@@oldtechnobodycaresaboutThat’s what I thought. The UK was far behind my European country in train travel. When I was in the UK, before rail privatization, so a long time ago, passengers had to open and close the doors themselves, and climb aboard, there was no level entry. I never saw that before, in my country all trains had automatic doors and you could walk inside the train to other train cars. In British trains it was impossible to walk through the train, only in the small compartment you entered, if it was full, you had to exit again and walk to another compartment. This took too much time and was not good for the timetables. Now new trains have automatic doors and you can walk through the train, to another compartment or train car to find a place to sit. But the last time I was in the UK, just before Brexit, there was still no level entry at station platforms, well not everywhere. It could be that this has now changed and it could also be that this originate in the height of the platforms and not in level floors of the trains. And stations are probably not the case of the train companies but the rail infrastructure company.
@@moover123 Not in every sector ofcourse bcz railway prefer public benefits private railway prefer their own high profits so work with private player is enough but mostly privatization is bad for public
What people tend to forget is that the railway liberalisation was pushed by the European Union. So this process happened all over Europe, not just in the UK. It started with the requirement that the railway (let's say, Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane) had at least an administrative separation between the operating company (nowadays, Trenitalia) and the company maintaining the infrastructure (Rete Ferroviaria Italiana). There have been more EU directives regarding the railways, liberalising the market more and more. The most obvious is the freight market: whereas before each country had its own, most struggling freight arm, this very quickly evolved into Deutsche Bahn buying up a load of newly created freight companies, and private operators shooting up. You can now see Polish PKP (state-owned) and Swiss BLS (private) locomotives in, for example, the Netherlands. For passengers, you cannot simply apply the same formula. Passenger rail is an entirely different beast than rail freight. Whereas rail freight doesn't affect the public directly, passenger rail is offering a service to the public. This service benefits society as a whole. This doesn't mean that it should be government-run. Not too long ago, telecommunications and mail were state-owned monopolies. Nowadays, people would think you're crazy if you would advocate to nationalise these again. Competition and especially EU regulatory pressure has lowered prices for consumers. On the other hand, liberalisation and privatisation of healthcare is a mixed bag. The Netherlands have been pushing this, but I'm not convinced that this is working out particularly well. The Netherlands had a problem with waiting lists in healthcare. They solved this by throwing a lot of money at it, with the result that the Dutch ended up with the best, and most expensive, healthcare system in Europe. Liberalisation, mostly pushed by the conservative liberal party that was the largest in parliament for the past 10 years, was seen as a way to lower costs. It didn't. If we stick with the Netherlands, but now their railways, the former state operator is now fully owned by the government, as is the infrastructure. There is no competition on the main network, and concessions have been handed out directly until the very last possible moment. That is, until the EU banned it, more or less from around now (December 2023). At least until recently, they did not receive subsidies. Train travel in the Netherlands is not exactly cheap, though. As for regional traffic at the outer edges of the country, those are smaller companies (usually fully owned by the German or French state-owned companies), and need to be subsidised by regional governments. The UK took all of this way further. The stupidest thing they did was privatise the rail infrastructure. The Dutch use private contractors to maintain the tracks, so that's not a problem. The problem starts when you use ideology for your political decisions, rather than common sense. And using a commercial company means that you're dealing with an entity that will always try to maximise its profits. It can do that by charging more, and if that is not possible, reducing costs. This race to the bottom directly contributed to the crashes of the 1990s. Anyway, the point of this very long-winded post is that neither privatisation nor nationalisation are a golden bullet that will solve all your woes. What the UK needs to do, in order to deal with what's currently wrong with its railways, is looking at what's happening on the continent, and see what works and what doesn't. For example, why are the railways in Switzerland running so well? And why are they performing so poorly in Germany, where most of its neighbouring countries don't have these problems? What I can tell you is that the Europeans countries have taken a hard look at what happened in the UK, and decided to give it a pass.
What the UK should do is realise transport is the arteries of the economy and poor transport networks are a hindrance to economic prosperity, economic prosperity and growth being something that has been lacking in the UK since the 2007/8 finansial crash. This means that investing in the railways should be seen as an investment in economic growth and not an inconveient expenditure that can be kicked down the road.
Freight rail is different in that freight trains typically carry goods that are not highly valuable or time-sensitive (bulk goods like coal, oil, lumber) and reasonable delays aren't a big problem, or containerized goods which are off-loaded with an industrial crane without opening them. Passenger rail, on the other hand, is expected to be comfortable, fast, punctual to the minute, and EVERY passenger must reach their destination in one piece! If some goods are damaged it's not a big deal, but an injured passenger opens up a world of litigation. It's just much easier to open freight rail to competition. Everyone involved with freight rail is a professional, while passenger rail has to put up with the travelling public's ridiculous and irrational antics, which often cause a domino effect of delays.
Thanks guys, enjoyed this trilogy, fantastic as always... As I'm very impressed with British railways, I hope there will be more railway videos from this country in the future... 😉❤
I'm late to this one as it's been a busy few weeks bit thanks for the vid. You explained the privatisation process very well which is something that much of the media in the UK hasn't done. Keep it up👍
The greatest failure of privatization was the rapid fragmentation of infrastructure organisations and high turnover of staff in the new competitive setting. The privatization failed to acknowledge the essential contribution of the local knowledge and personal responsibility of thousands of individual operatives and small teams, to the safe and efficient operation of the system. This rapid loss of skills, knowledge and personal responsibility led directly to the collapse in maintenance that caused many accidents, and introduced huge inefficiencies. Network Rail returned maintenance in-house, but even to this day they struggle to rebuild the depth of integration efficiency that exited informally at every level in the nationalized system.
