British Trains: Did Privatisation Cause the Current Chaos? 

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As an Austrian I always thought we have the best rail company with ÖBB in the world when it comes to passenger transport, but then I finally went to Japan and oh boy, they are on another level. And years later (about 5 years ago) I went to the UK and oh boy, they are on another level - just in the opposite direction.

I live in LDN and need to get to Leicester often - it's a 50 minute fast train, or a 1.30hour slow train. It's often quoted as the single highest rail fare in Europe, and if you buy it on the day, it could cost you up to £130. Absolute madness.

It’s a classic case of privatizing the profit and socializing the loss.

Now I ain't British. But as someone who visited England last year it was a fascinating experience seeing the massive difference in price that existed in England and Scandinavia Germany. I think it was during 22 summer that Germany had a pass that cost 20 euros or something and could give you free transport anywhere in Germany for entire summer. Meanwhile a 4 hour train ride from a large English city to a mid sized English city would have cost me 100 pounds. The price difference is ridiculous

The main problem with the privatisation is that there is no competition. If I want to go from A to B at a particular time there is only one company I can use. So it is effectively a monopoly.

Spending and saving don't have to be incompatible - you just have to think in the long term. Invest money in new technology to save on the costs of running a line. But what also needs to be remembered is that investment in lines leads to a better, more attractive service, which leads to increased passenger numbers. That's exactly what happened with the Overground, but that's only one of many examples one could cite.

The UK Govt since the 50s ( both Parties) have been about short term profit, minimal investment. We used to have a network of railway lines running to virtually ever village and large industrial complex in the UK. How easy it would have been to go carbon neutral if still the case. Electric or hydrogen driven trains not only doing away with cars and truck convoys, but people and freight literally being delivered door to door. I remember Nationalised Red Star Parcels back in the 50s and 70s. You could deliver large loads to you nearest station and guaranteed it would be available for collection from another station withing 48 hours. Interesting that Auty Maggie smashed the Unions and broke up Nationalised Services to end constant strikes. Remind me again how Privatisation has brought reliability and affordability to our travelling experience ?

I lived in Spain for a few years, their transport is publicly owned. Strange then that their trains were always on time and some of the cheapest in Europe. The fact of the matter is that Britain is a mismanaged country- not just in terms of rail but most things. Why is fuel more expensive here than on the continent? Alcohol? Housing? That's what Tory rule for 40 of the last 53 years have done to this country.

Can we pause for a second...did privatisation CAUSE rail passenger numbers to go up, or is it merely a correlation? Was there always going to be an increase regardless of the privatisation?

Missing a big important point here! While yes the railways were privatised, the UK government actually ended up spending way more money and investing a whole lot more into them than they ever did under British Rail and nationalisation, which is likely the reason why ridership has increased so much - not much to do with privatisation at all.

This misses the real reason why UK trains are terrible. The service is non existent outside of major cities. Arguing over public/private is moot when there is no track in the first place. My town of about 13,000 people used to have a train station. That closed under Beeching and the track was built over so now it can't be replaced. The nearest station is an hour by bus away. Once you get there, you can go east to London, or west to Weymouth. However at Weymouth the line ends for absolutely no reason. If you wanted to go further west to Exeter, you would have to head east and go around, adding like an extra hour or so onto the journey again. So of the three directions it's possible to go (south is the sea), they covered one of them! Well done! So if I wanted to use public transport to get to Exeter, it would take me over 4 hours. I can get a boat to France in that time. It saddens me to think that 100 years ago, the public transport was actually faster than it is today, and probably quicker than driving too because our traffic and road infrastructure is so poor too. I went on holiday to Germany recently. I used the train there more in that week than I have done in the UK in my whole lifetime. That's how little use they are.

