great thinking Sadiq some Londoners certainly deserve you.
End of story.
If only there was a way to get money from motorists.
You can't get a single tube from Kings Cross to Waterloo.
You can and i did..maybe not now...
Was that on the now defunct "Waterloo and Bullshit" line?
What ? You seem familiar with that line....Someone said you cant get a single ticket then someone said yes you can, Maybe all that smog from the tubes is effecting their judgement. There is a tube map for you to peruse should you wish too.
If that's the case it will cost me an additional £300 to watch Charlton.
Well done sadiq and some people quired why I have an opinion of him living where I do.
I think if you read the piece it’s pretty clear that it’s not Sadiq Khan instigating this but the government insisting on cost savings as a requirement of the bail out to TfL of £3.6 billion during the pandemic.
I know whose behind it mate. It was muted from him months ago. He's the top man blame goes with the position.
Theres lots of ways to skin a cat and I will be utilising it.
But clearly TFL is in desperate need of funding, it's a separate argument of who is to blame for that but regardless it's in a hole. So if the answer is to raise ticket prices who should foot that? Should it be Londoners who use it day in day out to get to and from work or should tourists have their subsidy cut? I know what I prefer.
Or people out of town who come in and add millions to the economy... Some won't bother. I know what I prefer.... We shouldn't have to pay if TFL is so poorly run.
Well let's blame a worldwide pandemic and a national government holding TFL to ransom then. Any other city in the world if they said we're raising prices for people who don't live here we'd probably all say fair enough.
I do wonder how this sits with the anti ulez lot about the poorest in London being impacted the most? Don't you agree they should be protected first given their most likely to need to use the services to survive?
Apologies for adding to the derailment (pun intended) of this thread, it will be my last post on this particular point.
No lots of Londoners get free travel, reduced fares with the Oyster card system and lots of empty buses every 5 minutes, a night service that gets them around.
Dont know what it cost now but i recall about 6 years ago making a single tube journey on a Sunday afternoon from Kings Cross to Waterloo and it cost me £4.20. God know what it does now and this was pre pandemic bla bla days.
Lots of people outside of the city contribute to those profits. Its very inward thinking of those that support Khan that has led to this. I will probably drive now so they have lost my contribution but i will now add more smog to the city. Great thinking Sadiq some Londoners certainly deserve you.
End of story.
If only there was a way to get money from motorists.
You can't get a single tube from Kings Cross to Waterloo.
You can and i did..maybe not now...
Was that on the now defunct "Waterloo and Bullshit" line?
What ? You seem familiar with that line....Someone said you cant get a single ticket then someone said yes you can, Maybe all that smog from the tubes is effecting their judgement. There is a tube map for you to peruse should you wish too.
You can get a single ticket anywhere. But you can't get a single train from King's Cross to Waterloo, you have to change.
If that's the case it will cost me an additional £300 to watch Charlton.
Well done sadiq and some people quired why I have an opinion of him living where I do.
I think if you read the piece it’s pretty clear that it’s not Sadiq Khan instigating this but the government insisting on cost savings as a requirement of the bail out to TfL of £3.6 billion during the pandemic.
I know whose behind it mate. It was muted from him months ago. He's the top man blame goes with the position.
Theres lots of ways to skin a cat and I will be utilising it.
But clearly TFL is in desperate need of funding, it's a separate argument of who is to blame for that but regardless it's in a hole. So if the answer is to raise ticket prices who should foot that? Should it be Londoners who use it day in day out to get to and from work or should tourists have their subsidy cut? I know what I prefer.
Or people out of town who come in and add millions to the economy... Some won't bother. I know what I prefer.... We shouldn't have to pay if TFL is so poorly run.
Well let's blame a worldwide pandemic and a national government holding TFL to ransom then. Any other city in the world if they said we're raising prices for people who don't live here we'd probably all say fair enough.
I do wonder how this sits with the anti ulez lot about the poorest in London being impacted the most? Don't you agree they should be protected first given their most likely to need to use the services to survive?
Apologies for adding to the derailment (pun intended) of this thread, it will be my last post on this particular point.
No lots of Londoners get free travel, reduced fares with the Oyster card system and lots of empty buses every 5 minutes, a night service that gets them around.
Dont know what it cost now but i recall about 6 years ago making a single tube journey on a Sunday afternoon from Kings Cross to Waterloo and it cost me £4.20. God know what it does now and this was pre pandemic bla bla days.