Well done! You and your team have done an excellent job in explaining as best as you can the pig's breakfast known as British rail privatisation. Maggie Thatcher didn't do it so why did John Major embark on this nonsensical ferroequinological path? Again, well done!
The deregulation of the industry was initiated by EU Directive 91/440 in 1991, which aimed to create a more efficient rail network by creating greater competition. British Railways (BR) had been in state ownership since 1948, under the control of the British Railways Board (BRB). Wikipedia. Sir John had this rose tinted view of what the railways could be again if privatised. Since BR was so efficiently run (small subsidy) compared to other European railways the Conservative government should have made a case for exemption from the EU Directive imo but instead embraced it with gay abandon since they never really liked BR and the right wing Press loved to criticise BR whenever an opportunity presented itself.
Beautiful achievement, 😃👍 For my part British Rail or British Leyland same result. After 25 years of privatization the private railways are derailed, many users 2 out of 3 would like to see the return of the crown 👑 to order. The liberalization of rail in 1999 caused a lot of damage. After HS1 where are we with HS2? But let's not think that within the European Union everything is looking good, Deutsche Bahn through one of the investments in the NBS and Stuttgart 21, not to mention an ICE4 which achieves astronomical blows in a secondary network to be renewed, of the order of 30 billion euros is forced to cede to the Americans, ARRIVA! . The ÖBB and CFF also, but the brand image of these companies reassures the markets, with public money unlike British Rail. Let us also not forget the SNCF in this slump which benefits from taxes in France and from subsidiaries such as SNCF Réseau, Voyageurs, Keolis and the Eurostar holding company of which SNCF has a majority stake of 57%. Unfortunately, Brexit has passed and the Benelux will be deprived of Eurostar Trans Manches in 2024.
The ÖBB with unprecedented investments for the renewal of engine equipment, part of which is battery powered, Railjet Stadler, Nighjet Siemens, Cityjet Siemens and also the crossing of South Tyrol with the 60 km of the Brenner tunnel. Switzerland, a copy of the Austrians, not really, after relying on pendulum inclination systems, without investment in high acceleration equipment, is forced to catch up on the North-South link in particular, from Zurich via the Lake Lucerne, there are no less works of art and tunnels like the 57 km of the Gotthard base tunnel and the 15 km of the Ceneri.
Maggie would not have privatised the railways but they ousted her out and Major barged in. Wasn't a good move because drivers could move between companies at will and wages went higher to try to keep drivers loyal. Also, the government still paid out to keep these companies boyant but any profit went to the companies (despite the subsidies paid out by the government). These companies were mostly foreign state owned railways and the money went to keeping their own railways profitable. Any profit spent here was usually repainting old stock into new colours. Any railways that couldn't make it pay, just dumped the franchise and cleared off.
Japan managed to pull off privatization of their railway network, but there were some key factors involved that made it successful where BR failed and they're factors I don't see happening anywhere else. First off, Japan's rail network is unrivaled in terms of coverage, construction, maintenance and reliability, which meant that the various companies that inherited the network from JNR already had top-notch infrastructure to work with. And as a corollary, those companies are pretty much _forced_ to keep up on maintaining that infrastructure, not only contractually but also because any service interruptions would be a PR disaster - the Japanese take reliable rail service VERY seriously. Secondly, and this is what enables it to work, Japanese rail companies go above and beyond just simple rail service. Major terminals double as urban malls and even smaller urban stations have significant commercial space, allowing the rail companies to augment their already exceptionally high revenue from ticket sales (relative to other rail networks) with rent from the various shops and restaurants that lease that commercial space. Thing is, this sort of setup is very high-risk, high-reward as far as the initial setup goes. And most modern companies are extremely risk-adverse. Plus, the incentives to keep the network maintained don't really exist in Europe or the US, as western businesses don't seem to care about their PR as much (or at all) and western consumers are mostly complacent hood ornaments when it comes to any sort of services, with a mindset of "well, at least we HAVE said service to begin with".
Shinjuku station in Tokyo Japan is the busiest station in the world. The 4 levels (high speed, intercity/local, metro and busses) process 3.5 MILION passengers a day! The effiency/logistic needed to operate that station is on an insane level. There is literarly staff who guide and seperate passengerflows with ropes to and from the platforms. No modern tech can be so fast and flexible as crowdcontrol then a guard wih a simple collored rope. The 4 hours no passenger trains metros and busses run on the network repair, maintenance and cleaning is done. Staff resides at the station like staff on an oilrig or ship (x weeks on, x weeks of) And that all in a country were earthquakes, typhoons and Tsunamis ocur often.
Also, the railway company owns their own trains, track, stations, etc; and there is competition from different companies running services on different alightments between two cities.
