If we privatised the railways here and removed all subsidies, we'd have no railways left.
Japan built their railways and maintained them via the Government for decades, easy to privatise when it worked fine in the first place. We are not there yet - but we could be.
On the surface the story looks pretty similar. Investment by private companies at the start, followed by nationalisation in the 20th century, then privatisation just before the turn of the century.
Indeed, but the privatisation was done better. Much better.
People forget just how bad ‘80s BR was, before privatisation.
Their own slogan was “We’re Getting There”, and the timetable was about as optional as the catering.
My train the other day was an hour and a half late. And it cost me £90.
And yet that's still better than what you'd have had under nationalised railways, and yet you want to keep our failing system instead of adopting a proper, privatised, functional, subsidy-free system whereby railways companies need to put YOU their consumer first to get their income instead of lobbying politicians to get it instead.
You are what, 39? Born around 1983? So about 11-14 when nationalisation came? Your personal experience of the nationalised railway wouyld have been, at most, ticking off loco names ...
I can tell you that in many ways BR was a lot easier to deal with than the chaos of nationalisation. Above all if you wanted long journeys other than simple commuter ratruns, or properly designed interiors, or connections which were held even if train 1 was a little late.
Probably easier to have nicely designed interiors for trains nobody is using. The proof is in the pudding, nationalisation failed.
Privatisation was only half-done, the rail lines themselves weren't privatised properly and that is where almost everyone seems to agree the problems are. Funny that.
Redo privatisation so its done properly, Japan-style. We need more privatisation not less.
I don't know what's more irritating: the lack of a label for the y-axis, or the appalling botching of the pudding aphorism.
Also nonsense, if my train is an hour and half late I can't do anything else because I have no other way to travel. There is no competition on railways. Privatisation is a con.
If we privatised the railways here and removed all subsidies, we'd have no railways left.
Japan built their railways and maintained them via the Government for decades, easy to privatise when it worked fine in the first place. We are not there yet - but we could be.
On the surface the story looks pretty similar. Investment by private companies at the start, followed by nationalisation in the 20th century, then privatisation just before the turn of the century.
Indeed, but the privatisation was done better. Much better.
People forget just how bad ‘80s BR was, before privatisation.
Their own slogan was “We’re Getting There”, and the timetable was about as optional as the catering.
My train the other day was an hour and a half late. And it cost me £90.
And yet that's still better than what you'd have had under nationalised railways, and yet you want to keep our failing system instead of adopting a proper, privatised, functional, subsidy-free system whereby railways companies need to put YOU their consumer first to get their income instead of lobbying politicians to get it instead.
You are what, 39? Born around 1983? So about 11-14 when nationalisation came? Your personal experience of the nationalised railway wouyld have been, at most, ticking off loco names ...
I can tell you that in many ways BR was a lot easier to deal with than the chaos of nationalisation. Above all if you wanted long journeys other than simple commuter ratruns, or properly designed interiors, or connections which were held even if train 1 was a little late.
Probably easier to have nicely designed interiors for trains nobody is using. The proof is in the pudding, nationalisation failed.
Privatisation was only half-done, the rail lines themselves weren't privatised properly and that is where almost everyone seems to agree the problems are. Funny that.
Redo privatisation so its done properly, Japan-style. We need more privatisation not less.
The graph starts going up prior to privatisation. I've told you this before.
And you obviously don't use trains very much. I don't travel by SWR because I love the service, I travel that way because I have no choice.
You may have 'told us this before', but the increase was not much, especially with what happened afterwards. The idea that the railway's usage would have increased under a nationalised BR as it has since is slightly ridiculous. BR was managing a declining system.
It's also interesting to look at the reasons *why* the decline in passenger numbers ceased in the 1980s and 1990s - and a large one was the massive change in the internal organisation of BR under Thatcher.
Nobody seems to want to answer my question: under the new GBR arrangement, what is the BENEFIT of paying First Group to run the railways?
I answered it.
The benefit is that First Group have the incentive of running the railways for the benefits of their consumers, so that their consumers pay them, so they make money.
If its state owned and operated then the politicians are worried about political concerns, polling, lobbyists, "stakeholders" and alternative funding demands like the NHS instead of the consumers.
First Group have the incentive of running the railways for the benefits of their shareholders. That is their primary duty. Not keeping travellers happy. Happiness for the traveller is an incidental and wholly contingent result.
Unhappy travellers, they lose consumers, they lose income, they lose value for their shareholders.
Happy travellers, they keep consumers, they generate income, they make value for their shareholders.
Not as simple as that. The traveller - not 'consumer' - generally has only partial choice, for instance if commuting.
Barty appears to see competition - or its absence - as some sort of binary abstract.
Odd way of looking at the world.
(edit - why does autocorrect default to adding apostrophes where they're not wanted ?)
Nobody seems to want to answer my question: under the new GBR arrangement, what is the BENEFIT of paying First Group to run the railways?
Oh, it's so obvious, I'm not surprised no-one bothered to answer. The reason is of course that private operations have typically done better at running things that state monopolies, in the UK at least. And of course this is not surprising, the fact that they can lose the gig at the next renewal keeps them on their toes. If it doesn't, the government can boot them out, unlike nationalised industries which become complacent.
That's why many public services are contracted out. It really isn't complicated. The only surprise is that we don't do it more.
First Group has done a piss poor job of running the railways up until now, they have completely destroyed the SWR franchise for a start. They must have one of the worst records in the country.
Odd we don't want to talk about East Coast!
As someone who has lived in Woking for 35 years, I can assure you that there is not much difference between SWT (Stagecoach) and SWR (First/MTR).
In fact, First/MTR did themselves out of £50 million on the Class 442 refurbishment programme. They did it to stop any Open Access Operator trying to use them, but in the end found that they were more trouble than they were worth and have scrapped them.
The punctuality under SWR has dropped considerably - and that's because they bid on the basis of a timetable that was impossible. NR and SWT told them this, Gov didn't listen.
They are now desperately trying to claw back money and the service has taken a hit in return.
If it was nationalised today, would make no difference beyond the money not going to the Hong Kong Metro and SNCF. I sure do love paying for their new railways.
SWR is going slowly bust. You can see this by the fact they've given up refurbishing the trains.
Also nonsense, if my train is an hour and half late I can't do anything else because I have no other way to travel. There is no competition on railways. Privatisation is a con.