I never understood the competition thing - when I am waiting for a train, my first thought isn't "I'll wait for a TransPennine instead of this Avanti that's waiting right here." I want to get on a train and get to my destination. This leads on to route weirdness - travelling from Liverpool to Wilmslow I can get a ticket that's valid either via Manchester or Crewe, but not both. They take broadly the same amount of time, and are broadly similar in price. Or travelling from Northampton to Liverpool I found it was significantly cheaper to get off the train that was going to Manchester, buy a new ticket, wait 20 minutes and get the next train via a slightly different route. You couldn't buy that ticket combo online (as one ticket), I had to go to the ticket office in my 20 minute stopover. Maybe, just maybe, this new plan will simplify things for passengers. But I'm not holding my breath.

Trouble is, if you allowed private companies to choose what routes to keep ... pretty much the ones which don't make money which means more rural and remote ones. The higher volume ones would only be left and these probably the most profitable. So to make any money, private operators cut costs which means no upgrades and running everything until it breaks.

Short answer yes Long answer YYYYEEEESSSS

Don't think that nationalising the railways will make them any better. If you think that, please read this message, it may change your mind about it. I am from Italy, a country where the railways are mostly nationalised, and our train system is absolutely screwed. Most regional routes are served by old, dirty trains, without air conditioning, smelly and overcrowded. Some trains in the south truly resemble the scenery of a post-apocalyptic film. Most of them are always late, of hours, not minutes. Sit in a major Italian train station for a couple of hours, and you will always hear every few seconds the phrase "the train from X to X is delayed of X amount of hours because of {stupid nonsense excuse}. We are sorry for the inconvenience". But how about train prices? are they cheap? I always hear British people complain about their train prices. Well, I'm sorry to inform you that nationalising won't help that either. Our greedy Italian nationalised system is as expensive as the British one, I've tested a few routes in the UK compared to Italian similar ones (in terms of population of the two cities and km of the route) and the prices are nearly the same. The only difference is that the Italian ones are slightly more predictable, while the British ones fluctuate a lot depending on demand. This however can be a good thing, if you buy British train tickets well in advance, you will save money. Italian fares are just always expensive... "But that's not true! I've been to Italy and the trains were so amazing! So clean! So beautiful!" I hear you say. Ah, let me guess: did you take one of those fast red trains from one major city or a tourist destination to another, like from Milan to Rome or from Rome to Florence? That, my friend, is either a Frecciarossa or an Italo, which are the only two privatised routes, which compete against each other and therefore are the only ones in the country that provide a good service. So, in a nutshell, the only decent services we have are the ones that are privatised. Competition makes companies improve their services. Nationalised services solely rely on the goodwill of the managers to improve, because they have no economical drive, as everyone will use their services no matter if they are good or not. You don't like an Italian regional train? Well, walk then...

Britain si slowly coming to terms with the idea that some services, like transport, energy, health, education, are things that improve quality of life, economic potential and cannot be run profitably if they are to be run well. And that's totally fine, they're an INVESTMENT in the country, in the future. A Private company, however benevolent it says it is, always tries to make the most money and will cut corners to get there. It's either low fares, or high quality of service, you can't have both, it never happens, except in the dreams of ultra liberals who think they'll solve a country's economy by selling off it's infrastructure. Short-mindedness at it's best.

It sounds a lot like the US Amtrak train. It’s partially public and partially private. They are forced to have certain routes but also are trying to make a profit as a for profit organization.

Check the rest of Europe. UK simply doesn't have a clue about how to run transport systems or design/maintain road.

It would be interesting to evaluate how the renationalisation of the railways in Scotland and Wales has impacted performance/operations compared against the quasi-private system in England. Also, how this relates to Network Rail (which is UK wide and operates the signalling and maintains the rails) e.g. Scotrail currently aren’t on strike but when Network Rail decides to go on strike, services are disrupted/limited.

I used to dislike overcrowding until I went to Beijing and experienced their morning rush hour... After that, I have no more complaints regarding overcrowding here in the UK.