It depends, I fully agree when you look towards the major urban areas in Japan. But actually I am not that happy how the JNR was divided in the end (by region instead of by pure function). In the rural parts it became clear that the JR group members cannot do the impossible too. While on Honshu the different group members can somewhat cover the high operational deficit of rural lines by their revenue sources (e.g. JR East with Tokyo, JR Central with Tokaido Shinkansen and Nagoya, JR West with Kansai area) it is a catastrophy for Shikoku and especially Hokkaido. JR Hokkaido is closing down lines and stations like every revised timetable since years and it's only getting worse. Their network is huge but the usage is declining further and further, at the same time they are building the astronomic expensive Shinkansen extension towards Sapporo that may even increase the deficit after its opening. Even JR West is starting to close down lines in the western parts of the Sanin region (Sanko line in 2018, the Kisuki line may be the next).
Plus, you also have the Confucian ideology ingrained into Japanese society, where people want to do the correct thing and operate as best as they can just because it’s the right thing to do and it’s honorable, and not purely for profit or personal gain
Just waiting for the companies to muck up on their obligations and renationalising them then seems to be working. ScotRail, TfW, LNER, Northern, Southeastern, and Transpennine are all govt.-run.
Fantastically well researched video. This definitely needs more views. The bit at the end about profits being extracted and subsidy and ridership levels is pretty conclusive to me that the government needs to re-nationalise the network again. While the UK railways have improved a lot since privatisation, it's clear to me now that this hasn't happened BECAUSE of it, but in SPITE of it. Privatisation has just added immense complexity and extracted a lot of money out of the system in the form of profits to shareholders. Meanwhile the UK has very high ticket prices. I wonder why?!!! lol. If they re-nationalised, we would have lower prices, the government could save money and everything would be simpler.
The infrastructure was never privatised. However, British rail wore down the network and the rolling stock - it neglected renewal for decades. This, boosted state expenditure after the infrastructure was restructured in an attempt to catch up. Many operators instead of just one or two foster competition on the track. It is not correct to say that subsidies had to increase for due to higher transaction costs. Contractualisation of the relations between the different service providers and customer orientation drove up passenger numbers and revenues. Hence privatisation of rail in UK must be called a great success. It appears the franchise system boosted passenger numbers, but direct award after some years lead to stagnation. Private operators generate profits and pay taxes on it; state railway do not, even if what their owners make them pay is not sustainable. It would be interesting to know what became of Great Britain Railways. The concession model suggests financially self-sustained operations, which seem not to be possible.
The good thing in Europe is that Germany is falling, so their nonsensical ideas about how a free market solves everything and we can bring peace thru trade with totalitarian states are hopefully done for.... It isn't France that pushed to privatize rail, or stopped nuclear and made Europe a lot more dependent on authoritarian countries for that matter....
The new Great British Railway should finally be able to find the good compromise between "State-owned" and "Private" realities. The operations will be divided in few bigger areas, drastically reducing complexity and fragmentation.
It's ridiculos, that the Deutsche Bahn investing over 300 million pounds, to buy in to the british freight market, but is not able, to deliver an reliable trainservice here in Germany. Especially it involves tax payer money.
They could have avoided financial complexity if they gave total freedom to construct and choose routes to the privatized sector. And subsidies as well, since unprofitable traffic would then got take coach...
I needed to know why they don’t dig a tunnel and do an extension for the main line Train so that they can extend the unused abandoned underground train stations. Why couldn’t they use the part D78 Stock train doors on the sides and also restructure the front face of the A60 and A62 stock that includes the class 313, class 314 and class 315 remix and make them all together and also redesign them an overhead line and also make them into Five cars per units and also having three Disabled Toilets on those Five cars per units A60 and A62 stock trains and also convert the A60 and A62 stock trains into a Scania N112, Volvo B10M, Gardner 6LXB, Gardner 6LXC and Gardner 8LXB Diesel Engines and also put the Loud 7-Speed Voith Gearboxes even Loud 8-Speed Leyland Hydra cyclic Gearboxes in the A60 and A62 stock, class 313, class 314, and class 315 and also modernise the A60 and A62 stock and make it into an 11 car per unit so it could have fewer doors, more tables, computers and mobile phone chargers. A Stock Trains and also having 8 Disabled Toilets on those A stock trains. why couldn’t we refurbish and modernise the Waterloo and city line Triple-Track train tunnel and make it larger and extend it to the bank station, making it into a Triple-Track Railway Line so those Five countries such as Australia, Germany, Italy, Poland And Sweden to convert the waterloo and city line Triple-Track Railway tunnel into a High-Speed Railway lines? The Third Euro tunnel Triple-Track Railway line to make it 11 times better for passengers so they could go from A to B. Then put the modernised 11 car per unit A Stock and put them on a bigger modernised Waterloo and city line Triple-Track train tunnel so it could go to bank station to those Five countries such as Australia, Germany, Italy, Poland And Sweden. The modernised refurbished 11 cars per unit A stock could be a High Speed The Third Triple-Track Euro Tunnel Train So it is promising and 47 times a lot more possible to do this kind of project if that will be OK for London Australia, Germany, Italy, Poland And Sweden. oh by the way, could they also tunnel the Triple-Track Railway Line so it will stop from Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex so that the Passengers will go to Australia, Germany, Italy, Poland and Sweden and also extend the Triple-Track Railway Line from the Bank to Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex Stations so that more people from there could go to Australia, Germany, Italy, Poland And Sweden more Easily. Why couldn't they extend the Piccadilly Line and also build brand-new underground train stations so it could go even further right up to Clapton, Wood Street can they also make another brand new underground train station in Chingford and could they extend the Piccadilly Line and the DLR right up to Chingford? All of the classes 150, 155, 154, 117, 114, 105, and 106, will be replaced by all of the Scania N112, Volvo B10M, Gardner 6LXB, Gardner 6LXC and Gardner 8LXB Diesel Five carriages three disabled toilets are air conditioning trains including Highams Park for extended roots which is the Piccadilly line and the DLR trains. Could you also convert all of the 1973 stock trains into an air-conditioned maximum speed 78 km/hours (48 MPH) re-refurbished and make it into a 8 cars per unit if that will be alright, and also extend all of the Piccadilly train stations to make more space for all of the extended 8 car per unit 1973 stock air condition trains and can you also build another Mayflower and Tornado Steam Locomotive Companies and can they order Every 67 Octagon and Every 37 Hexagon shape LNER diagram unique small no.13 and unique small no.11 Boilers from those Countries such as Greece, Italy, Poland, and Sweden, can they make Mayflower and Tornado Steam Locomotive speeds by up to 147MPH so you can try and test it on the Original Mainline so it will be much more safer for the Passengers to enjoy the 147MPH speed Limit only for HS2 and Channel Tunnel mainline services, if they needed 16 Carriages Per units, can they use those class 55’s, class 44’s, class 40’s and class 43HST Diesel Locomotive’s right at the Back of those 18 Carriages Per Units so they can take over at the Back to let those Mayflower and Tornado Steam Locomotive’s have a rest for those interesting Journeys Please!!!!!!, oh can you make all of those Coal Boxes’s 18 Tonnes for all of those 147MPH Mayflower and Tornado Steam Locomotive’s so the Companies will Understand us PASSENGER’S!! so please make sure that the Builders can do as they are told!!!!!!!!!!!! And Please do something about these Very Very Very Very Very Very important Professional ideas Please? Prime Minister of England, Prime Minister of Australia, Prime Minister of Sweden, Prime Minister of Germany, Prime Minister of Italy, Prime Minister of Poland and that Includes the Mayor of London.
The privatisation was flawed in a number of ways.I would argue that most government “reforms” garner the same epitaph. One thing that can’t be contradicted is that Covid excepted the passenger numbers since privatisation are roughly 2.5 times higher than they were. I’m pretty sure that if you could show these figures to any of the British Railways Board directors in office 1947 to 1995 that they would be gob smacked.
It is easy to answer by looking at other European countries with national rails. The rest is modernizing at a rapid pace and expansion, while the UK is struggling to maintain old infrastructure. The privatization model is a colossal failure objectively speaking, if we count on the purely ideological promises with what was done, it is a catastrophe. Besides, Its privatization model has also dilapidated the entire railway industry, the UK buys and imports all the latest generation material from other companies established in countries with national rails. Ask yourself why.
Thanks for sharing this detailed overview of the privatisation of British Railways. Key points include the vertical separation of infrastructure and operations, the challenges faced by Railtrack, and the ongoing evolution of the franchise system - all of which sparked intense debate over the effectiveness of privatisation. Check it out here if you're interested in learning more: ua-cam.com/video/kstBqyFej-4/v-deo.html
I find it shocking that under privatization they worked to break up every aspect of the railroad into separate companies. It's bluntly the worst possible way to privatize an industry instead of auctioning off entire territories to fewer companies that must then handle everything within those territories under their own banner. The increase in bureaucracy alone in getting so many companies to work together in such an unnatural form makes nationalization seem cheap and effective.
I keep repeating this. The railways themselves were never privatised. The trains and the stations were. The Train Operating Companies, have in general been a disaster.
@@22pcirish But it’s not the 19th century. Half the reason BR was under heavy water so because freight traffic was reducing from the automotive industry, and the government expected them to be self sufficient. Our shelves are supplied by 80% road traffic. Less than 10% is from rail. Our shelves wouldn’t be that affected from freight. Passengers on the other hand WOULD as WAY more people use rail to travel
@@StanTorrent I drive freight trains and our number one business is boxes. 80% may move by road only because they are fetching them from a rail terminal to deliver to the shops/factories etc. My employer has invested in a intermodal vehicles as it’s a growth sector.
Short answer: no. Long answer: nooooooooooooo
But I thought liberalism is so great?
Well it did bring investment in the short term
@@oldtechnobodycaresaboutThat’s what I thought. The UK was far behind my European country in train travel. When I was in the UK, before rail privatization, so a long time ago, passengers had to open and close the doors themselves, and climb aboard, there was no level entry. I never saw that before, in my country all trains had automatic doors and you could walk inside the train to other train cars. In British trains it was impossible to walk through the train, only in the small compartment you entered, if it was full, you had to exit again and walk to another compartment. This took too much time and was not good for the timetables. Now new trains have automatic doors and you can walk through the train, to another compartment or train car to find a place to sit. But the last time I was in the UK, just before Brexit, there was still no level entry at station platforms, well not everywhere. It could be that this has now changed and it could also be that this originate in the height of the platforms and not in level floors of the trains. And stations are probably not the case of the train companies but the rail infrastructure company.
@@oldtechnobodycaresabout The extra government spending brought the investment.
