Good point John.

This is undoubtedly true and I almost said it myself in my earlier post. The reason I didn't was that even taking this into consideration in my experience they were still about the best

IMHO, YMMV

I worked in the Railway industry for 20 years both for BR and private TOC's.....I was a union rep at the time of privatisation......to me privatisation was a good way to go....The only problems that have arisen as a result are....Railtrack (now thankfully gone!)......A complete lack of high quality bidders for franchises (toc's)......A waste of resources on legal bods and engineering firms that charged way over the odds for work (now finished and in-house)......And finally rolling stock in good servicable condition being withdrawn prematurely (class 56/60/58/87/90 and HST's)....Aside from that there are many ,many positives the biggest being that a bit less control from the ministry of cars....whoops! transport!.....There is a depressing lack of private enterprise spirit still though......There is a huge potential market for the risk takers in the railway but all the current bus companies want to sit on their hands and wait for government handouts! Very sad!

Thanks Zwicky.
It's good to get an insiders point of view.
John.

Problem is Treasury have a "dead hand" and starve rail of money. If no "privatisation" we would probably never have modern rolling stock (even if it is sourced from foreign builders). Other problem is "horizontal" rather than "vertical" privatisation. TOCs, Network Rail often working in isolation.

I don't think vertical or horizontal makes much difference......both have pro's and con's.....The problem lies in that ultimately the entire industry is still dependant on government financing.....Here's a bit of Rail regulation.......Network Rail goes to the Rail Regulator and requests a rise in track charges to enable it to maintain and improve the network - say 10% - The Rail Regulator says ok increase charges by 8% and make the nescessary savings somewhere.....Network Rail increases track access by 8% and then GNER or Beardy Rail..sorry Virgin goes to the Dept of Transport and requests the extra funding for the 8% increase......and guess what? The Dept of Transport pay up........because the 1992 Railways Act is a soveriegn piece of legislation passed by Her Majesty's Parliament.....So the Rail Regulator has the power, the Dept. of Transport begin to re-hate Railway's because of the drain on the Departments budget and the Passengers and Industry suffer........Only a true free market system will work........but what about those Branchlines!!!!!!!!!!

But doesnt all this mess originate from the EEC, and that they said "Thou shall separate the Rolling Stock companies from the Infrastructure", and the UK Govt was left to sort out the resulting mess.

Maybe it suited the political colour of the time. Maybe the current Govt is happy with the mess:- but I do remember "Good 'ol British Rail" and a bit of grafiti from the 1970s seen on East Croydon station which summed up the frustration of the commuter:-

When the train A.S.L.E.F.t the station,
N.U.R. waiting for a train.
Think before the next Election,
Brothers, STRIKE AGAIN !

I think all the railways should be nationalised again, at least there would not be so many companies involved in operating a charter. Present situation is ridiculous.