Trains should be a National service.

trains are natural monopolies anyways (Peter Thiel) and so competition is not really possible. the only that it does is worsen the experience for the end user in terms of tickets or interchange coordination or even new routes prioritisation. they need to proper nationalise it.

Think you missed a key point here about the current NRC contracts indemnifying all losses for the TOCs. This means that the TOC is still paid even if they are unable to run the service- strikes, broken trains, staff shortages etc. This is why Avanti have come under a lot of scrutiny lately.

The gov mishandled the situation & they're reapng what they sow from the days of thatcher.

I study in Cambridge but my family lives in Manchester so I regularly pay £65 to see my loved ones. I often have 2-3 changes and it is supposed to take 4.5 hours, but delays and such means I usually end up travelling for 6 hours, longer if a delay means missing my change. Split save cuts it down to £55 ish but then I have zero flexibility and can easily end up stranded somewhere due to train cancellations (I often end up changing route on the day to save time etc). I love public transport when it’s done right; intra city transport in Manchester and Paris, for example, are great. But paying so much for an unnecessarily long and incredibly unpleasant journey, and having no other choice if I wanna go home and see family and friends is so frustrating. I was once standing the whole journey from Manchester to Leeds, then half the journey from Leeds to Stevenage, which in my opinion is just not acceptable when you’re paying £65 for a ticket. Trying to get my license and a car ASAP but being a student and this cost of living crisis isn’t helping things at all. Welp.

As an American who visited the UK in May 2022, I used the train system to visit all the places on my list. My experiences were not bad at all. My first trip from Southampton to York required only one change and the connecting train was on time with a wait time of about 10 minutes. I subsequently travelled on to Scotland and then back down to Chester, Exeter, Penzance, Winchester and London. Only once was there delay of more than 15 minutes. The trains were clean enough and comfortable. The ticket price seemed a bit steep but you can save if you book ahead of time online. In the USA, no one travels by train except for people who live in the NYC area. So I am not an expert in train amenities and performance. I suppose being a tourist is one thing, and a regular commuter another, but I found the train personnel very helpful and the service not bad. Overall, I would give the British trains a mark of at least B.

Another big factor is the inertia of the British people themselves. In the face of terrible levels of service at rip-off prices, they are simply prepared to accept it. You see this with housing too. Terrible quality at huge expense. Keeping unprofitable lines open, and even opening new ones, is not merely serving a social good either. Doing so results in positive cost externalities (indirect economic benefits), which are rarely factored in. But really, the British will continue to accept the degradation in their living standards (even celebrating it in some twisted form of stoicism). In a sense, they deserve to suffer.

"Were they always like this?" No. "Do they have to be like this?" No.

I remember this happening. British Rail were never great - I remember it being a running joke that they were always late - but even then, every man on the street knew that privatising it wouldn't work - turning an essential service into a business is never a good idea. Every other country that has nationally owned railways does it a lot better than we do. We now have a situation where certain trips cost a lot more than one of equivalent distance (and ridiculously so if you need to travel during "peak times") just because they happen to be popular, and as a result, we have the most complicated, and least cost effective, ticket pricing system I have ever seen - and buying a ticket on the day (like you can in every other country I've ever been to) is the worst way to travel by train, unless your employer is paying for it.

I live in a country where there are basically no trains unless you live in a major city. I think the train network in the UK is amazing..

I worked for a private ambulance company, and the exact same franchising problem is happening in the NHS. Private companies are overselling their ability to provide a particular service (in my case, non-emergency ambulance transport), taking as much profit from hospitals as possible while they have the contract, only to fail and fail hard, before handing the contract to someone else who goes on to do the same. It's been going on almost as long as the trains, but hardly anyone realises. It's one of the reasons the NHS is spending so much money whilst the service remains so poor.