@@moover123
Not in every sector ofcourse bcz railway prefer public benefits private railway prefer their own high profits so work with private player is enough but mostly privatization is bad for public
"The short answer is no and the long answer is noooooooooo." Geraldine, the Vicar of Dibley
So excited to see the series on the British Railways. You’ve done a great job 👏🏽
Glad you like them!
@@RailwaysExplainedHow about no
British Rail wasn't perfect, but it was much more efficient.
Congratulations on having memberships! Well done 👏🏽
What people tend to forget is that the railway liberalisation was pushed by the European Union. So this process happened all over Europe, not just in the UK. It started with the requirement that the railway (let's say, Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane) had at least an administrative separation between the operating company (nowadays, Trenitalia) and the company maintaining the infrastructure (Rete Ferroviaria Italiana).
There have been more EU directives regarding the railways, liberalising the market more and more. The most obvious is the freight market: whereas before each country had its own, most struggling freight arm, this very quickly evolved into Deutsche Bahn buying up a load of newly created freight companies, and private operators shooting up. You can now see Polish PKP (state-owned) and Swiss BLS (private) locomotives in, for example, the Netherlands.
For passengers, you cannot simply apply the same formula. Passenger rail is an entirely different beast than rail freight. Whereas rail freight doesn't affect the public directly, passenger rail is offering a service to the public. This service benefits society as a whole.
This doesn't mean that it should be government-run. Not too long ago, telecommunications and mail were state-owned monopolies. Nowadays, people would think you're crazy if you would advocate to nationalise these again. Competition and especially EU regulatory pressure has lowered prices for consumers.
On the other hand, liberalisation and privatisation of healthcare is a mixed bag. The Netherlands have been pushing this, but I'm not convinced that this is working out particularly well. The Netherlands had a problem with waiting lists in healthcare. They solved this by throwing a lot of money at it, with the result that the Dutch ended up with the best, and most expensive, healthcare system in Europe. Liberalisation, mostly pushed by the conservative liberal party that was the largest in parliament for the past 10 years, was seen as a way to lower costs. It didn't.
If we stick with the Netherlands, but now their railways, the former state operator is now fully owned by the government, as is the infrastructure. There is no competition on the main network, and concessions have been handed out directly until the very last possible moment. That is, until the EU banned it, more or less from around now (December 2023). At least until recently, they did not receive subsidies. Train travel in the Netherlands is not exactly cheap, though. As for regional traffic at the outer edges of the country, those are smaller companies (usually fully owned by the German or French state-owned companies), and need to be subsidised by regional governments.
The UK took all of this way further. The stupidest thing they did was privatise the rail infrastructure. The Dutch use private contractors to maintain the tracks, so that's not a problem. The problem starts when you use ideology for your political decisions, rather than common sense. And using a commercial company means that you're dealing with an entity that will always try to maximise its profits. It can do that by charging more, and if that is not possible, reducing costs. This race to the bottom directly contributed to the crashes of the 1990s.
Anyway, the point of this very long-winded post is that neither privatisation nor nationalisation are a golden bullet that will solve all your woes. What the UK needs to do, in order to deal with what's currently wrong with its railways, is looking at what's happening on the continent, and see what works and what doesn't. For example, why are the railways in Switzerland running so well? And why are they performing so poorly in Germany, where most of its neighbouring countries don't have these problems?
What I can tell you is that the Europeans countries have taken a hard look at what happened in the UK, and decided to give it a pass.
Well done for the comment. We totally agree with you.
What the UK should do is realise transport is the arteries of the economy and poor transport networks are a hindrance to economic prosperity, economic prosperity and growth being something that has been lacking in the UK since the 2007/8 finansial crash. This means that investing in the railways should be seen as an investment in economic growth and not an inconveient expenditure that can be kicked down the road.
Freight rail is different in that freight trains typically carry goods that are not highly valuable or time-sensitive (bulk goods like coal, oil, lumber) and reasonable delays aren't a big problem, or containerized goods which are off-loaded with an industrial crane without opening them. Passenger rail, on the other hand, is expected to be comfortable, fast, punctual to the minute, and EVERY passenger must reach their destination in one piece! If some goods are damaged it's not a big deal, but an injured passenger opens up a world of litigation. It's just much easier to open freight rail to competition. Everyone involved with freight rail is a professional, while passenger rail has to put up with the travelling public's ridiculous and irrational antics, which often cause a domino effect of delays.
Thanks guys, enjoyed this trilogy, fantastic as always... As I'm very impressed with British railways, I hope there will be more railway videos from this country in the future... 😉❤
Will be, very soon!
I'm late to this one as it's been a busy few weeks bit thanks for the vid. You explained the privatisation process very well which is something that much of the media in the UK hasn't done. Keep it up👍
The greatest failure of privatization was the rapid fragmentation of infrastructure organisations and high turnover of staff in the new competitive setting. The privatization failed to acknowledge the essential contribution of the local knowledge and personal responsibility of thousands of individual operatives and small teams, to the safe and efficient operation of the system. This rapid loss of skills, knowledge and personal responsibility led directly to the collapse in maintenance that caused many accidents, and introduced huge inefficiencies. Network Rail returned maintenance in-house, but even to this day they struggle to rebuild the depth of integration efficiency that exited informally at every level in the nationalized system.
I think it was broken up it just didn't work too well that way, and it created more and more bureaucracy.
