The article chronicles many of the worst aspects of what was a botched privatisation in the rail industry. But even so I found the negative aspects of it somewhat overstated. The problem of rail privatisation was its success allowing a huge rise in use.
That is very little consolation to those who stand everyday on overcrowded trains and pay the world's highest fares, but a more than 50% rise in passenger km's since privatisation seems like a measure of success, not failure.
The problems of the rail industry were highlighted in the McNulty report (a copy is now on the website in the Transport Economics page). The poor privatisation and subsequent meddling of an incompetent government (Prescott and Byers primarily) has prevented the intended competition from keeping costs down and the necessary investment has not happened because nobody trusts the government or PPP.
If the NHS reforms led to 50% more patients being treated on essentially the same health infrastructure wouldn't that be counted as success? Really the rail industry needs £20bn of new infrastructure investment in the next five years and about the same each five years after that without a single high speed line being built.
As I see it there are too many issues highlighted for one single comment; however the main one has to be should we or should we not put the rail network back under government control. I like the benefits of free markets but do also like the idea of state capitalism that is working in the developing world but the main flaw I see is that there are simply too many companies (with the number given as around 2,000 firms) operating within the sector. If we were to take out a lot of the smaller firms we would encourage economies of scale and hopefully reduce the consumer prices. Secondly of course of need more money invested in infrastructure but as it is a merit/public good this money needs to come from the government as investors will not get a good enough return for their money but the coalition simply does not have this money to spend. They are trying to cut back our substantial budget deficit to keep us afloat during this time of financial hardship and especially after announcing the funding of the new HS2 they cannot spend anymore. Sadly this highlights the issues within our political economic system as politicians are forced to restrict the economy.
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