Reader Comments:

Views expressed in submitted comments are that of the author, and not necessarily shared by Railnews.

• Jack99, Oxford, UK

  Yes its true that Network rail still suffers from union restrictive practises ( remember the BR strikes concerning flexible rostering / deletion of secondman ( ex fireman) the 3rd Guard sitting in the back of the diesel loco on an airbraked goods train ) but this is a drop in the ocean compared to the hugely complex contracts and hence Contract Management staff that are employed to administer them in todays railway. The 91 Million GBP compensation that Network Rail has had to pay out to train operators would reinstate the Oxford to Witney railway in one fell swoop. True BR's standards were mixed - I commuted on the SER lines into Charing Cross in the 1980's and there were always cancelled trains due to lack of guards however the WR service from Didcot to London in the early 1990's was far superior than the cattletruck Worst Great Western service now offerred. BR ran the network up to 1994 on about 1 Billion subsidy per annum whereas now the figure is about 5 Billion.GBP Bearing in mind there only has been limited investment in new infrastructure and trains where has all the money gone ?? Fat cat Lawyers , TOC profits , excess administration costs, everywhere but the actual railway

• John from Rye, Rye, UK

  "BR was dreadful. It's management, and the standards of service were abysmal. Throwing more money at BR would have only made matters worse" says Lutz. There are still quite a few former BR managers in today's industry - thank heavens as a lot of valuable experience was ditched in the early days. And "BR Management" actually managed get BR in the position of the most efficient and productive railway in Europe - whether you regard that as good or bad is up to you, but what is certain that a great deal of money that could have been invested in Britain's railways was wasted in the costs of a needlessly over complex method of privatisation which has since cost the industry dear. A number of jack99's points are valid - whether or not you feel that rose tinted spectacles are being used. Britain still has a good railway, which is as well given the current economic and environmental demands. But the cost of running it in private hands is needlessly higher than it should be, and the quality (in terms of capacity at the very least) is less than it would have been had the system been privatised in a simpler manner, or - dare I say - actually left in the hands of those that knew best how to make it work efficiently.
  

• Lutz, London

  I full agree with James Pritchard:- many keep claiming that BR management could do better, but they are coming to this view through rose-tinted spectacles. BR was dreadful. It's management, and the standards of service were abysmal. Throwing more money at BR would have only made matters worse.
  Mr Milliband can politic while in opposition, but it will be a different matter if had to engage with reality.

• James Pritchard, Southampton

  I wonder if jack99 has missed the fact that privatization has been with us for nearly two decades, in which time much has changed in society. If BR still existed today, it too would be subject to a myriad of health and safety, disability, planning and employment regulations which did not exist in the 1980s.
  
  I also wonder if he thinks that Bob Crow and the RMT were right to throw a tantrum and organise a Tube strike when they didn't get triple pay on Boxing Day. This might seem at first like an irrelevant point, but it is often the demands of the unions, and inefficient, archaic working practices which escalate the costs of running the railways. Some of Network Rail's inefficiencies, for example, are well documented and until the system is overhauled to eliminate that (which won't happen without a fight from Bob Crow and his cronies) someone has to pay - be that the tax payer or the passenger directly.

• jack99, Oxford, UK

  The only good thing about John Major's byzantine absurdly complex rail privatisation was that the late Robert Adley MP managed to get season tickets capped at RPI -1 %
  Result ( despite Railtrack and dubious bus / rail operators ) = Booming traffic
  Alistair Darling ( another Anti - Rail Marples / Fraser type Transport Secretary changed this to RPI+1 % which the Hawk Hammond increased furthur to RPI+3% claiming the rail network is a rich mans toy ( Are MP's above ordinary people that need trains to get to work ? )
  If British Rail had got the funding that the privatised rail network has had unleashed on it since 1994 then the network would be twice as big as it is now and certainly more cost effective. Profits from train operations would be as the RMT always point out be reinvested in the rail network and not in shareholder or fat cat MD's pockets.
  BR could reopen a station for next to nothing whilst now its at least 2 Million Pounds a go - why does the East West rail link ( with the track in situ ) need 240 Million to get reopened ? ( and that does not include the missing Bedford Cambridge section ) The costs associated with privatised railways beggar belief and are a gravy train ( as ATOC are always willing to defend )
  Bob Crowe and the RMT are right - renationalise and you will get a far cheaper railway to run rather than the complex managerial labyrinthene maze that currently exists