Railways.

[critcher]

yeh make em swim the channel

[critcher]

a closet tory eh Brian

[Richard]

Yeah, but you still do not give a reason.

[Richard]

What if he is?

I am a blatant conservative voter.

[ARW]

Some suggestion here

[Andy Burns]

The ex-chief exec of the "directly operated" franchise was interviewed after the manifesto leak, he said that they made a profit despite being nationalised, rather than because of it ...

[newshound]

I didn't know that about the Area Boards, but I don't think that applied to the CEGB, and I am pretty sure it didn't apply to British Gas (after North Sea gas came in). I seem to recall them making profits in the

1970's of hundreds of millions of pounds year on year, compared to a few millions for CEGB, NCB, and the Post Office.

[newshound]

When Thatcher came in, nationalised industries were in her gun-sights from the word go. She set the Mergers and Monopolies Committee on the CEGB. The only respect in which it came out unfavourably was the long term investment planning. This was certainly bad (there was substantial overcapacity for many years) but I always thought the criticism was a little unfair because my understanding was that the CEGB just took the Treasury's long term economic growth forecasts, and scaled on that.

[John Rumm]

Given that those profits are distributed to large shareholders (i.e. e.g. our pensions providers and fund managers), it seems like a fair deal to me.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I'm now waiting for one of our tame Tories to blame the current lack of capacity on the nationalised days.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

What would you expect a Tory to say? But it was an extremely odd thing to say since the only reason it was nationalised was because the private sector couldn't make it work. And then there's Southern...

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Ah. The French only bought it to help out their UK brothers. Right.

[Graeme]

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes

The story is far more complex than just blaming any one incident, or political party. The four railway companies were devastated by WWII, and never really recovered. Huge injections of public cash or full blown nationalisation were the only practical options, followed by Beeching.

Trouble was, by then, the world had changed with private car ownership going through the roof, and millions being spent on new roads and motorways. The need for railways was declining. Add to that new technology and suddenly the whole system was out of date. Not just steam replaced by diesels and electrics, but much rolling stock, both passenger and freight, being way out of date, not to mention signalling and safety systems, and the basic infrastructure of buildings, track etc.

Now, we have come full circle with rail demand far exceeding facilities but, in an effort to save/raise money, vast areas of land were sold off, so reinstating old lines is not just a question of laying new rails, and there is a limit to how many trains can run on existing track. No point spending millions on shiny new trains if there is nowhere to run them.

[Richard]

Please hold your breath whilst doing so. Yet again, you show your stupidity as everyone knows that the lack of capacity is down to accelerated green policies.

[Robin]

Perhaps failures in forecasts of population growth were a contributory factor - eg the famous 15,000 a year from Poland and other accession states in 2004.

[Tim Streater]

Trouble is, people like Our Dave don't seem to appreciate that no mode of transport has an indefinite right to exist. When the canals were built, they were the bees knees. Until trains came along.

[Tim Streater]

15 million more people in this country in the last 50 years. All of whom need houses, schools, medical facilities, roads to drive on, power for all these new homes, water, sewage disposal, and food.

Small wonder things are creaking a bit.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Sorry, Graeme, - was referring to power generation.

I've personally got no complaints about the rail commuter service round and about London. Apart from the Southern nonsense. But then I get free travel on it.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

And the likes of you think we'd do better with no railways? Just because you personally don't use them? Typical of a Tory.

So you think road transport could totally replace the railways? Any other idiotic comments to make?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

What we obviously need is the Chinese model of reducing the population. Worked so well for them, we should try it. Nothing like a country comprised largely of those too old or too young to work. You just know it makes sense. Expect the Tories to have children working again and working until you die.