Subject:
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Re: British railway industry (was Re: UK devolved government (was Harry Potter but who remembers that?)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 10 Sep 2001 14:36:47 GMT
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Viewed:
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1266 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Simon Bennett writes:
> > In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek writes:
>
> > > In what way is Railtrack an example of privatization?
> >
> > Well that's what it the Government called it at the time!
>
> Yes. But calling something X doesn't make it X. Unless you agree that
> California recently "deregulated" its power industry.
I don't have enough information on that. I'm interested because I have a
fair few friends who it affects and I've tried to follow the situation in
the Economist and other places but failed.
My point was as set out below - You appear to be saying that by making a
public asset private is not enough to privatize it, you also need to
introduce competition. I think that's semantics.
>
> > A state owned
> > business was split up and the parts were either sold, floated or transferred
> > under franchises. Of course you are right that Railtrack is a monopoly but
> > it's still 'private'.
(snippage)
> Yes, I had personal experience of the operating companies. Lovely. Except
> for certain plums like the train to Gatwick or Heathrow, you get one choice
> and that is is.
Heathrow Express is an interesting case. It shows what the real costs are
as it is a fully private company with no subsidy and always has been and it
charges £10 for a 15 minute journey. If this was replicated elsewhere I
think the roads would lock up.
Bit about what previous structure to return to:
> Early 19thC.
Right, I shall get back to you to cite why this didn't work then (How Lewis
Carroll was able to joke in 'The Hunting of the Snark': 'They threatened
its life with a railway share'!
>
> > > AND their track should have been restored in some semblance so
> > > that there are competitive lines, with the operating companies owning the
> > > infrastructure. Just like Conrail was carved back up into essentially its
> > > two major constituents by NS and CSX.
> >
> > That would be better (much debate in the industry is about how to restore
> > the links at the wheel-rail interface so that safety can be better managed)
> > but not much, because the competition is not real, the lines are not close
> > enough to each other to properly compete (unless you count people moving
> > house to get a better train service which I doubt happens very much).
> > Rail's competitor is Road and that's how I think the industry should be, the
> > infrastructure should be government owned and run with the services
> > franchised with greater competition so the regulation could be of the
> > competition and not the price.
>
> Well if you've rationalised away all the competing lines, maybe.
We pretty well have and 'we are where we are' but I'll deal with this later.
> But in the
> US we still have enough (freight) lines to get healthy competition in many
> cases.
You lucky people!
>
> > I believe in competition except where there has to be only one set of
> > infrastructure to avoid environmental or other problems. Roads, Railways
> > and Electricity, Gas and cable telecommunications transmission (not
> > generation or supply) are examples of this. I am constantly astonished that
> > this is not only not self-evident but not even remotely recognized by so
> > many others.
>
> I am not sure I am at all convinced of this and I've seen numerous studies
> that argue that even "natural" monopolies can have competitive setups except
> perhaps at the very last mile sections. Cable telecoms is a classic example.
> *Everyone* is convinced that you should have only one in an area or city,
> yet we have a few (not nearly enough, thanks to corrupt or inept governments
> that won't allow competition) cities in the US that have several... guess
> what? Better service, lower prices, more tax to the local munincipalities
> and faster new features than the next town over where it's a monopoly.
Can you explain a little more? As a resident in this town would I have two
or more sets of cables running past my house? (I'd be happy to see my cable
company get a competitive kick up the khyber as they are still refusing to
give me digital service because I want three decoders and they say that they
can't do more than two to a house as the signal degrades. Hello! It's digital!)
Maybe in cable comms it could work but I do not want two sets of National
Grid pylons striding across the landscape, I'm happy to pay for the
privilege and I would be happy to legally prevent a company from building a
second one.
I think this boils down to: is it practical, affordable and environmentally
sustainable to have significantly more infrastructure capacity than you need
so that competition can happen. In Cable transmission, maybe. In
electricity transmission, no. In Railways (in Britain), no.
Psi
p.s. We're the only two discussing this, shall we knock it on the head, take
it to email, or do you expect Lindsay to come back?
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