The 100% state-owned thing was tried and didn't work very well, nostalgia notwithstanding. The people who say "bring back British Rail" must have short memories, the system was a freaking disaster.
While BR had its faults (nepotism, excessively strong union, a fairly relaxed attitude to punctuality on occasion), the current system is "freaking disaster".
The rails themselves are owned by National Rail, previous Railtrack. What happened to Railtrack? Well, they were forcibly taken over because they put profits before safety (c.f. the Hatfield crash). Who ended up footing the bill for the emergency maintenance required? The taxpayer!
The trains are owned by the "rolling stock" companies. The TOCs (train operating companies) lease (yes, lease, not buy) the trains from them, and run the actual passenger services. Of course, making trains is a huge capital investment, which the rolling stock companies don't want to risk, because the TOCs don't want to put any more money than necessary into their leasing arrangements. This means we're stuck with horribly out-of-date trains on almost every line.
The split into track/stations, TOCs and rolling stock was supposed to relieve the Government of the financial burden of the railways.
What actually happened was that each link in the chain (National Rail to TOCs, TOCs to rolling stock, National Rail to rolling stock) had a vested interest in making money from each other body. So the overall price to the consumer has risen, because each body is now a privately owned corporation with the duty to make a profit for its shareholders.
We've seen enormous fare rises since privatisation. Hilariously, these rises still aren't enough to meet the TOCs running costs, so they have to receive what is euphemistically referred to as "revenue support" from the Government (aka a subsidy).
The whole arrangement now costs MORE than BR ever cost, while providing a measurably worse service. The fragmentation of the system means proper future planning is almost impossible, and coordination that was possible under BR is simply unfeasible due to the number of individual companies involved.
To see the present situation is better than BR is simply nonsense. See the last chapters of "Fire & Steam" by Christian Wolmer for a very good explanation of why you're wrong.
Slashdot Mirror
The 100% state-owned thing was tried and didn't work very well, nostalgia notwithstanding. The people who say "bring back British Rail" must have short memories, the system was a freaking disaster.
While BR had its faults (nepotism, excessively strong union, a fairly relaxed attitude to punctuality on occasion), the current system is "freaking disaster". The rails themselves are owned by National Rail, previous Railtrack. What happened to Railtrack? Well, they were forcibly taken over because they put profits before safety (c.f. the Hatfield crash). Who ended up footing the bill for the emergency maintenance required? The taxpayer! The trains are owned by the "rolling stock" companies. The TOCs (train operating companies) lease (yes, lease, not buy) the trains from them, and run the actual passenger services. Of course, making trains is a huge capital investment, which the rolling stock companies don't want to risk, because the TOCs don't want to put any more money than necessary into their leasing arrangements. This means we're stuck with horribly out-of-date trains on almost every line. The split into track/stations, TOCs and rolling stock was supposed to relieve the Government of the financial burden of the railways. What actually happened was that each link in the chain (National Rail to TOCs, TOCs to rolling stock, National Rail to rolling stock) had a vested interest in making money from each other body. So the overall price to the consumer has risen, because each body is now a privately owned corporation with the duty to make a profit for its shareholders. We've seen enormous fare rises since privatisation. Hilariously, these rises still aren't enough to meet the TOCs running costs, so they have to receive what is euphemistically referred to as "revenue support" from the Government (aka a subsidy). The whole arrangement now costs MORE than BR ever cost, while providing a measurably worse service. The fragmentation of the system means proper future planning is almost impossible, and coordination that was possible under BR is simply unfeasible due to the number of individual companies involved. To see the present situation is better than BR is simply nonsense. See the last chapters of "Fire & Steam" by Christian Wolmer for a very good explanation of why you're wrong.