Really hoping this improves services and potentially brings down prices. It can be pretty bad at the moment.
“The train operator officially came under public ownership at around 2am on Sunday. The first journey, the 5.36am from Woking, was partly a rail replacement bus service due to engineering works”.
Brilliant.
Unlikely this will change anything in the short-term. Most of the ticket price goes to Network Rail to maintain the infrastructure, which isn’t changing any time soon. Of the remainder, the actual profit margins for the TOCs are usually pretty slim. You do make a fair few executive salaries redundant, which is nice, but is hardly going to have much of an effect on ticket prices.
In the long term though? Railways are inherently a centralised industry. Its widely recognised that fragmenting it like Thatcher/Major did has been a nightmare for coordination and efficiency. Other countries use it as a case study in exactly how not to run a railway. Bringing it all back under one umbrella isn’t going to fix things overnight, but it will pay off over time.
What’s more is it finally dispenses with the need for the Rolling Stock Operating Companies (ROSCOs), who own the physical trains and rent them out to the TOC. They’ve posted profit margins of 40%+.
They’re just middlemen who charge rent for existing. Most of them are owned by big Private Equity firms too. Why not? Its free money — trains are often designed for specific routes, and the TOC doesn’t have a choice in the rolling stock they have to run, which means the ROSCOs have a guaranteed contract they can charge whatever they want on, all funded by commuter fares and taxpayer subsidy.
The only reason they were created was that a TOC on a 5-year contract has no reason to maintain the trains beyond its contract term, so we needed a separate body interested in the long-term health of the trains. Now that the TOC is the Government, that no longer applies, and we can start cutting them out of future deals.
A shame we just gave them another lifetime supply of money for the new Class 701s, though.
They need to stop the extortionate pricing scheme where they can charge you say £11 if you book way in advance but then charge you say £80 if you book the same week. It is blatant and gleeful extortion.
Wasn’t Southeastern renationalised a couple of years ago?
good . now take the water back from thieving . shareholders …
looking forwards to cheaper fares, faster, more frequent more punctual and more comfortable trains. Cant wait for my journey into work on Tuesday now!
Gonna be interesting to see the reaction of all the ‘renationalise now’ crowd when the service remains shit, there’s no investment, fares stay high and the tax payer pays the bill.
8 comments
Really hoping this improves services and potentially brings down prices. It can be pretty bad at the moment.
“The train operator officially came under public ownership at around 2am on Sunday. The first journey, the 5.36am from Woking, was partly a rail replacement bus service due to engineering works”.
Brilliant.
Unlikely this will change anything in the short-term. Most of the ticket price goes to Network Rail to maintain the infrastructure, which isn’t changing any time soon. Of the remainder, the actual profit margins for the TOCs are usually pretty slim. You do make a fair few executive salaries redundant, which is nice, but is hardly going to have much of an effect on ticket prices.
In the long term though? Railways are inherently a centralised industry. Its widely recognised that fragmenting it like Thatcher/Major did has been a nightmare for coordination and efficiency. Other countries use it as a case study in exactly how not to run a railway. Bringing it all back under one umbrella isn’t going to fix things overnight, but it will pay off over time.
What’s more is it finally dispenses with the need for the Rolling Stock Operating Companies (ROSCOs), who own the physical trains and rent them out to the TOC. They’ve posted profit margins of 40%+.
They’re just middlemen who charge rent for existing. Most of them are owned by big Private Equity firms too. Why not? Its free money — trains are often designed for specific routes, and the TOC doesn’t have a choice in the rolling stock they have to run, which means the ROSCOs have a guaranteed contract they can charge whatever they want on, all funded by commuter fares and taxpayer subsidy.
The only reason they were created was that a TOC on a 5-year contract has no reason to maintain the trains beyond its contract term, so we needed a separate body interested in the long-term health of the trains. Now that the TOC is the Government, that no longer applies, and we can start cutting them out of future deals.
A shame we just gave them another lifetime supply of money for the new Class 701s, though.
They need to stop the extortionate pricing scheme where they can charge you say £11 if you book way in advance but then charge you say £80 if you book the same week. It is blatant and gleeful extortion.
Wasn’t Southeastern renationalised a couple of years ago?
good . now take the water back from thieving . shareholders …
looking forwards to cheaper fares, faster, more frequent more punctual and more comfortable trains. Cant wait for my journey into work on Tuesday now!
Gonna be interesting to see the reaction of all the ‘renationalise now’ crowd when the service remains shit, there’s no investment, fares stay high and the tax payer pays the bill.
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