Finally, a TLDR video I can critically assess, because I know a thing or two about the topic area! First off, 0:45, correlation not causation! Just look at Northern Ireland. They've had a nationalised system for exactly the same time period, and their passenger numbers have also increased. 2:10, you mention profitable routes and unprofitable routes, and you are partially correct there. The benefit of the nationalised system wasn't primarily that the tax payer could foot the bill for the unprofitable routes though. The benefit of the nationalised system was that, without the requirement to make money, the profitable routes could subsidise the unprofitable routes, and then any left over routes would be subsidised by the tax payer. 4:21 Argh! There is so much wrong with that line you drew. I know it's just graphics, but Avanti West Coast have never run a London-Inverness train, and they don't run via the East Coast Mainline either... (The line drawn on the video shows the ECML from east of Leeds (York) to Aberdeen). The only train that does do London-Inverness is the Caledonian Sleeper, which runs via Crewe, Preston and Carlisle. 5:50 This was not the beginning of the end. This was the speeding up of an already apparent pattern (at least to us in the industry). We already knew privatisation was on it's way out, and this was effectively the final nail in the coffin. 6:00 Don't hold your hopes too high... Apart from the GBRTT (Great British Railways Transition Team), the Government have actively done nothing to actually put this into law. And with the recent political shenanigans, we in the industry fear that this has very much been kicked into the long grass... 6:50 Ahhh... Christian Wolmar... To be fair to TLDR, this isn't one of his more egregious comments, but generally, he is an outsider looking in, which doesn't help him. Sure, he's written a good book or two, but I don't usually rely on him as a source of information about the rail industry. Especially since he seems to have misunderstood the key arguments towards continuing with HS2. Ultimately, this is a fairly solid video. Yes, I have mixed feelings about it, but none of the errors are particularly bad. It's certainly better than other videos out there that have attempted to cover the same topic. At least the worst error in this video was an incorrectly drawn line, and not spouting fiction claiming it's fact!

If you want to learn more about trains I recommend listening to rail natter with Gareth Dennis as he's doing a breakdown of the 1993 railway act and how it caused all this chaos

I recently had to travel by train from the North West to Somerset. It was one of the worst experiences of my life! The trains were overcrowded, two of them broke down and I didn't even get a seat until I got to Bristol, 3 hours into the journey. What's more it was on a day without strikes so there was no excuse. Luckily the reason I was going to Somerset was to pick up a car so at least my journey home was pleasant.

I've had enough of the thieving bastards taking my money and providing horrible delayed and overcrowded services. I've been bumping train fares and vow to continue as long as possible.

I wrote my dissertation on government and railways and what I found was that the biggest problem of the railway is that politicians and civil servants don’t understand how to run a railway and thus keep buggering it up. This applies both before and after privatisation as regardless of what the ministers say the government still makes a lot of decisions even now

I think the biggest reason is simply the price of tickets me and my wife looked at going to London for a weekend and the cost was ludicrous...I haven't checked since as I know they do fluctuate.

the ridiculous truth is its not the private sector's fault. Privatization works on paper but it cannot achieve it's full potential due to over politicizing and strict anti-competition regulations so the basic answer is the railways were never truly privatized or nationalized just an unhealthy mix of both

I’m from the US but currently in Spain 🇪🇸 and my anecdotal experience is the Spanish Train system is phenomenal. The high-speed trains are straight 🔥 The UK seems like it’s on a fast track to privatized hell. Its disappointing to see. Look at the horrible situation the US is in, don’t become as bad as us.

I was part of a study abroad to the University of St. Andrews, which included a weekend trip to London and a free BritRail pass. On the train ride back (which was Kings Cross to Haymarket), the train was so pack, we stood near the exit door for 8 hours with barely any room. And this was a couple months before the Omicron Variant.

Let’s not forget the Beeching Axe of the 1960s…

If Thatcher wouldn't do it, then rail privatization will never work. Its way more expensive for fares now its private - countless govt billions given since privatization. Another bodge, another billion.

