Fair point, but are the current franchises any better? BR gets remembered as a failure after years of underinvestment brought it to its knees, but the franchises are also currently offering shit and inefficient service with massive public subsidies, while still finding the ability to pay significant profits to shareholders (again, some of which goes to benefit European nationalised rail providers, which is just galling).Sandydragon wrote:I think he is missing the point here in that the issue is state investment, not necessarily ownership. the state could subsidise rail travel and force companies to reduce ticket prices accordingly. If the state nationalised rail travel then either it would charge customers the full price of travel or it would subsidise it and then have to find investment via taxation for improvements. BR wasn't known for its efficiency or comfort as I recall.
I think rail is one of those things that the market is ill-equipped to do efficiently. In a pure free-market, most British railway services would not exist - they're expensive to run and maintain, carry significant risks, and don't produce a worthwhile profit, if at all. They're not something that is economically viable. However, from a holistic national perspective, they're hugely important - economic benefits from people commuting to jobs, economic benefits from reducing the strain on publically-owned road infrastructure, economic and social benefits from providing transport to poorer people without cars, green benefits from a carbon-efficient form of transport, etc. All these externalities that make it a great idea for the nation to have a train service, but offer bog-all profit to a company.
As such, given that it's not something that the market would provide as a profit-making industry and is only needed as a public good, I find it bizarre that it's something we've been chucking money at trying to fit to a free-market model, especially since it's an industry in which there can be no competition because it's not like I can jump on an East Anglian Rail train if First Great Western fail me.
Puja