Re-nationalisation & Shares?

EachPenny

eskbanker wrote: »

I wasn't posting the chart to support the assertion "railtrack had an appalling safety record", I was posting it to challenge your counter-assertion that "Of course there were never any rail accidents (including fatal ones) before privatisation, and obviously there have been none under Network Rail's management either"!

My counter assertion was that there had been accidents (including fatal ones) before Railtrack, and there have been accidents (including fatal ones since). It has been so since the earliest tramways, and has been in the public consciousness since Huskisson.

The difference was in people's perception of the accidents. Clapham was treated as a national disaster, 'just one of those things'. Nobody called for Network Rail to be privatised as a response to Grayrigg. But the response to Ladbroke Grove and Hatfield (analogous to Clapham) and Potters Bar (analogous to Grayrigg) was to call for the private company to be renationalised on the false assumption that nationalised rail companies are somehow safer.

eskbanker wrote: »

While fatality numbers are a perfectly legitimate measure,

...of the number of fatalities, yes.

eskbanker wrote: »

Anyway, accepting that those stats don't necessarily paint the full picture, do you have any more meaningful ones to share?

I would suggest a read of the report of the second part of the Ladbroke Grove Inquiry.
http://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/5663/incident-ladbrokegrove-lgri2.pdf

eskbanker

EachPenny wrote: »

My counter assertion was that there had been accidents (including fatal ones) before Railtrack, and there have been accidents (including fatal ones since). It has been so since the earliest tramways, and has been in the public consciousness since Huskisson.

The difference was in people's perception of the accidents. Clapham was treated as a national disaster, 'just one of those things'. Nobody called for Network Rail to be privatised as a response to Grayrigg. But the response to Ladbroke Grove and Hatfield (analogous to Clapham) and Potters Bar (analogous to Grayrigg) was to call for the private company to be renationalised on the false assumption that nationalised rail companies are somehow safer.

...of the number of fatalities, yes.

I would suggest a read of the report of the second part of the Ladbroke Grove Inquiry.
http://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/5663/incident-ladbrokegrove-lgri2.pdf

Perhaps we're at cross purposes - I wasn't in any way trying to deny the undeniable truth that there have been accidents (including fatal ones) before and after Railtrack! I interpreted the sarcastic tone of your original comment as suggesting that Railtrack's record was comparable both to what went before and what came after, and therefore highlighted some data which clearly suggests improvement (by just one measure, granted) since Railtrack.

However, as above, I don't claim this to be ultimate definitive proof that Network Rail is safer than Railtrack used to be, but would appreciate sight of statistical analysis that you'd consider better represents the Network Rail safety record compared with Railtrack's.

The Ladbroke Grove report clearly can't provide that as it was published before Network Rail came into being - Cullen may not have used the words "Railtrack has an appalling safety record" but there's no shortage of recommendations for its improvement, so it should have been expected that the subsequent NR years would have seen a better safety record....

I do agree that nationalised rail companies aren't inherently safer simply by virtue of being nationalised though, much like my earlier observation that nationalisation also doesn't inherently entail dirty trains, poor food, more strikes, etc!