Open Access
Something to say? This is your platform.
Congratulations on providing the platform for a sensible renationalisation debate. However, two contributors to
Open Access ( RAIL 850), while making good points, back them up with errors of fact or statements without supporting evidence.
I agree that one of the best recent changes has been the political recognition of the vital role that a modern railway system plays in the country’s economic and social development. This is cross-party, and follows (not leads) the outstanding performance of our semi-privatised system in delivering investment, growth, passenger benefits and (most important of all) safety. If this is a broken system, we know what to do with the NHS!
The benefits of the regulatory settlement model are as stated, and were introduced to manage privatisation. They are inextricably linked to it, and while it is true they could continue under nationalisation the incentive for them is reduced, while history and the treatment of other long-term nationalised organisations is not reassuring, to say the least. Health, social welfare, education and defence will still have higher priorities.
As another correspondent notes, the performance of a nationalised Network Rail does not inspire complete confidence either, although I respect many aspects of NR’s performance in Control Periods 1-5 (electrification and reliability the exceptions).
The erroneous statement is that “on-rail competition exists in a very small number of areas”. In fact, competition exists across the entire network through the franchising system. To answer Christian Wolmar’s oft-repeated question: that is what it is for. Just read the franchise commitments at the time of new franchise awards and say that passenger benefits are not the result!
The statement that separation of train and track is costly, inefficient, unresponsive, and restrictive is not backed up by a direct comparison with the mythical alternative - a ‘joined-up’ railway.
We can improve our approach to what we have and make it better, but it is not broken and does not need dogma to fix it.