Brilliant summary, and believe me few manage it so well. One aside. In 2002 Railtrack collapsed and was taken over by the Government in the form of Network Rail after an intolerable number of major rail accidents. While Railtrack were not solely at fault for all, the Hatfield disaster where a rail disastrously failed underneath a train passing over was the tipping point and was blamed on their inadequate management of track inspection and renewal of worn out infrastructure. The consequent reaction demanded by the then Labour Government exposed the poor state and knowledge of Railtrack's inherited infrastructure, their poor record of investment. inadequate asset management and the vast sums of money needed to bring it up to an acceptable standard. In fact many problems were a legacy from BR times where years of underfunding had created a long backlog of renewals. Railtrack PLC had done little to address the renewals deficit in their time in charge and were left financially exposed and the then Labour Government would not use taxpayers money to bail out Railtrack PLC shareholders to address the major amount of urgent work needed. That was then. Network Rail are now faced with a similar squeeze on their budget from central Government and the renewals backlog is likely once again to grow rapidly. The saving grace is that knowledge of asset condition and the planned renewals workbank is far better developed since the dark days of Railtrack PLC.

One thing privatisation obviously has done is make it unclear whether the government should be holding talks with the RMT/ASLEF or whether it is solely the responsibility of the rail operator.

I went to Australia last summer and they cost 4£ for a 4hr train into Sydney, was absolutely shocked our trains are horrendous

You look to young to recall what British Rail was actually like. Trains broke down, were randomly cancelled, everything was run down and filthy. In all the time BR ran the route I used to commute I NEVER got a seat. Its was common for briefcases to be sold as "strong enough to sit on" as 25% of commuters would have to sit on their cases every day. When the trains were privatized they put new trains on with about double the seating and I got a seat 95% of the time. Don't forget that BR completely ignored safety warnings and ran slam door trains with passengers falling to their death for years ignoring all warnings. When the trains were privatized it took a few months for the new operators to fit central locking and fix the problem, all BR did after years was stick reflective tape on the doors. Its hard to believe that when BR ran the trains a 125 mph train had doors you had to lean out of the window to open. I worked as a Civil Servant in the days of British Rail and was hardly ever on time for work due to delays, cancellations and breakdowns. Exasperated one day I apologized to my boss, he said "its not your problem, the Government employ you and they run the trains, its up to them to decide". After privatization I was hardly ever late again. Yes the system has problems, but no one who experienced BR will ever want to go back to nationalized rail. The next stage must be a forward to to a much more automated system.

Actually, we aren't really sure that privatisation lead to increased passenger numbers, those numbers were already climbing before privatisation and the growth was also noticed in Northern Ireland, a place that saw no privatisation of railways at all...

So most complaints are reliability not cost outside of London (where you have a decent service from experience). Try having a train line that in last 5 years has gone from every 15 minutes to hourly and is always delayed or cancelled. Its the lack of continued investment on rail that has caused the issue, unless you are down south the rail services has been allowed to fall apart.

Strikes bother me and they should 🙌 strikes are the only way to get the greedy elites to pay liveable humane wages. This chaos has been long deserved. I have to go all the way to Durham from London and it’s been a nightmare as it should be 🤝

We're going to London tomorrow morning to visit a friend. The price for 3 people is £106 (including the return). If I drive, we'll spend £20 on diesel, £15 for parking and less than £20 for the tube. Guess how we're going to London.

This was really interesting to listen to. I didn’t know a lot of what you said. Your mic arm looks so sturdy, may I ask which one you’re using? I need one for my podcast. 👍

Sigh... At least you guys HAVE a transit train system. The U.S. system is a non existent compared to yours.

I lived in Munich Germany for over four years and when came back to UK all the services seem crap not just trains but doctor and dentist. Way behind a lot of countries in Europe, Sweden for example they do not have any bullshit snow on the tracks or at airport issues

Like a lot of things in modern Britain, the privatisation of our railways has been an unmitigated disaster for the consumer who are no longer the highest priority for the train operating companies who are more interested in lining their own shareholders pockets.