Lots of people outside of the city contribute to those profits. Its very inward thinking of those that support Khan that has led to this. I will probably drive now so they have lost my contribution but i will now add more smog to the city. Great thinking Sadiq some Londoners certainly deserve you.
End of story.
If only there was a way to get money from motorists.
You can't get a single tube from Kings Cross to Waterloo.
You can and i did..maybe not now...
Was that on the now defunct "Waterloo and Bullshit" line?
What ? You seem familiar with that line....Someone said you cant get a single ticket then someone said yes you can, Maybe all that smog from the tubes is effecting their judgement. There is a tube map for you to peruse should you wish too.
You can get a single ticket anywhere. But you can't get a single train from King's Cross to Waterloo, you have to change.
Hope that clears things up for you.
No it doesn't I clearly said several years ago... Hope that clears that up for you.
Everyone pile in there, pretend you fit the target audience (how do they expect to pllice that?) and tell them to get Ebbsfleet and Ashford International re-opened, pronto.😉They stay shut because the Border Force refuses to re-staff them. What a joke. Anyone who used Ebbsfleet regularly will recall there was all of ONE border guard on duty at any one time (dońt know who operated the bag security, tho’). And they all finished every day at 14.00 cos the last outbound train would have left by then.
you could get on a northern line train at King’s Cross, travel on the bank line to Morden, stay on the train and come back via the Charing Cross branch and get off at Waterloo, and vice versa, effectively making one journey.
If that's the case it will cost me an additional £300 to watch Charlton.
Well done sadiq and some people quired why I have an opinion of him living where I do.
I think if you read the piece it’s pretty clear that it’s not Sadiq Khan instigating this but the government insisting on cost savings as a requirement of the bail out to TfL of £3.6 billion during the pandemic.
I know whose behind it mate. It was muted from him months ago. He's the top man blame goes with the position.
Theres lots of ways to skin a cat and I will be utilising it.
But clearly TFL is in desperate need of funding, it's a separate argument of who is to blame for that but regardless it's in a hole. So if the answer is to raise ticket prices who should foot that? Should it be Londoners who use it day in day out to get to and from work or should tourists have their subsidy cut? I know what I prefer.
Or people out of town who come in and add millions to the economy... Some won't bother. I know what I prefer.... We shouldn't have to pay if TFL is so poorly run.
Well let's blame a worldwide pandemic and a national government holding TFL to ransom then. Any other city in the world if they said we're raising prices for people who don't live here we'd probably all say fair enough.
I do wonder how this sits with the anti ulez lot about the poorest in London being impacted the most? Don't you agree they should be protected first given their most likely to need to use the services to survive?
Apologies for adding to the derailment (pun intended) of this thread, it will be my last post on this particular point.
No lots of Londoners get free travel, reduced fares with the Oyster card system and lots of empty buses every 5 minutes, a night service that gets them around.
Dont know what it cost now but i recall about 6 years ago making a single tube journey on a Sunday afternoon from Kings Cross to Waterloo and it cost me £4.20. God know what it does now and this was pre pandemic bla bla days.
Lots of people outside of the city contribute to those profits. Its very inward thinking of those that support Khan that has led to this. I will probably drive now so they have lost my contribution but i will now add more smog to the city. Great thinking Sadiq some Londoners certainly deserve you.
End of story.
If only there was a way to get money from motorists.
You can't get a single tube from Kings Cross to Waterloo.
You can and i did..maybe not now...
Was that on the now defunct "Waterloo and Bullshit" line?
What ? You seem familiar with that line....Someone said you cant get a single ticket then someone said yes you can, Maybe all that smog from the tubes is effecting their judgement. There is a tube map for you to peruse should you wish too.
You can get a single ticket anywhere. But you can't get a single train from King's Cross to Waterloo, you have to change.
Hope that clears things up for you.
No it doesn't I clearly said several years ago... Hope that clears that up for you.
Mate, seriously, I have absolutely no idea what point it is you're trying to make.
Are you suggesting that you used to be able to get a tube directly from Kings Cross to Waterloo without changing , when you can't do that now?
Comments
I do wonder how this sits with the anti ulez lot about the poorest in London being impacted the most? Don't you agree they should be protected first given their most likely to need to use the services to survive?
Apologies for adding to the derailment (pun intended) of this thread, it will be my last post on this particular point.