Try car (eg taxi, hitch hike)
Okay I'll go and find £5000 for a new car and £100 each way every day for a taxi. Great advice cheers
"I've been looking at these numbers William and I think people may be slightly turned off at the sight of the man we made Chancellor and the woman we made Foreign Secretary calling one another communist traitors for hours at a time." https://mobile.twitter.com/DmitryOpines/status/1548988107080491008
Also nonsense, if my train is an hour and half late I can't do anything else because I have no other way to travel. There is no competition on railways. Privatisation is a con.
Of course there is competition. You can drive, you can work from home, you can get a taxi, you can ride a bike. There's plenty of alternatives.
Railway passenger numbers literally more than doubled between privatisation and Covid. After they collapsed during the nationalisation days.
How, I don't own a car.
How, I have to go into the office on certain days.
How, a taxi is £100 each way.
How can you cycle 60 miles there and back each day.
There aren't any alternatives.
You not owning a car is a choice, you can always learn to drive, ride-share or similar.
You going into the office is a choice, you could always work elsewhere instead.
You getting a taxi is a choice. A ride-share would normally be considerably cheaper, as would driving typically, there's a reason drivers don't normally get taxis.
You working from home is an alternative choice.
There are many choices, all you're short of is your imagination.
There are many, many, many alternatives. Which is why the numbers have varied by over 100% variance from privatisation to date
If we privatised the railways here and removed all subsidies, we'd have no railways left.
Japan built their railways and maintained them via the Government for decades, easy to privatise when it worked fine in the first place. We are not there yet - but we could be.
On the surface the story looks pretty similar. Investment by private companies at the start, followed by nationalisation in the 20th century, then privatisation just before the turn of the century.
Indeed, but the privatisation was done better. Much better.
People forget just how bad ‘80s BR was, before privatisation.
Their own slogan was “We’re Getting There”, and the timetable was about as optional as the catering.
My train the other day was an hour and a half late. And it cost me £90.
And yet that's still better than what you'd have had under nationalised railways, and yet you want to keep our failing system instead of adopting a proper, privatised, functional, subsidy-free system whereby railways companies need to put YOU their consumer first to get their income instead of lobbying politicians to get it instead.
You are what, 39? Born around 1983? So about 11-14 when nationalisation came? Your personal experience of the nationalised railway wouyld have been, at most, ticking off loco names ...
I can tell you that in many ways BR was a lot easier to deal with than the chaos of nationalisation. Above all if you wanted long journeys other than simple commuter ratruns, or properly designed interiors, or connections which were held even if train 1 was a little late.
Probably easier to have nicely designed interiors for trains nobody is using. The proof is in the pudding, nationalisation failed.
Privatisation was only half-done, the rail lines themselves weren't privatised properly and that is where almost everyone seems to agree the problems are. Funny that.
Redo privatisation so its done properly, Japan-style. We need more privatisation not less.
The graph starts going up prior to privatisation. I've told you this before.
And you obviously don't use trains very much. I don't travel by SWR because I love the service, I travel that way because I have no choice.
You may have 'told us this before', but the increase was not much, especially with what happened afterwards. The idea that the railway's usage would have increased under a nationalised BR as it has since is slightly ridiculous. BR was managing a declining system.
It's also interesting to look at the reasons *why* the decline in passenger numbers ceased in the 1980s and 1990s - and a large one was the massive change in the internal organisation of BR under Thatcher.
East Coast prior to privatisation, actually made a profit. East Coast when it was nationalised again, made a profit.
Yet under privatisation it has failed three times.
This is ideology above all else.
I don't think we should nationalise the energy companies - but the trains, yes.
Also nonsense, if my train is an hour and half late I can't do anything else because I have no other way to travel. There is no competition on railways. Privatisation is a con.
Of course there is competition. You can drive, you can work from home, you can get a taxi, you can ride a bike. There's plenty of alternatives.
Railway passenger numbers literally more than doubled between privatisation and Covid. After they collapsed during the nationalisation days.
How, I don't own a car.
How, I have to go into the office on certain days.
How, a taxi is £100 each way.
How can you cycle 60 miles there and back each day.
There aren't any alternatives.
You not owning a car is a choice, you can always learn to drive, ride-share or similar.
You going into the office is a choice, you could always work elsewhere instead.
You getting a taxi is a choice. A ride-share would normally be considerably cheaper, as would driving typically, there's a reason drivers don't normally get taxis.
You working from home is an alternative choice.
There are many choices, all you're short of is your imagination.
There are many, many, many alternatives. Which is why the numbers have varied by over 100% variance from privatisation to date
ROFL you are such a muppet on this Bart. Embarrassing drivel.
PPC for Notts banned from driving for 6 months for 5 speeding offences in 12 months. In fairness, she did campaign on a crackdown on speeding. Most efficient.
Also nonsense, if my train is an hour and half late I can't do anything else because I have no other way to travel. There is no competition on railways. Privatisation is a con.
Try car (eg taxi, hitch hike)
Okay I'll go and find £5000 for a new car and £100 each way every day for a taxi. Great advice cheers
If we privatised the railways here and removed all subsidies, we'd have no railways left.
Japan built their railways and maintained them via the Government for decades, easy to privatise when it worked fine in the first place. We are not there yet - but we could be.
On the surface the story looks pretty similar. Investment by private companies at the start, followed by nationalisation in the 20th century, then privatisation just before the turn of the century.
Indeed, but the privatisation was done better. Much better.
People forget just how bad ‘80s BR was, before privatisation.
Their own slogan was “We’re Getting There”, and the timetable was about as optional as the catering.
My train the other day was an hour and a half late. And it cost me £90.
And yet that's still better than what you'd have had under nationalised railways, and yet you want to keep our failing system instead of adopting a proper, privatised, functional, subsidy-free system whereby railways companies need to put YOU their consumer first to get their income instead of lobbying politicians to get it instead.
You are what, 39? Born around 1983? So about 11-14 when nationalisation came? Your personal experience of the nationalised railway wouyld have been, at most, ticking off loco names ...
I can tell you that in many ways BR was a lot easier to deal with than the chaos of nationalisation. Above all if you wanted long journeys other than simple commuter ratruns, or properly designed interiors, or connections which were held even if train 1 was a little late.
Probably easier to have nicely designed interiors for trains nobody is using. The proof is in the pudding, nationalisation failed.
Privatisation was only half-done, the rail lines themselves weren't privatised properly and that is where almost everyone seems to agree the problems are. Funny that.