I‘m interested if the new system will work out. In Germany we have a similar system for regional pessanger transportation (trains, bus, trams, metros) but not for long distance services. There are public regional companies, partially owned by the state, the federal state, counties and cities. The public regional company tenders a service (bus, train, trams or whatsoever), set the timetable, fares and on vehicle services and a transportation company has to apply for it. They pay the operator, no matter how many people are using the service, and if an operator fails, it has to pay penalty. Sometimes it works out, but often if a new train operator wins a new service, they have often issues to provide the staff to operate the service or to operate at least without financial losses. And than the state owned local train operator DB Regio has to fix it. Some regions, which have / had issues in the recent time: S-Bahn Hannover, some services in Cologne-area, All in all it works at least better than the long distance services and the possibility that you can use the same ticket for bus or local train is superb despite the different operators, but it is still improbable. And the public regional companies in risk to be aa bottomless pit regarding money and is a magnet for figureheads.

Trains, stations, and routes are so arduous to set up that it's always going to be a monopoly and always going to be expensive. It's not possible to make them profitable but also a fair price for people to use them daily. That's why a national service makes more sense. There's no competition privately anyways so that's not a concern. But the government is incentivised to make it cheap so that the public can travel cheaply, reliably, and quickly to key infrastructures so that they can earn and spend more money. The "profit" isn't from the tickets, but in people paying more taxes from earning (income) and spending (VAT) money. This is why the only "profitable" trains are massive resorts/theme parks with internal trams - the riders will spend money for the resort/theme park and food/drinks/souvenirs, so the profit is the destination, not the transport itself.

The Scottish routes have stunning scenery

Yous forgot to mention that in Scotland ScotRail is nationalised

The UK railway is NOT privatised! The existence of 20 private rail operators maintains the illusion of a privatised rail industry, but Britain's rail network has been (to all intents & purposes) almost entirely re-nationalised. Yet the government is hiding behind the train operators, without the latter being free to fix the problems. No one is acting as 'Fat Controller' on today's railway. The TOCs are reduced to management contracts under DfT's thumb, neither DfT or Transport Ministry see it as their job, and NR does not have a remit to run the railway. GBR is still just an idea. There is no-one at the wheel. I've long warned those who call for rail re-nationalisation to be careful what they wish for. We now have a re-nationalised railway and it is highly dysfunctional and not fit for purpose. Bring back Virgin West Coast! Our trains were never better.

Scotland - I’m very surprised you never addressed the big topic is Scotland when it comes to nationalised train service….. we’ll because we re nationalised Scotrail as of 1 Apr 2022 ? Only times scotland was mentioned was all negative rather than tell people the positive ?

Most of Japanese railways is privatised, so the problem is implementation.

I returned from Austria to London; the plan was to take a train to Liverpool. First thing I heard at London Euston is that several trains are delayed. Once in Liverpool, the first thing I heard when I got off the train is that a train to London Euston was cancelled😂

Remember folks that nationalisation isn't a panacea either. BR was nationalised by the 1960s when the Government holding the purse strings decided it needed rationalising and we got Beeching and his axe that decimated the network. Now whilst that was initiated by road building Tory transport minister Marples (conflict of interest) it was continued by Castle in the following Labour Government. And Beeching had come after the massively expensive 1950s BR Modernisation Programme which, amongst other things, pissed money up the wall on lots of different diesel locomotive designs and technologies because BR was still pretty fragmented along the lines of the pre-nationalisation Big Four companies (with LMS & LNER up in Scotland being merged into their own fifth region). After Beeching, BR in the 1970s was in often managed decline with creaky old trains, strikes(!), awful customer service and just a few bright spots like the HST. It was sectorisation of BR in the 1980s with some renewed investment that turned that corner and meant BR sandwiches weren't quite the joke they had been by 1993. So privatisation can result in shitty railway service, and nationalisation can too. And both can at times provide very good services, but we often don't remember the good times as much as the bad.