Well done! You and your team have done an excellent job in explaining as best as you can the pig's breakfast known as British rail privatisation. Maggie Thatcher didn't do it so why did John Major embark on this nonsensical ferroequinological path? Again, well done!
The deregulation of the industry was initiated by EU Directive 91/440 in 1991, which aimed to create a more efficient rail network by creating greater competition. British Railways (BR) had been in state ownership since 1948, under the control of the British Railways Board (BRB). Wikipedia.
Sir John had this rose tinted view of what the railways could be again if privatised. Since BR was so efficiently run (small subsidy) compared to other European railways the Conservative government should have made a case for exemption from the EU Directive imo but instead embraced it with gay abandon since they never really liked BR and the right wing Press loved to criticise BR whenever an opportunity presented itself.
Nice vid!
Thanks
Beautiful achievement, 😃👍 For my part British Rail or British Leyland same result. After 25 years of privatization the private railways are derailed, many users 2 out of 3 would like to see the return of the crown 👑 to order. The liberalization of rail in 1999 caused a lot of damage. After HS1 where are we with HS2? But let's not think that within the European Union everything is looking good, Deutsche Bahn through one of the investments in the NBS and Stuttgart 21, not to mention an ICE4 which achieves astronomical blows in a secondary network to be renewed, of the order of 30 billion euros is forced to cede to the Americans, ARRIVA! . The ÖBB and CFF also, but the brand image of these companies reassures the markets, with public money unlike British Rail. Let us also not forget the SNCF in this slump which benefits from taxes in France and from subsidiaries such as SNCF Réseau, Voyageurs, Keolis and the Eurostar holding company of which SNCF has a majority stake of 57%. Unfortunately, Brexit has passed and the Benelux will be deprived of Eurostar Trans Manches in 2024.
The ÖBB with unprecedented investments for the renewal of engine equipment, part of which is battery powered, Railjet Stadler, Nighjet Siemens, Cityjet Siemens and also the crossing of South Tyrol with the 60 km of the Brenner tunnel. Switzerland, a copy of the Austrians, not really, after relying on pendulum inclination systems, without investment in high acceleration equipment, is forced to catch up on the North-South link in particular, from Zurich via the Lake Lucerne, there are no less works of art and tunnels like the 57 km of the Gotthard base tunnel and the 15 km of the Ceneri.
*I LOVE THIS CHANNEL!!!*
Maggie would not have privatised the railways but they ousted her out and Major barged in.
Wasn't a good move because drivers could move between companies at will and wages went higher to try to keep drivers loyal.
Also, the government still paid out to keep these companies boyant but any profit went to the companies (despite the subsidies paid out by the government). These companies were mostly foreign state owned railways and the money went to keeping their own railways profitable.
Any profit spent here was usually repainting old stock into new colours.
Any railways that couldn't make it pay, just dumped the franchise and cleared off.
Japan managed to pull off privatization of their railway network, but there were some key factors involved that made it successful where BR failed and they're factors I don't see happening anywhere else.
First off, Japan's rail network is unrivaled in terms of coverage, construction, maintenance and reliability, which meant that the various companies that inherited the network from JNR already had top-notch infrastructure to work with. And as a corollary, those companies are pretty much _forced_ to keep up on maintaining that infrastructure, not only contractually but also because any service interruptions would be a PR disaster - the Japanese take reliable rail service VERY seriously.
Secondly, and this is what enables it to work, Japanese rail companies go above and beyond just simple rail service. Major terminals double as urban malls and even smaller urban stations have significant commercial space, allowing the rail companies to augment their already exceptionally high revenue from ticket sales (relative to other rail networks) with rent from the various shops and restaurants that lease that commercial space.
Thing is, this sort of setup is very high-risk, high-reward as far as the initial setup goes. And most modern companies are extremely risk-adverse. Plus, the incentives to keep the network maintained don't really exist in Europe or the US, as western businesses don't seem to care about their PR as much (or at all) and western consumers are mostly complacent hood ornaments when it comes to any sort of services, with a mindset of "well, at least we HAVE said service to begin with".
Shinjuku station in Tokyo Japan is the busiest station in the world.
The 4 levels (high speed, intercity/local, metro and busses) process 3.5 MILION passengers a day!
The effiency/logistic needed to operate that station is on an insane level.
There is literarly staff who guide and seperate passengerflows with ropes to and from the platforms.
No modern tech can be so fast and flexible as crowdcontrol then a guard wih a simple collored rope.
The 4 hours no passenger trains metros and busses run on the network repair, maintenance and cleaning is done.
Staff resides at the station like staff on an oilrig or ship (x weeks on, x weeks of)
And that all in a country were earthquakes, typhoons and Tsunamis ocur often.
They are heavily subsidized by the Japanese government. Their losses are covered.
Also, the railway company owns their own trains, track, stations, etc; and there is competition from different companies running services on different alightments between two cities.
It depends, I fully agree when you look towards the major urban areas in Japan.
But actually I am not that happy how the JNR was divided in the end (by region instead of by pure function).
In the rural parts it became clear that the JR group members cannot do the impossible too. While on Honshu the different group members can somewhat cover the high operational deficit of rural lines by their revenue sources (e.g. JR East with Tokyo, JR Central with Tokaido Shinkansen and Nagoya, JR West with Kansai area) it is a catastrophy for Shikoku and especially Hokkaido. JR Hokkaido is closing down lines and stations like every revised timetable since years and it's only getting worse. Their network is huge but the usage is declining further and further, at the same time they are building the astronomic expensive Shinkansen extension towards Sapporo that may even increase the deficit after its opening. Even JR West is starting to close down lines in the western parts of the Sanin region (Sanko line in 2018, the Kisuki line may be the next).