Redo privatisation so its done properly, Japan-style. We need more privatisation not less.
The graph starts going up prior to privatisation. I've told you this before.
And you obviously don't use trains very much. I don't travel by SWR because I love the service, I travel that way because I have no choice.
You may have 'told us this before', but the increase was not much, especially with what happened afterwards. The idea that the railway's usage would have increased under a nationalised BR as it has since is slightly ridiculous. BR was managing a declining system.
It's also interesting to look at the reasons *why* the decline in passenger numbers ceased in the 1980s and 1990s - and a large one was the massive change in the internal organisation of BR under Thatcher.
Or perhaps an increase in commuting into London following the Big Bang.
If we privatised the railways here and removed all subsidies, we'd have no railways left.
Japan built their railways and maintained them via the Government for decades, easy to privatise when it worked fine in the first place. We are not there yet - but we could be.
On the surface the story looks pretty similar. Investment by private companies at the start, followed by nationalisation in the 20th century, then privatisation just before the turn of the century.
Indeed, but the privatisation was done better. Much better.
People forget just how bad ‘80s BR was, before privatisation.
Their own slogan was “We’re Getting There”, and the timetable was about as optional as the catering.
My train the other day was an hour and a half late. And it cost me £90.
And yet that's still better than what you'd have had under nationalised railways, and yet you want to keep our failing system instead of adopting a proper, privatised, functional, subsidy-free system whereby railways companies need to put YOU their consumer first to get their income instead of lobbying politicians to get it instead.
You are what, 39? Born around 1983? So about 11-14 when nationalisation came? Your personal experience of the nationalised railway wouyld have been, at most, ticking off loco names ...
I can tell you that in many ways BR was a lot easier to deal with than the chaos of nationalisation. Above all if you wanted long journeys other than simple commuter ratruns, or properly designed interiors, or connections which were held even if train 1 was a little late.
Probably easier to have nicely designed interiors for trains nobody is using. The proof is in the pudding, nationalisation failed.
Privatisation was only half-done, the rail lines themselves weren't privatised properly and that is where almost everyone seems to agree the problems are. Funny that.
Redo privatisation so its done properly, Japan-style. We need more privatisation not less.
The graph starts going up prior to privatisation. I've told you this before.
And you obviously don't use trains very much. I don't travel by SWR because I love the service, I travel that way because I have no choice.
You may have 'told us this before', but the increase was not much, especially with what happened afterwards. The idea that the railway's usage would have increased under a nationalised BR as it has since is slightly ridiculous. BR was managing a declining system.
It's also interesting to look at the reasons *why* the decline in passenger numbers ceased in the 1980s and 1990s - and a large one was the massive change in the internal organisation of BR under Thatcher.
Or perhaps an increase in commuting into London following the Big Bang.
Train usage in France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland has increased massively over the last twenty years.
It must be because they privatised the railways, oh, oh dear.
Nobody seems to want to answer my question: under the new GBR arrangement, what is the BENEFIT of paying First Group to run the railways?
I did - because there are no public sector passenger railway staff so you have to pay company x or company y to actually operate. All that First do is operate to to the DfT's direction for a fixed fee, same as any of the others.
The problem with "just nationalise it" is that you hand direct control to the DfT fuckheads who have made every single stupid and expensive decision over recent years. They are the last people you want involved in the detail.
Create RailCo, commercially operated but owned by the state. With rail professionals out to operate the public service that everyone bar BR knows it to be. And low interest rate borrowing on 25 year terms. Like all of the foreign stateco operators we already have like Arriva.
Will it go? Gun to head I'd say yes, but somewhere a little north of London
My overall prediction for this heatwave was a max temp of 39.8C in London or Cambridgeshire; I made that several says ago, not bad. But I think 40C could topple! The excitement builds, with the heat
If we privatised the railways here and removed all subsidies, we'd have no railways left.
Japan built their railways and maintained them via the Government for decades, easy to privatise when it worked fine in the first place. We are not there yet - but we could be.
On the surface the story looks pretty similar. Investment by private companies at the start, followed by nationalisation in the 20th century, then privatisation just before the turn of the century.
Indeed, but the privatisation was done better. Much better.
People forget just how bad ‘80s BR was, before privatisation.
Their own slogan was “We’re Getting There”, and the timetable was about as optional as the catering.
My train the other day was an hour and a half late. And it cost me £90.
And yet that's still better than what you'd have had under nationalised railways, and yet you want to keep our failing system instead of adopting a proper, privatised, functional, subsidy-free system whereby railways companies need to put YOU their consumer first to get their income instead of lobbying politicians to get it instead.
You are what, 39? Born around 1983? So about 11-14 when nationalisation came? Your personal experience of the nationalised railway wouyld have been, at most, ticking off loco names ...
I can tell you that in many ways BR was a lot easier to deal with than the chaos of nationalisation. Above all if you wanted long journeys other than simple commuter ratruns, or properly designed interiors, or connections which were held even if train 1 was a little late.
There is some truth to that, but I'd really argue with your last point. It was easier to hold a train for a late connection back in the 1980s, as there were far fewer trains. If a train ran on a line every hour, you could probably delay it for ten minutes to allow a late connection. If it runs every half-hour, delaying it ten minutes causes all sorts of chaos to the schedule with other trains on the line. The more trains there are, the greater the need to run to schedule.
Truss and Sunak have concluded they have the votes and hence don't need to debate anymore.
Yes. I find that rather annoying and complacent. Sky also deserves censure for cancelling. Lends some weight to what appears to be their strongly supportive stance toward Rishi. But of a poor show.
Nobody seems to want to answer my question: under the new GBR arrangement, what is the BENEFIT of paying First Group to run the railways?
I did - because there are no public sector passenger railway staff so you have to pay company x or company y to actually operate. All that First do is operate to to the DfT's direction for a fixed fee, same as any of the others.
The problem with "just nationalise it" is that you hand direct control to the DfT fuckheads who have made every single stupid and expensive decision over recent years. They are the last people you want involved in the detail.
Create RailCo, commercially operated but owned by the state. With rail professionals out to operate the public service that everyone bar BR knows it to be. And low interest rate borrowing on 25 year terms. Like all of the foreign stateco operators we already have like Arriva.
The first sensible answer I've got all day. Yes, I am on board with you 100% - I proposed similar.
Also nonsense, if my train is an hour and half late I can't do anything else because I have no other way to travel. There is no competition on railways. Privatisation is a con.