Having a 50mph limit, which seems to be in place almost everywhere these days anyway, should help ease congestion issues whilst construction is going on. Telling drivers and sat navs to use alternative routes should also help reduce traffic, as would having a toll in place whilst construction is ongoing
If you take the combined passenger numbers of air and rail, routes which require a rail journey time of 3.5 hours+ will see more than 50% of the traffic going by air. Conversely, for air-rail city pairs where the rail journey time is less than 3.5 hours, more than 50% of the traffic will choose to go by rail.
It's a statistic that holds very close to truth in many parts of the world - if you can get there in less than 3.5 hours on the train, most people go by train; if the train takes longer than 3.5 hours, most people fly.
So, the most lucrative city pairs on which to develop high speed rail links are those cities which are unreachable within 3.5 hours currently, but which would be brought below 3.5 hours with the construction of a high speed rail link.
What this means in UK terms is that the greatest air-to-rail shift would be for journeys between Glasgow or Edinburgh and London. Because London-Manchester or London-Birmingham are already well within the 3.5 hour limit.
The best example is Rome-Milan. The high-speed link brought the journey times to just below the 3.5 hour limit. Consequently, there was a shift to rail such that about 50% of the combined passenger traffic takes the train, as opposed to flying. Moreover, the flight time - when you include travelling to the airport from the city centre, check-in times, security times, and travelling from the airport to the city, is very close to the same time span. In Italy, if you're in Rome and you have a meeting in Milan (or vice versa) it's often a toss-up in terms of time whether you fly or get a train. But the rail companies work very hard to secure your business: WiFi all the way from start to stop, possibility to hire a boardroom for meetings on-board, and fares from less than twenty quid.
A bit more about the Rome-Milan link. It's brilliant. Fast, efficient, spacious, quiet, fast, convenient. It also offers an open access route [insert political comment about benefits of EU membership, and then remember to keep this "on-track"] meaning that while state-run Trenitalia is the "main" rail provider on the route, NTV ("Italo") also runs trains on the route. The national rail operator competes both with air and with another rail operator - no wonder the service is good and inexpensive. It's exactly this type of thinking that has been removed from the running of HS2.
(In short, I am saying that rail should be state-run in the UK; but that operators should be welcomed to compete on certain journeys. That's far better than having two dozen, privately-owned effective monopolies).
Not in backward Britain though. It should have already been built many years ago.
Meanwhile we have a 19th century rail network overloaded, under-invested and literally falling apart, while shareholders suck the financial lifeblood from it.
This HS2 line will be built, eventually ... it has to be.
Dont know what it cost now but i recall about 6 years ago making a single tube journey on a Sunday afternoon from Kings Cross to Waterloo and it cost me £4.20. God know what it does now and this was pre pandemic bla bla days.
Lots of people outside of the city contribute to those profits. Its very inward thinking of those that support Khan that has led to this. I will probably drive now so they have lost my contribution but i will now add more smog to the city. Great thinking Sadiq some Londoners certainly deserve you.
End of story.
You can't get a single tube from Kings Cross to Waterloo.
Clearly another non Londoner subsiding Londoners travel...but why wouldnt the are so worthy. My memory is fine thank you.
Wish people would make their own minds up, one person says i couldnt get a single another says i could. LOL
its true that the infrastucture manager Network Rail is back in public hands after the literally fatal experiment of Railtrack. However that leaves:
- the Train Operating Companies (e.g.South Eastern) which remain mainly private, until they crash and the State takes back the keys from them to keep trains running. Many of them have foreign ownership. One example is Deutsche Bahn, a fact which pisses off as many German as British voters. But currently TOCs are not particularly profitable.
I guess a politician can fuck almost everything up in whatever era.
The model for the TOCs has been moved to a TfL style approach, so pofit margins are very slim.
I agree that the ROSCO sales were a poor deal for the taxpayer. I think the NAO found that the sales were at about 20-25% below true market value but a bit hyperbolic to compare it to the Yeltsin era.
Re HS2, I think that even the Tories have given up on rail privatisation. I don't think it was ever envisaged that HS2 would be franchised. A lot of the big TOCs are now run by the DfT and as above, the franchise model (cost plus percentage rather than bidding) is complteley different now.
Hope that clears things up for you.
https://www.traintickets.com/train-times/london-waterloo-to-london-kings-cross/?/
https://kcc.welcomesyourfeedback.net/s/KentBusinesses
From an acquaintance on X. Sums it up nicely IMO.
Are you suggesting that you used to be able to get a tube directly from Kings Cross to Waterloo without changing , when you can't do that now?