Plus, you also have the Confucian ideology ingrained into Japanese society, where people want to do the correct thing and operate as best as they can just because it’s the right thing to do and it’s honorable, and not purely for profit or personal gain
So basically railway privatization was a costly disaster.
Not only that, but it seems it wasn't very much verticalized at all.
No, unless you're a shareholder in a ROSCO. But great video explaining it. Thank you guys
Do a video on history and development of railways in Poland ;)
Hopefully Britain can find a way to re-nationalize. Buy out the main train companies
Just waiting for the companies to muck up on their obligations and renationalising them then seems to be working. ScotRail, TfW, LNER, Northern, Southeastern, and Transpennine are all govt.-run.
Just wait for the franchises to fail their obligations, no need for the government to spend anything.
Fantastically well researched video. This definitely needs more views. The bit at the end about profits being extracted and subsidy and ridership levels is pretty conclusive to me that the government needs to re-nationalise the network again. While the UK railways have improved a lot since privatisation, it's clear to me now that this hasn't happened BECAUSE of it, but in SPITE of it. Privatisation has just added immense complexity and extracted a lot of money out of the system in the form of profits to shareholders. Meanwhile the UK has very high ticket prices. I wonder why?!!! lol. If they re-nationalised, we would have lower prices, the government could save money and everything would be simpler.
The infrastructure was never privatised. However, British rail wore down the network and the rolling stock - it neglected renewal for decades. This, boosted state expenditure after the infrastructure was restructured in an attempt to catch up. Many operators instead of just one or two foster competition on the track. It is not correct to say that subsidies had to increase for due to higher transaction costs. Contractualisation of the relations between the different service providers and customer orientation drove up passenger numbers and revenues. Hence privatisation of rail in UK must be called a great success. It appears the franchise system boosted passenger numbers, but direct award after some years lead to stagnation. Private operators generate profits and pay taxes on it; state railway do not, even if what their owners make them pay is not sustainable.
It would be interesting to know what became of Great Britain Railways. The concession model suggests financially self-sustained operations, which seem not to be possible.
The good thing in Europe is that Germany is falling, so their nonsensical ideas about how a free market solves everything and we can bring peace thru trade with totalitarian states are hopefully done for.... It isn't France that pushed to privatize rail, or stopped nuclear and made Europe a lot more dependent on authoritarian countries for that matter....
Germany is not falling, maybe falling behind but they are holding stronger than britain
The new Great British Railway should finally be able to find the good compromise between "State-owned" and "Private" realities. The operations will be divided in few bigger areas, drastically reducing complexity and fragmentation.
One of Majors disastrous follies
It's ridiculos, that the Deutsche Bahn investing over 300 million pounds, to buy in to the british freight market, but is not able, to deliver an reliable trainservice here in Germany. Especially it involves tax payer money.
Hi! Serbian guy Railway Explained.
They could have avoided financial complexity if they gave total freedom to construct and choose routes to the privatized sector. And subsidies as well, since unprofitable traffic would then got take coach...
It’s like the curates egg good in parts.
I needed to know why they don’t dig a tunnel and do an extension for the main line Train so that they can extend the unused abandoned underground train stations. Why couldn’t they use the part D78 Stock train doors on the sides and also restructure the front face of the A60 and A62 stock that includes the class 313, class 314 and class 315 remix and make them all together and also redesign them an overhead line and also make them into Five cars per units and also having three Disabled Toilets on those Five cars per units A60 and A62 stock trains and also convert the A60 and A62 stock trains into a Scania N112, Volvo B10M, Gardner 6LXB, Gardner 6LXC and Gardner 8LXB Diesel Engines and also put the Loud 7-Speed Voith Gearboxes even Loud 8-Speed Leyland Hydra cyclic Gearboxes in the A60 and A62 stock, class 313, class 314, and class 315 and also modernise the A60 and A62 stock and make it into an 11 car per unit so it could have fewer doors, more tables, computers and mobile phone chargers. A Stock Trains and also having 8 Disabled Toilets on those A stock trains. why couldn’t we refurbish and modernise the Waterloo and city line Triple-Track train tunnel and make it larger and extend it to the bank station, making it into a Triple-Track Railway Line so those Five countries such as Australia, Germany, Italy, Poland And Sweden to convert the waterloo and city line Triple-Track Railway tunnel into a High-Speed Railway lines? The Third Euro tunnel Triple-Track Railway line to make it 11 times better for passengers so they could go from A to B. Then put the modernised 11 car per unit A Stock and put them on a bigger modernised Waterloo and city line Triple-Track train tunnel so it could go to bank station to those Five countries such as Australia, Germany, Italy, Poland And Sweden. The modernised refurbished 11 cars per unit A stock could be a High Speed The Third Triple-Track Euro Tunnel Train So it is promising and 47 times a lot more possible to do this kind of project if that will be OK for London Australia, Germany, Italy, Poland And Sweden. oh by the way, could they also tunnel the Triple-Track Railway Line so it will stop from Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex so that the Passengers will go to Australia, Germany, Italy, Poland and Sweden and