Yes it is, but you are wrong about competition. There is plenty of it - mostly vs non-rail. But many many routes have many competing operators. As you know when you calm down and think rather than hate-type
Also nonsense, if my train is an hour and half late I can't do anything else because I have no other way to travel. There is no competition on railways. Privatisation is a con.
Of course there is competition. You can drive, you can work from home, you can get a taxi, you can ride a bike. There's plenty of alternatives.
Railway passenger numbers literally more than doubled between privatisation and Covid. After they collapsed during the nationalisation days.
How, I don't own a car.
How, I have to go into the office on certain days.
How, a taxi is £100 each way.
How can you cycle 60 miles there and back each day.
There aren't any alternatives.
You not owning a car is a choice, you can always learn to drive, ride-share or similar.
You going into the office is a choice, you could always work elsewhere instead.
You getting a taxi is a choice. A ride-share would normally be considerably cheaper, as would driving typically, there's a reason drivers don't normally get taxis.
You working from home is an alternative choice.
There are many choices, all you're short of is your imagination.
There are many, many, many alternatives. Which is why the numbers have varied by over 100% variance from privatisation to date
ROFL you are such a muppet on this Bart. Embarrassing drivel.
No, you are.
In almost all the country anyone who wants to go into work has to not just pay their own way to do so, but has to more than pay their own way since transportation is so heavily taxed, not subsidised.
Why should your commute be subsidised while other people's commutes are taxed? If you can't afford to commute into wherever you're commuting to, maybe you shouldn't be working there? That's the choice most of the nation faces.
Why should someone in Wigan commuting by car to their workplace not just pay their own commute, but subsidise your commute too?
Will it go? Gun to head I'd say yes, but somewhere a little north of London
My overall prediction for this heatwave was a max temp of 39.8C in London or Cambridgeshire; I made that several says ago, not bad. But I think 40C could topple! The excitement builds, with the heat
There's a decent chance it will be further north now. And almost certainly tomorrow.
25C in my North facing kitchen,we live 100 metres from the coast top end of Morecambe bay. My solar panels are working flat out, fortunately I have an EV and can dump the surplus into the car. Might have to sit in the car later on with the aircon and ventilated seats, very satisfying to think the sun is providing the power to keep me cool.
Also nonsense, if my train is an hour and half late I can't do anything else because I have no other way to travel. There is no competition on railways. Privatisation is a con.
Yes it is, but you are wrong about competition. There is plenty of it - mostly vs non-rail. But many many routes have many competing operators. As you know when you calm down and think rather than hate-type
This is fictional competition.
Same line, same trains. In a lot of cases, same owner of the two companies!
I am passionate about this subject, I do not appreciate the snarky replies about just buy a car, I want to actually get the railways to be good.
You go with one company because the train goes at the time you want to leave, you don't go because it's GWR vs CrossCountry, that is not how any rational human behaves.
British trains often feel a bit cramped and for a long time I assumed Britain had a narrow gauge and therefore the carriages were narrower.
(As you can see I am not an engineer and know nothing about trains).
Having learned today that Britain is standard gauge, I presume therefore that the privatised operators merely pack the seating more densely.
Standard gauge for the line but it's very small gauge for loading because the tunnels are so small.
We could therefore not support double decker trains, except for on HS1, HS2 and I assume the Elizabeth Line (but only in the new tunnel)
We have actually had double-decker trains on the Southern Railway. They were not an unqualified success, for AIUI an odd reason: the need to get down the stairs increased the dwell time at each station, meaning that the Southern's commuter-style railway with frequent station stops negated the benefits of increased passenger numbers on an individual train. You got more people on a train, but as it took longer to make the journey, you could fit fewer trains on the network.
If we privatised the railways here and removed all subsidies, we'd have no railways left.
Japan built their railways and maintained them via the Government for decades, easy to privatise when it worked fine in the first place. We are not there yet - but we could be.
On the surface the story looks pretty similar. Investment by private companies at the start, followed by nationalisation in the 20th century, then privatisation just before the turn of the century.
Indeed, but the privatisation was done better. Much better.
People forget just how bad ‘80s BR was, before privatisation.
Their own slogan was “We’re Getting There”, and the timetable was about as optional as the catering.
My train the other day was an hour and a half late. And it cost me £90.
And yet that's still better than what you'd have had under nationalised railways, and yet you want to keep our failing system instead of adopting a proper, privatised, functional, subsidy-free system whereby railways companies need to put YOU their consumer first to get their income instead of lobbying politicians to get it instead.
You are what, 39? Born around 1983? So about 11-14 when nationalisation came? Your personal experience of the nationalised railway wouyld have been, at most, ticking off loco names ...
I can tell you that in many ways BR was a lot easier to deal with than the chaos of nationalisation. Above all if you wanted long journeys other than simple commuter ratruns, or properly designed interiors, or connections which were held even if train 1 was a little late.
Probably easier to have nicely designed interiors for trains nobody is using. The proof is in the pudding, nationalisation failed.
Privatisation was only half-done, the rail lines themselves weren't privatised properly and that is where almost everyone seems to agree the problems are. Funny that.
Redo privatisation so its done properly, Japan-style. We need more privatisation not less.
The graph starts going up prior to privatisation. I've told you this before.
And you obviously don't use trains very much. I don't travel by SWR because I love the service, I travel that way because I have no choice.
You may have 'told us this before', but the increase was not much, especially with what happened afterwards. The idea that the railway's usage would have increased under a nationalised BR as it has since is slightly ridiculous. BR was managing a declining system.
It's also interesting to look at the reasons *why* the decline in passenger numbers ceased in the 1980s and 1990s - and a large one was the massive change in the internal organisation of BR under Thatcher.
Probably worth pointing out that the decline in passenger numbers under BR at various times as an explicit government policy to cut costs. Increase fares to price people off the railway to justify the budget caps.
And it works. Same under privatise operators at various times - the infamous Northern franchise let with zero growth in passenger numbers assumed. Numbers went up, found the trains full and unreliable, so amazingly enough numbers then went down.
The irony is that volume should drive costs down. Instead it does the opposite thanks to the lunatic cost of all the contracts...
If we privatised the railways here and removed all subsidies, we'd have no railways left.
Japan built their railways and maintained them via the Government for decades, easy to privatise when it worked fine in the first place. We are not there yet - but we could be.
