An Evening With... Jeremy Corbyn

ruggedtoast

Out,_Vile_Jelly wrote: »

When I worked in Milan I had an unexpected day off, and decided to go to Florence on a day trip. So I rocked up to Centrale and bought a ticket on the day; can't recall the exact cost but I was fairly poor at the time and wouldn't have been able to go if it were extortionate. I don't think it's possible to do spontaneous trips like that between cities of similar distance in the UK.

I've visited friends in Manchester with tickets for £11 each way; fantastic bargain obviously, but the journey had to be at odd times ie Weds lunchtime, returning Sat lunchtime so involved 3 days of annual leave rather than going at a weekend. I've also had to book next day tickets for two researchers to be at a meeting in Manchester by 09.00 with an open return; this came to ~£350 (EACH).

I don't see the benefit of private operators "competing" for business on the same line. I've been caught out recently by the "wrong ticket" on a train from London to Milton Keynes; ticket was apparently Virgin only and we'd jumped on the first MK train, only to find it was Midland trains so we then had to cough up for another ticket. The actual price difference was about 70p, so not sure why the customer needs this "choice" which really seems designed to ensure extra revenue from people paying twice.

I sometimes wonder if the government is not really interested in an efficient public rail system, as they make so much money from car tax and road tax, and of course people insisting on buying new cars every 3 years.

Traffic light sequencing used to be set by local councils. It was then taken over by central government who rephased lights nationally to ensure that cars passing through a green will ordinarily hit a red at the next junction.

This increase in stop start traffic earns the exchequer an extra 2% in duty on the increased fuel usage and people think its just a fact of life.

As far as rail goes, of course the Tories don't care about an efficient rail service. Countries that value strategic industries nationalise them and run them themselves to ensure they work.

The only truly nationalised industry we have is the banking industry,which pretends to be private until they mess everything up for themselves when the taxpayer has to give them a blank cheque.

N1AK

Out,_Vile_Jelly wrote: »

When I worked in Milan I had an unexpected day off, and decided to go to Florence on a day trip. So I rocked up to Centrale and bought a ticket on the day; can't recall the exact cost but I was fairly poor at the time and wouldn't have been able to go if it were extortionate. I don't think it's possible to do spontaneous trips like that between cities of similar distance in the UK.

Then you'd be mistaken: Milan to Florence travelling today and back Sunday is ~£95. Manchester to Glasgow (first trip I tried based on guessing what would be roughly as far between two major cities) is a little further and is £79 with an off-peak return today for the same dates.

The issue with using anecdotal evidence is that it doesn't provide an accurate reflection of the whole picture unless you have very extensive experience. I was very impressed by the Italian railway when travelling there earlier this year, and found the pricing 'cheap' as I could pick trains based on it :beer: so my intention isn't to knock continental railways; it's also notable that some part of the Italian high-speed network is private now and seemed to still be quite well regarded.

ruggedtoast

setmefree2 wrote: »

Network Rail, which owns the stations, tracks, bridges, tunnels and rail infrastructure, is already publicly owned after the last Labour government forced its privately-owned predecessor, Railtrack, into administration in 2001....

....does Corbyn want to re nationalize BA or is it just trains he has trouble with?

Railtrack was taken over because after the Paddington rail disaster it became obvious that the private sector was incapable of running the railways safely.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/470318.stm

Privatisation of rail has been a disaster that has cost lives. The idea that that a company of such rank incompetence as Southern is allowed to continue crippling the South East's economic dynamism, should be allowed anywhere near track and signal maintenance is laughable.

The reason that trains have stopped crashing into eachother is because the public sector is in charge of them when the rail operators can actually pull their heads out of their a$$es and make them run.

Wherever rail operators have been taken back into public ownership they have outperformed their private "competitors".

ruggedtoast

Malthusian wrote: »

So it is unsurprising that Corbyn wants to focus on the renationalisation of trains. It's popular with the comrades, it's popular with the media (as all newspapers are made in London and lots of journalists commute via trains, and therefore hate them, for the reasons given above), and it's difficult for even the most ardent fan of economic freedom to defend the nasty stinking things.
.

Its actually popular with everyone who has to use trains to commute into London, because the service is terrible and costs thousands of pounds to use.

This is a broad swathe of voters a good many of whom have never voted Labour.

If you think the only people who have to commute into London are journalists then you need to get out more. Perhaps to London.

Out,_Vile_Jelly

N1AK wrote: »

Then you'd be mistaken: Milan to Florence travelling today and back Sunday is ~£95. Manchester to Glasgow (first trip I tried based on guessing what would be roughly as far between two major cities) is a little further and is £79 with an off-peak return today for the same dates.

Is that on the fancy new high speed link between Milan and Florence? Hopefully it's still cheaper on the old school "double decker" trains.

When I first came back to the UK after living in Europe I had a vague idea that train journeys would be charged by length (seems logical, as a longer car journey costs more in petrol). I was used to paying ~£30 for the two hour London-Bournemouth trip, so I assumed it would be about the same for similar trips. Decided to go to York races for the day and was horrified to discover at Kings Cross that the two hour journey would cost nearer £100. It's this discrepancy in pricing between the operators that is annoying.

Thrugelmir

N1AK wrote: »

I've travelled by rail in a lot of other European countries and I think on average transport in Western Mainline europe is higher quality and certainly faster, but I'm not persuaded tickets are cheaper. Factor in that our government subsidy per km travelled is less than 1/3rd of Germany's, and considerably lower than France, Italy, Belgium and some other countries and I do wonder why rail nationalisation is such a popular idea.

In Germany coach is becoming the preferred option. Getting from Berlin to Hamburg (180 miles) is around 60% cheaper on the coach.

N1AK

Out,_Vile_Jelly wrote: »

Is that on the fancy new high speed link between Milan and Florence? Hopefully it's still cheaper on the old school "double decker" trains.

New, the old trains are ~£60 for the same journey which puts them in line with the Manc-Glas prices. Travel speed would be roughly the same in that comparison.

You can still get some real steals on Italian trains but they tend to be advanced bookings these days.

westernpromise

ruggedtoast wrote: »

The idea that that a company of such rank incompetence as Southern is allowed to continue crippling the South East's economic dynamism, should be allowed anywhere near track and signal maintenance is laughable..

It should be the state that cripples the South East.

CLAPTON

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Its actually popular with everyone who has to use trains to commute into London, because the service is terrible and costs thousands of pounds to use.

This is a broad swathe of voters a good many of whom have never voted Labour.

If you think the only people who have to commute into London are journalists then you need to get out more. Perhaps to London.

all the middle class people who commute into London are massively in favour of renationlaisation, as they just love the idea of massive subsidies being paid for by the poor and the northerners who don't use London commuter trains.

westernpromise

Amusingly C2C, the train operator that's publicly-owned, came 23rd out of 26 in the most recent National Rail customer satisfaction survey

http://d3cez36w5wymxj.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/29162541/TF-NPRS-Spr16-pages-ALL-WEB-v4.pdf

(see page 13)

Toastie probably thinks it's a disgrace that some services are better than others and would like them all made equally bad.