The Japanese system, particularly the Tokyo metropolitan subway system, are a testament to a well working privatized system. But it isn't cheap. And maybe there is a cultural thing that explains why it works so well.

Ya this is true I came here as a student and what I noticed about trains was that they are getting cancelled or delayed and I was stuck at the station for more than an hour cause I had no other way to reach my destination

What is not appreciated is that the 'unprofitable' branch routes feed into the 'profitable' mainline routes. The whole thing needs to be seen systemically, including the knock on costs of road use

The increase in passengers may not have anything to do with privatization.

Chiltern is the only good private operator

Look at the London - Hastings line. One franchise. No consumer option. Think Of A Number Fares, because you’ve a complete monopoly. Greed and Privatisation ruined our trains.

Compared to a luxury SUV, trains suffer from the poor air quality from insufficient fresh air ventilation, noise and lack of seat comfort. And then...... the undesirable presence of other people...... ✅

Don't forget that the rails had to be renationalised due to the fact privatisation lead to cuts in maintance and lead to quite a number of Rail accidents and d eaths.

Could you also explain the renationalisation of Scottish Rail and how this plays into all of this? Has it been successful?

Visited Adelaide a few years ago I literally stepped outside the house , walked across the street to a bus stop, got a bus to train station and into town, everything so in sync it was bliss, here in the UK, not so much...

The biggest problem for me is how rail companies think travelling through London constitutes a 5x (roughly) increase in the price it costs for your ticket. If I wanted to get between Ashford (Kent) to Southampton as I often do going via London costs £75-85 whereas going via Brighton costs £15-£20.

I can't think of any privatised industry that has improved their service to the customer.

Privatising healthcare in the US made healthcare more expensive. Privatising transportation in the UK made public transport less reliable. I'm starting to think that Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were wrong.

While on holiday in late September, 2022, our UK rail tickets were so expensive, because there were two of us, we saved dramatically by getting an Uber. We got point-to-point, comfortable, private transportation for less than half the cost and often in less than half the time. We had booked an "Enchanting British Rails" vacation package and abandoned the plan because of costs, difficulties with luggage, and time. Of course, when using the train, we'd still have to Uber the last bit anyway. Other than getting to say we'd ridden on a British train and visited Paddington Station, there were no incentives to use the train and plenty of disincentives. Hope they can work it out. We loved the UK.

Put it this way it didn't help and very simply the idea of a bus replacement service was not the running joke it is now, back under BR. Every country in Europe did reviews of the British Rail system to see if they should do the same, everyone called it flawed and keep their old mainly national train services.

You should probably have mentioned that the Great British Railways thing got shelved by Liz Truss and I don't think Sunak has any plans to revive it amid everything else that's going on, so it's not certain it will ever be implemented.

A lot is said about the earnings of railway staff, not a lot mentioned about the millions made by a few at the time of privatisation.

Really, the franchise system was the mistake here. Tory mates would get the "good" franchises, leaving the public purse to exclusively pay for the "bad" franchises. The new system seems doomed, as the Tories will still contact private firms spun up by their Eton mates who've never even heard of a train. Public services cannot be privatised. The Tories need to be stopped immediately.

I've lived in the UK for over 8 years now, and honestly I didn't really see much of a problem with trains. Before the current strikes, I've rarely dealt with any significant delays or cancellations. While whenever I've been to Germany, I've nearly missed my flights every time because the trains to the airports were always cancelled. And I don't think I've ever taken a train in Germany which wasn't delayed. Also, I didn't find trains in central or northern European countries to be cheaper than in the UK. Here I've found the prices to be decent if you buy your tickets in advance online.

I think Wendover productions sums it well in his episode about the topic.

Just like our electric grid huh.