On the surface the story looks pretty similar. Investment by private companies at the start, followed by nationalisation in the 20th century, then privatisation just before the turn of the century.
Indeed, but the privatisation was done better. Much better.
People forget just how bad ‘80s BR was, before privatisation.
Their own slogan was “We’re Getting There”, and the timetable was about as optional as the catering.
My train the other day was an hour and a half late. And it cost me £90.
And yet that's still better than what you'd have had under nationalised railways, and yet you want to keep our failing system instead of adopting a proper, privatised, functional, subsidy-free system whereby railways companies need to put YOU their consumer first to get their income instead of lobbying politicians to get it instead.
You are what, 39? Born around 1983? So about 11-14 when nationalisation came? Your personal experience of the nationalised railway wouyld have been, at most, ticking off loco names ...
I can tell you that in many ways BR was a lot easier to deal with than the chaos of nationalisation. Above all if you wanted long journeys other than simple commuter ratruns, or properly designed interiors, or connections which were held even if train 1 was a little late.
Probably easier to have nicely designed interiors for trains nobody is using. The proof is in the pudding, nationalisation failed.
Privatisation was only half-done, the rail lines themselves weren't privatised properly and that is where almost everyone seems to agree the problems are. Funny that.
Redo privatisation so its done properly, Japan-style. We need more privatisation not less.
The graph starts going up prior to privatisation. I've told you this before.
And you obviously don't use trains very much. I don't travel by SWR because I love the service, I travel that way because I have no choice.
You may have 'told us this before', but the increase was not much, especially with what happened afterwards. The idea that the railway's usage would have increased under a nationalised BR as it has since is slightly ridiculous. BR was managing a declining system.
It's also interesting to look at the reasons *why* the decline in passenger numbers ceased in the 1980s and 1990s - and a large one was the massive change in the internal organisation of BR under Thatcher.
Or perhaps an increase in commuting into London following the Big Bang.
That's an interesting call, but I doubt it would explain that much of an increase. It'd be interesting to see the data from back then broken up by line or sector. But as ever, it's likely to be a combination of factors.
Also nonsense, if my train is an hour and half late I can't do anything else because I have no other way to travel. There is no competition on railways. Privatisation is a con.
Yes it is, but you are wrong about competition. There is plenty of it - mostly vs non-rail. But many many routes have many competing operators. As you know when you calm down and think rather than hate-type
This is fictional competition.
Same line, same trains. In a lot of cases, same owner of the two companies!
I am passionate about this subject, I do not appreciate the snarky replies about just buy a car, I want to actually get the railways to be good.
If you want the railways to be good, then privatise them properly, Japan-style.
There they're not subsidised, they're ran well and more people use them.
But yes cars are a very sane alternative. As is commuting somewhere else instead and plenty of other viable alternatives for competition. There's no divine reason you need to be doing your existing commute, on the rails.
Ben Stokes has announced his shock retirement from one-day cricket and will play his final match at his home ground of Durham on Tuesday.
England’s Test captain, who famously led his country to glory in the 2019 World Cup final with an unforgettable performance, has decided that he can no longer give his all across all three formats.
The all-rounder, 31, said the idea was now “unsustainable” and hinted at the unacceptable toll of the England fixture list. He will take the field at Chester-le-Street against South Africa in the first of three ODIs.
Will it go? Gun to head I'd say yes, but somewhere a little north of London
My overall prediction for this heatwave was a max temp of 39.8C in London or Cambridgeshire; I made that several says ago, not bad. But I think 40C could topple! The excitement builds, with the heat
There's a decent chance it will be further north now. And almost certainly tomorrow.
My flat has now crept up to 30C indoors. Still quite tolerable. But hmm....
Several local records have already gone, according to Netweather
For a measure of this heatwave, we are already recording higher temps than any temps seen in the UK throughout the 1980s
If we privatised the railways here and removed all subsidies, we'd have no railways left.
Japan built their railways and maintained them via the Government for decades, easy to privatise when it worked fine in the first place. We are not there yet - but we could be.
On the surface the story looks pretty similar. Investment by private companies at the start, followed by nationalisation in the 20th century, then privatisation just before the turn of the century.
Indeed, but the privatisation was done better. Much better.
People forget just how bad ‘80s BR was, before privatisation.
Their own slogan was “We’re Getting There”, and the timetable was about as optional as the catering.
My train the other day was an hour and a half late. And it cost me £90.
And yet that's still better than what you'd have had under nationalised railways, and yet you want to keep our failing system instead of adopting a proper, privatised, functional, subsidy-free system whereby railways companies need to put YOU their consumer first to get their income instead of lobbying politicians to get it instead.
You are what, 39? Born around 1983? So about 11-14 when nationalisation came? Your personal experience of the nationalised railway wouyld have been, at most, ticking off loco names ...
I can tell you that in many ways BR was a lot easier to deal with than the chaos of nationalisation. Above all if you wanted long journeys other than simple commuter ratruns, or properly designed interiors, or connections which were held even if train 1 was a little late.
There is some truth to that, but I'd really argue with your last point. It was easier to hold a train for a late connection back in the 1980s, as there were far fewer trains. If a train ran on a line every hour, you could probably delay it for ten minutes to allow a late connection. If it runs every half-hour, delaying it ten minutes causes all sorts of chaos to the schedule with other trains on the line. The more trains there are, the greater the need to run to schedule.
You have missed the best part - delay attribution. It costs operators per minute of delay they are responsible for. So even if the branch line connecting train is the only one for x number of hours it won't be held if the connecting train is another operator running late.
Connection held: Branch line operator fined £300 a minute, passengers get to their destinations with minimal delay Connection not held: No fine to the branch line operator, intercity operator picks up the bill for delayed passengers getting a refund / taxi / hotel etc
The system is specifically designed to not hold connections. Because that is more efficient.
British trains often feel a bit cramped and for a long time I assumed Britain had a narrow gauge and therefore the carriages were narrower.
(As you can see I am not an engineer and know nothing about trains).
Having learned today that Britain is standard gauge, I presume therefore that the privatised operators merely pack the seating more densely.
As others have said, we (mostly) use a standard-gauge track. But we have a whole series of loading gauges - the profile the vehicle's body can fit into), most of which are more constrained that European or American practice. That's a result of building our railways first - and if you look at early railway wagons and locos, the loading gauge was massive in comparison.