also extend the Triple-Track Railway Line from the Bank to Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex Stations so that more people from there could go to Australia, Germany, Italy, Poland And Sweden more Easily. Why couldn't they extend the Piccadilly Line and also build brand-new underground train stations so it could go even further right up to Clapton, Wood Street can they also make another brand new underground train station in Chingford and could they extend the Piccadilly Line and the DLR right up to Chingford? All of the classes 150, 155, 154, 117, 114, 105, and 106, will be replaced by all of the Scania N112, Volvo B10M, Gardner 6LXB, Gardner 6LXC and Gardner 8LXB Diesel Five carriages three disabled toilets are air conditioning trains including Highams Park for extended roots which is the Piccadilly line and the DLR trains. Could you also convert all of the 1973 stock trains into an air-conditioned maximum speed 78 km/hours (48 MPH) re-refurbished and make it into a 8 cars per unit if that will be alright, and also extend all of the Piccadilly train stations to make more space for all of the extended 8 car per unit 1973 stock air condition trains and can you also build another Mayflower and Tornado Steam Locomotive Companies and can they order Every 67 Octagon and Every 37 Hexagon shape LNER diagram unique small no.13 and unique small no.11 Boilers from those Countries such as Greece, Italy, Poland, and Sweden, can they make Mayflower and Tornado Steam Locomotive speeds by up to 147MPH so you can try and test it on the Original Mainline so it will be much more safer for the Passengers to enjoy the 147MPH speed Limit only for HS2 and Channel Tunnel mainline services, if they needed 16 Carriages Per units, can they use those class 55’s, class 44’s, class 40’s and class 43HST Diesel Locomotive’s right at the Back of those 18 Carriages Per Units so they can take over at the Back to let those Mayflower and Tornado Steam Locomotive’s have a rest for those interesting Journeys Please!!!!!!, oh can you make all of those Coal Boxes’s 18 Tonnes for all of those 147MPH Mayflower and Tornado Steam Locomotive’s so the Companies will Understand us PASSENGER’S!! so please make sure that the Builders can do as they are told!!!!!!!!!!!! And Please do something about these Very Very Very Very Very Very important Professional ideas Please? Prime Minister of England, Prime Minister of Australia, Prime Minister of Sweden, Prime Minister of Germany, Prime Minister of Italy, Prime Minister of Poland and that Includes the Mayor of London.
put any profit back in the railway not shareholder dividends
The privatisation was flawed in a number of ways.I would argue that most government “reforms” garner the same epitaph. One thing that can’t be contradicted is that Covid excepted the passenger numbers since privatisation are roughly 2.5 times higher than they were. I’m pretty sure that if you could show these figures to any of the British Railways Board directors in office 1947 to 1995 that they would be gob smacked.
It is easy to answer by looking at other European countries with national rails. The rest is modernizing at a rapid pace and expansion, while the UK is struggling to maintain old infrastructure. The privatization model is a colossal failure objectively speaking, if we count on the purely ideological promises with what was done, it is a catastrophe. Besides, Its privatization model has also dilapidated the entire railway industry, the UK buys and imports all the latest generation material from other companies established in countries with national rails. Ask yourself why.
Wow, this is such a thorough analysis of the privatization effort in GB.
Still the answer is NO.
Worst thing that Maggie and John Major ever did!!! BAD!!!
15:01 *Low Employment/High Unemployment
Thanks for sharing this detailed overview of the privatisation of British Railways. Key points include the vertical separation of infrastructure and operations, the challenges faced by Railtrack, and the ongoing evolution of the franchise system - all of which sparked intense debate over the effectiveness of privatisation. Check it out here if you're interested in learning more: ua-cam.com/video/kstBqyFej-4/v-deo.html
I've been waiting this for so long time! 😊🫡😏
I find it shocking that under privatization they worked to break up every aspect of the railroad into separate companies. It's bluntly the worst possible way to privatize an industry instead of auctioning off entire territories to fewer companies that must then handle everything within those territories under their own banner. The increase in bureaucracy alone in getting so many companies to work together in such an unnatural form makes nationalization seem cheap and effective.
That is what great British Railway is supposed to become: few mid-sized areas of control for each company.
Some day it will all be renationalised.
I keep repeating this. The railways themselves were never privatised. The trains and the stations were.
The Train Operating Companies, have in general been a disaster.
no.
No
For freight traffic, most certainly YES!👍
Most people don’t really see the benefits of freight. Freight means nothing to passangers
@@StanTorrent except their shelves are full!
@@22pcirish But it’s not the 19th century. Half the reason BR was under heavy water so because freight traffic was reducing from the automotive industry, and the government expected them to be self sufficient. Our shelves are supplied by 80% road traffic. Less than 10% is from rail. Our shelves wouldn’t be that affected from freight. Passengers on the other hand WOULD as WAY more people use rail to travel
@@StanTorrent The tories took our traffic away to give to their donating mates in the road haulage industry.
@@StanTorrent I drive freight trains and our number one business is boxes. 80% may move by road only because they are fetching them from a rail terminal to deliver to the shops/factories etc. My employer has invested in a intermodal vehicles as it’s a growth sector.
No. Nationalise it.
Hahah no
Like Germany bad move
the answer is nope lolz and I haven't even watched the video yet.