I got on a train in Nurenberg Germany and booked through to manchester uk.I got a program and timetable for the full trip.There was a screen on the back of each seat showing the speed and progress of the trip.What I paid was minimal,and the trip ended at St Pancras station in london.If the trip had been in reverse,it would have cost me 3 times as much,and the palaver would have been horrendus.Privatisation of most things is definately a no,no for the public.

The very first 'fact' you state is that '[privatisation] has massively increased passenger numbers and increased investment'. A shocking misrepresentation of correlation vs causation.

When I was in Japan the train arrived 3 minutes early and the conductor profusely apologized to the public on the platform.

Every country in Europe did reviews of the British Rail system to see if they should do the same, everyone called it flawed and keep their old mainly national train services.

Its not cost that I hate, although it's a factor. Its unreliable service. You cannot rely on a train as you get told it's delayed 5 minutes after it's already late, then it updates minute by minute as you are standing on the platform that it will be there in a minute. 15 minutes later it's cancelled.

I never get notifications for the other channels, only one from this one or the daily podcast. With so many other subscriptions related to my hobby, I forget.

Thatcher started all the pre privatisation work, your assertion is incorrect. By breaking it down into small slices, they created systemic inefficiency. The rail went from underfunded and unable to provide services, to overfunded and wasteful. It's all about what the media will let them get away with.

Rail ridership didn't increase because of privatisation: it increased because of changing attitudes and habits. Also, the private rail companies, whilst failing, somehow managed to pay huge dividends to share holders!

I was meant to take 4 trains one weekend a few months ago. 2 there, 2 back. By the end of the weekend, I had to take/ book 10 trains. Some were too full to get on, others said they were running but never showed up on the platform, others had the wrong train on the wrong platform, leading to everyone getting on the wrong train and having to go back to the previous station So what's the alternative? I have been taking driving lessons for 26 MONTHS. The time for a test there is too long as well. There is just no reliable option for transport in this country

British railways don’t suck. Sure, there’s lots of delays and is expensive and has lots of old stock, but that’s due to a variety of complications. The truth is that the global relative frequency on most lines, and the highly concentrated and localised coverage enable such excellent mobility and connectivity, that you don’t dream of in most parts of the world. I moved from China in 2015, and was thoroughly impressed in the way trains operated here. People who compliment Chinese trains don’t realise how not local or everyday they are. British railways is not bad, the frustration comes from how potentially much, much better it could be had everything been done right.

The point missing in the story are the employees. The rail companies can reduce the pay to increase profit. Now the employees strike. That is a down side of the privatization principle and worth noting in this video.

They need to double down on privatisation and privatise the tracks/infrastructure as well as the train services. That way the train companies would have full incentive to improve and speed up the lines etc.

It says a lot that even Margaret Thatcher, the champion of the Free Market and Privatisation, saw sense in not wanting to privatise the railways. One of the most glaring examples of the flaws in Privatisation of the railways was that it created a blame game for when works overran. When Rugby Station, a major station on the West Coast Mainline was being remodelled, work on the Station overran and no expense was spared as Network Rail and Virgin Trains, the holder of the Intercity West Coast franchise at the time, hired lawyers to argue about who was to blame for why the works overran and as such who should pay who compensation. Now, if you're a rail commuter and there's disruption on route you're using, you're not really bothered about who's to blame, rather you only want those responsible for dealing with it to rectify it as quickly and efficiently as possible, not faffing around, wasting money on lawyers to argue about who was to blame

Most TL;DR viewers are too young to understand that British Rail was a terrible service, it may have been cheaper but you only got there half the time and it took twice as long as it should have.

I would prefer a system similar to TfL, but across the entire country, governments set routes, governments set prices, government set standards, but private operators, that get paid a set amount per service, regardless of customer numbers, this should be across all trains, busses, trams, etc… But then I also thing we should have a transport tax, that everyone pays, and have no cost to travel on public transport for local routes, and a small fee for long distance routes.