Will it go? Gun to head I'd say yes, but somewhere a little north of London
My overall prediction for this heatwave was a max temp of 39.8C in London or Cambridgeshire; I made that several says ago, not bad. But I think 40C could topple! The excitement builds, with the heat
There's a decent chance it will be further north now. And almost certainly tomorrow.
My flat has now crept up to 30C indoors. Still quite tolerable. But hmm....
Several local records have already gone, according to Netweather
For a measure of this heatwave, we are already recording higher temps than any temps seen in the UK throughout the 1980s
Never mind your flat. My fish and chip shop is closed. Starvation looms.
Will it go? Gun to head I'd say yes, but somewhere a little north of London
My overall prediction for this heatwave was a max temp of 39.8C in London or Cambridgeshire; I made that several says ago, not bad. But I think 40C could topple! The excitement builds, with the heat
Charlwood in Surrey (close to Sussex border) has raised LHR at 35.4C. Anywhere hotter?
Also nonsense, if my train is an hour and half late I can't do anything else because I have no other way to travel. There is no competition on railways. Privatisation is a con.
Of course there is competition. You can drive, you can work from home, you can get a taxi, you can ride a bike. There's plenty of alternatives.
Railway passenger numbers literally more than doubled between privatisation and Covid. After they collapsed during the nationalisation days.
How, I don't own a car.
How, I have to go into the office on certain days.
How, a taxi is £100 each way.
How can you cycle 60 miles there and back each day.
There aren't any alternatives.
You not owning a car is a choice, you can always learn to drive, ride-share or similar.
You going into the office is a choice, you could always work elsewhere instead.
You getting a taxi is a choice. A ride-share would normally be considerably cheaper, as would driving typically, there's a reason drivers don't normally get taxis.
You working from home is an alternative choice.
There are many choices, all you're short of is your imagination.
There are many, many, many alternatives. Which is why the numbers have varied by over 100% variance from privatisation to date
ROFL you are such a muppet on this Bart. Embarrassing drivel.
No, you are.
In almost all the country anyone who wants to go into work has to not just pay their own way to do so, but has to more than pay their own way since transportation is so heavily taxed, not subsidised.
Why should your commute be subsidised while other people's commutes are taxed? If you can't afford to commute into wherever you're commuting to, maybe you shouldn't be working there? That's the choice most of the nation faces.
Why should someone in Wigan commuting by car to their workplace not just pay their own commute, but subsidise your commute too?
Whilst I can understand this argument, you are being fabulously selective. Why should tax payer A pay for tax payer B's expensive operation?
Just left the back bedroom to do a few lunchtime jobs. It's ... really pleasant. Lovely. Give me a month of this (albeit with the odd massive downpour to top up the reservoirs). Even the back bedroom, which is the hottest room of the house, is not stultifying. I could happily snooze in this, given the chance. Now granted it's only 32, and forecast to get a few degrees hotter. But still. It's a perfect summer's day. Wife and #1 daughter on the other hand are not enjoying it one bit.
Also nonsense, if my train is an hour and half late I can't do anything else because I have no other way to travel. There is no competition on railways. Privatisation is a con.
Of course there is competition. You can drive, you can work from home, you can get a taxi, you can ride a bike. There's plenty of alternatives.
Railway passenger numbers literally more than doubled between privatisation and Covid. After they collapsed during the nationalisation days.
How, I don't own a car.
How, I have to go into the office on certain days.
How, a taxi is £100 each way.
How can you cycle 60 miles there and back each day.
There aren't any alternatives.
You not owning a car is a choice, you can always learn to drive, ride-share or similar.
You going into the office is a choice, you could always work elsewhere instead.
You getting a taxi is a choice. A ride-share would normally be considerably cheaper, as would driving typically, there's a reason drivers don't normally get taxis.
You working from home is an alternative choice.
There are many choices, all you're short of is your imagination.
There are many, many, many alternatives. Which is why the numbers have varied by over 100% variance from privatisation to date
ROFL you are such a muppet on this Bart. Embarrassing drivel.
No, you are.
In almost all the country anyone who wants to go into work has to not just pay their own way to do so, but has to more than pay their own way since transportation is so heavily taxed, not subsidised.
Why should your commute be subsidised while other people's commutes are taxed? If you can't afford to commute into wherever you're commuting to, maybe you shouldn't be working there? That's the choice most of the nation faces.
Why should someone in Wigan commuting by car to their workplace not just pay their own commute, but subsidise your commute too?
Whilst I can understand this argument, you are being fabulously selective. Why should tax payer A pay for tax payer B's expensive operation?
Because everyone's operation is covered. Healthcare is covered.
Transportation isn't. Instead some people's choice of transportation is covered, while everyone else's is taxed instead because transportation is a private not a public good.
People who choose rail over cars shouldn't be subsidised for their choice, it was their choice, they should pay for their own choice just as everyone else does.
PPC for Notts banned from driving for 6 months for 5 speeding offences in 12 months. In fairness, she did campaign on a crackdown on speeding. Most efficient.
According to the Met Office as I understand it, the figures are only going to rise about 2 degrees on now over the course of the afternoon in various places. So if you can manage now, you can probably manage at 5.
British trains often feel a bit cramped and for a long time I assumed Britain had a narrow gauge and therefore the carriages were narrower.
(As you can see I am not an engineer and know nothing about trains).
Having learned today that Britain is standard gauge, I presume therefore that the privatised operators merely pack the seating more densely.
Standard gauge for the line but it's very small gauge for loading because the tunnels are so small.
We could therefore not support double decker trains, except for on HS1, HS2 and I assume the Elizabeth Line (but only in the new tunnel)
We have actually had double-decker trains on the Southern Railway. They were not an unqualified success, for AIUI an odd reason: the need to get down the stairs increased the dwell time at each station, meaning that the Southern's commuter-style railway with frequent station stops negated the benefits of increased passenger numbers on an individual train. You got more people on a train, but as it took longer to make the journey, you could fit fewer trains on the network.
Obvious trends and sub-plots. Looks like there really was a golden Edwardian era before WW1: all those ladies with white parasols. It is noticeably warm
Camden Square used to be a major weather station!
There is a distinct mid-century cooling off, the 1950s-60s are a bit rubbish, likewise the 1980s
But in the 1990s it perhaps begins to pick up and the global warming trend is surely discernible from about 2000 onwards, esp the last decade. And today
(Also some weird anomalies. Hottest place in 1979? Poolewe in the Scottish Highlands - 28.8C. In 1980, Cors Fochno in Dyfed, 29.4C)
Trevelyan has knifed Mordaunt on LBC. Went AWOL and other ministers had to pick up the pieces, apparently.
