Thread: Minister to vote against rail bonuses but cannot veto

Justine Greening, the Transport Secretary, has said that she will be attending a Network Rail meeting where she will vote against bonuses, but cannot veto the move.
She told the BBC’s Sunday Politics Show, “What I can do is register on behalf of the taxpayer that this is wrong.”

Well, that's good then.

Minister to vote against rail bonuses but cannot veto :: PoliticalHook

The railways should be taken back into public ownership and operated on a regional basis as they were between 1923 and 1947 with each region being responsible for the maintenance of it's own track,rolling stock etc.

The madman who thought of separate running and track maintenace should be committed to an asylum. It was of course the idea of the EU bureaucrats.
The Big Four were:

Great Western Railway (GWR)
London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS)
London and North Eastern Railway (LNER)
Southern Railway (SR)

Originally Posted by alycidond9009

Sorry, that is incorrect:

Between 1947-c1990 they were in public ownership.

Between 1923-1947 they were still in private hands.

On set-up of British Railways there were 5 regions, (Midland, Western, Eastern, Scottish, and Southern. later incresed to 6 when the eastern region was split between the eastern and north-eastern).

I should have made myself clearer. I was suggesting taking them back into public ownership and then operating them on a regional basis. As long as it was efficient the number of regions wouldn't matter although obviously too many could lead to problems with timetables,maintenance etc.

Originally Posted by alycidond9009

So, You mean BR 1947-1990.

AND

Big4+ 1923-1946.

I shall send you to bed without any supper in a minute. . I mean a nationally owned railway,divided into regions. Each region would be independently responsible for the trains etc.in that region and only that region. Of course there would need be uniform operating procedures,signals etc.

Originally Posted by Francis Overdere

I shall send you to bed without any supper in a minute. . I mean a nationally owned railway,divided into regions. Each region would be independently responsible for the trains etc.in that region and only that region. Of course there would need be uniform operating procedures,signals etc.

So 1947-c1990 then.

As the LNER, LMS, SR, GWR, S&DJR etc were all private railway companies.

One of the few places I believe the BRITISH government should have control of is the rail network. Their is no way that one set of railway lines, that can only have one set of trains running, that need coordinating from one set of controllers can operate with the benefit of competition. I think we'd all agree that the rail network is 100% vital for more or less everyone.

This kind of privatisation is the worst of form, you end up with a fat cat bunch of unaccountable bureaucrats running the show with pretty much no incentive not to waste money. They balls up and then they can go back to the government and say we need more money and the government then has the choice of giving it to them or shutting the network down.

As far as I can gather every country has to subsidise its railways so it's just a matter of getting the best value for money. To my mind a great deal of revenue could be gained from private hauliers if we had RORO (Roll on- roll off. ) trains so that long distance vehicles could drive on near their base and off nearer their destination just as they do through the Channel tunnel.

The government would save on road building and maintenance costs. Any charge to the hauliers would be offset by their savings on fuel and vehicle maintenance costs,the environment would benefit as well. It would simply be a matter of building loading areas at the main station in each city. The railways would be used more thus making better use of the tracks and infrastructure.

I believe large lorries only do about 7 mpg.