I have been fascinated at what appears to be the depth of sheer dislike for Mordaunt. It seems to go beyond genuine policy disagreement and more into a need to take her down and humiliate her. Wonder what the background is to all this.
Will it go? Gun to head I'd say yes, but somewhere a little north of London
My overall prediction for this heatwave was a max temp of 39.8C in London or Cambridgeshire; I made that several says ago, not bad. But I think 40C could topple! The excitement builds, with the heat
Charlwood in Surrey (close to Sussex border) has raised LHR at 35.4C. Anywhere hotter?
Also nonsense, if my train is an hour and half late I can't do anything else because I have no other way to travel. There is no competition on railways. Privatisation is a con.
Of course there is competition. You can drive, you can work from home, you can get a taxi, you can ride a bike. There's plenty of alternatives.
Railway passenger numbers literally more than doubled between privatisation and Covid. After they collapsed during the nationalisation days.
How, I don't own a car.
How, I have to go into the office on certain days.
How, a taxi is £100 each way.
How can you cycle 60 miles there and back each day.
There aren't any alternatives.
You not owning a car is a choice, you can always learn to drive, ride-share or similar.
You going into the office is a choice, you could always work elsewhere instead.
You getting a taxi is a choice. A ride-share would normally be considerably cheaper, as would driving typically, there's a reason drivers don't normally get taxis.
You working from home is an alternative choice.
There are many choices, all you're short of is your imagination.
There are many, many, many alternatives. Which is why the numbers have varied by over 100% variance from privatisation to date
ROFL you are such a muppet on this Bart. Embarrassing drivel.
No, you are.
In almost all the country anyone who wants to go into work has to not just pay their own way to do so, but has to more than pay their own way since transportation is so heavily taxed, not subsidised.
Why should your commute be subsidised while other people's commutes are taxed? If you can't afford to commute into wherever you're commuting to, maybe you shouldn't be working there? That's the choice most of the nation faces.
Why should someone in Wigan commuting by car to their workplace not just pay their own commute, but subsidise your commute too?
Whilst I can understand this argument, you are being fabulously selective. Why should tax payer A pay for tax payer B's expensive operation?
If taxpayer A is subsidising healthcare for taxpayer B, taxpayer A is richer.
Rail travellers are better off on average than drivers.
Also nonsense, if my train is an hour and half late I can't do anything else because I have no other way to travel. There is no competition on railways. Privatisation is a con.
Of course there is competition. You can drive, you can work from home, you can get a taxi, you can ride a bike. There's plenty of alternatives.
Railway passenger numbers literally more than doubled between privatisation and Covid. After they collapsed during the nationalisation days.
How, I don't own a car.
How, I have to go into the office on certain days.
How, a taxi is £100 each way.
How can you cycle 60 miles there and back each day.
There aren't any alternatives.
You not owning a car is a choice, you can always learn to drive, ride-share or similar.
You going into the office is a choice, you could always work elsewhere instead.
You getting a taxi is a choice. A ride-share would normally be considerably cheaper, as would driving typically, there's a reason drivers don't normally get taxis.
You working from home is an alternative choice.
There are many choices, all you're short of is your imagination.
There are many, many, many alternatives. Which is why the numbers have varied by over 100% variance from privatisation to date
ROFL you are such a muppet on this Bart. Embarrassing drivel.
No, you are.
In almost all the country anyone who wants to go into work has to not just pay their own way to do so, but has to more than pay their own way since transportation is so heavily taxed, not subsidised.
Why should your commute be subsidised while other people's commutes are taxed? If you can't afford to commute into wherever you're commuting to, maybe you shouldn't be working there? That's the choice most of the nation faces.
Why should someone in Wigan commuting by car to their workplace not just pay their own commute, but subsidise your commute too?
Whilst I can understand this argument, you are being fabulously selective. Why should tax payer A pay for tax payer B's expensive operation?
Because everyone's operation is covered. Healthcare is covered.
Transportation isn't. Instead some people's choice of transportation is covered, while everyone else's is taxed instead because transportation is a private not a public good.
People who choose rail over cars shouldn't be subsidised for their choice, it was their choice, they should pay for their own choice just as everyone else does.
Healthcare is not covered, it is subsidised. Some people's choices / luck make them more expensive for the NHS, so they are directly subsidised by the healthy.
I don't have a problem with you making extreme libertarian arguments, but you have to be universal if you don't want to come across sounding like Bulgy the Bus as you do now.
Trevelyan has knifed Mordaunt on LBC. Went AWOL and other ministers had to pick up the pieces, apparently.
I have been fascinated at what appears to be the depth of sheer dislike for Mordaunt. It seems to go beyond genuine policy disagreement and more into a need to take her down and humiliate her. Wonder what the background is to all this.
Surprise frontrunner, better emotional skills than the others, focused suspicion on her intellectual rather than emotional skills, sometimes blending into misogyny here and there. Plus with all her talk of a broken dirigiste and not sufficiently consensual and collaborative political system, the right of the party is suspicious of her ultimate agenda, wherever she decides to land it.
Will it go? Gun to head I'd say yes, but somewhere a little north of London
My overall prediction for this heatwave was a max temp of 39.8C in London or Cambridgeshire; I made that several says ago, not bad. But I think 40C could topple! The excitement builds, with the heat
There's a decent chance it will be further north now. And almost certainly tomorrow.
My flat has now crept up to 30C indoors. Still quite tolerable. But hmm....
Several local records have already gone, according to Netweather
For a measure of this heatwave, we are already recording higher temps than any temps seen in the UK throughout the 1980s
Yes. I linked to a chart the other day showing the hottest temperature every year in the UK back to 1900. What was noticeable was a year without anywhere reaching 30°C wasn't unusual at all. Last time was 1993.
Trevelyan has knifed Mordaunt on LBC. Went AWOL and other ministers had to pick up the pieces, apparently.
I have been fascinated at what appears to be the depth of sheer dislike for Mordaunt. It seems to go beyond genuine policy disagreement and more into a need to take her down and humiliate her. Wonder what the background is to all this.
In a way it's probably a good thing for the Tories to cancel the next debate because I don't think it's doing any good for the party in the country. Shame.......
Obvious trends and sub-plots. Looks like there really was a golden Edwardian era before WW1: all those ladies with white parasols. It is noticeably warm
Camden Square used to be a major weather station!
There is a distinct mid-century cooling off, the 1950s-60s are a bit rubbish, likewise the 1980s
But in the 1990s it perhaps begins to pick up and the global warming trend is surely discernible from about 2000 onwards, esp the last decade. And today
Yes, I took Trevor's data in 2018 and tried to work out the return period for 40C. There isn't really a big enough sample but it does look like a normal distribution. There was no statistically significant trend over the dataset and the return period for 40C was well over 1000 years.
I'll have to update this for 2019 (new record) and 2022 (new record).
The 42C being forecast for tomorrow would be *extraordinary*.
It might be that the distribution has a longer tail than expected, but still, I would not have seen this coming.
Will it go? Gun to head I'd say yes, but somewhere a little north of London
My overall prediction for this heatwave was a max temp of 39.8C in London or Cambridgeshire; I made that several says ago, not bad. But I think 40C could topple! The excitement builds, with the heat
Charlwood in Surrey (close to Sussex border) has raised LHR at 35.4C. Anywhere hotter?
Staines (unofficial) claims 36C
I think we might just fall short of the record, today
Will it go? Gun to head I'd say yes, but somewhere a little north of London
My overall prediction for this heatwave was a max temp of 39.8C in London or Cambridgeshire; I made that several says ago, not bad. But I think 40C could topple! The excitement builds, with the heat
There's a decent chance it will be further north now. And almost certainly tomorrow.
My flat has now crept up to 30C indoors. Still quite tolerable. But hmm....
Several local records have already gone, according to Netweather
For a measure of this heatwave, we are already recording higher temps than any temps seen in the UK throughout the 1980s
Never mind your flat. My fish and chip shop is closed. Starvation looms.
Fried heavy food in this weather....I couldn't think of anything worse.
If we privatised the railways here and removed all subsidies, we'd have no railways left.
Japan built their railways and maintained them via the Government for decades, easy to privatise when it worked fine in the first place. We are not there yet - but we could be.
On the surface the story looks pretty similar. Investment by private companies at the start, followed by nationalisation in the 20th century, then privatisation just before the turn of the century.
Indeed, but the privatisation was done better. Much better.
People forget just how bad ‘80s BR was, before privatisation.
Their own slogan was “We’re Getting There”, and the timetable was about as optional as the catering.
My train the other day was an hour and a half late. And it cost me £90.
And yet that's still better than what you'd have had under nationalised railways, and yet you want to keep our failing system instead of adopting a proper, privatised, functional, subsidy-free system whereby railways companies need to put YOU their consumer first to get their income instead of lobbying politicians to get it instead.
You are what, 39? Born around 1983? So about 11-14 when nationalisation came? Your personal experience of the nationalised railway wouyld have been, at most, ticking off loco names ...
I can tell you that in many ways BR was a lot easier to deal with than the chaos of nationalisation. Above all if you wanted long journeys other than simple commuter ratruns, or properly designed interiors, or connections which were held even if train 1 was a little late.
There is some truth to that, but I'd really argue with your last point. It was easier to hold a train for a late connection back in the 1980s, as there were far fewer trains. If a train ran on a line every hour, you could probably delay it for ten minutes to allow a late connection. If it runs every half-hour, delaying it ten minutes causes all sorts of chaos to the schedule with other trains on the line. The more trains there are, the greater the need to run to schedule.
You have missed the best part - delay attribution. It costs operators per minute of delay they are responsible for. So even if the branch line connecting train is the only one for x number of hours it won't be held if the connecting train is another operator running late.
Connection held: Branch line operator fined £300 a minute, passengers get to their destinations with minimal delay Connection not held: No fine to the branch line operator, intercity operator picks up the bill for delayed passengers getting a refund / taxi / hotel etc
The system is specifically designed to not hold connections. Because that is more efficient.
Delay attribution is brilliant.
Why?
In the good old days of BR, there would be a problem on the line. The infrastructure peeps would throw a TSR (Temporary Speed Restriction) onto the line, for instance saying that trains could go at a maximum of 50MPH instead of 100MPH.
Obviously, the problem needs fixing. But the trains are still running, and the infrastructure peeps are watching their budget. The operations dept. do not want to pay for the work either. So the TSR remains, and it eventually becomes a PSR (Permanent Speed Restriction).
The same with operations failures: if a train breaks down, it does not cost the operator much. Most passengers do not claim refunds, so it is just an inconvenience of calling out a rescue loco. So a fleet-wide issue that increases failure by 1% does not get fixed.
But delay attribution comes in (and AIUI it was being brought in by BR *before* privatisation, once the computer system were powerful enough to allow it).
Now the infrastructure peeps get charged for the delay caused by that TSR. It comes out of their budget. They now look at it and say, "bu**e,r we'd better fix it." Likewise, it is in the operator's interest to do the work to increase reliability, as it costs them if they cause delays.
Delay attribution has been a massive positive for the railways. By all means simplify it, but getting rid of it would be incredibly stupid.
Trevelyan has knifed Mordaunt on LBC. Went AWOL and other ministers had to pick up the pieces, apparently.
I have been fascinated at what appears to be the depth of sheer dislike for Mordaunt. It seems to go beyond genuine policy disagreement and more into a need to take her down and humiliate her. Wonder what the background is to all this.
She is a liar (cf turkey and eu), but I suppose in the modern day Tory party that's not saying much.
Also nonsense, if my train is an hour and half late I can't do anything else because I have no other way to travel. There is no competition on railways. Privatisation is a con.
Of course there is competition. You can drive, you can work from home, you can get a taxi, you can ride a bike. There's plenty of alternatives.
Railway passenger numbers literally more than doubled between privatisation and Covid. After they collapsed during the nationalisation days.
How, I don't own a car.
How, I have to go into the office on certain days.
How, a taxi is £100 each way.
How can you cycle 60 miles there and back each day.
There aren't any alternatives.
You not owning a car is a choice, you can always learn to drive, ride-share or similar.
You going into the office is a choice, you could always work elsewhere instead.
You getting a taxi is a choice. A ride-share would normally be considerably cheaper, as would driving typically, there's a reason drivers don't normally get taxis.
You working from home is an alternative choice.
There are many choices, all you're short of is your imagination.
There are many, many, many alternatives. Which is why the numbers have varied by over 100% variance from privatisation to date
ROFL you are such a muppet on this Bart. Embarrassing drivel.
No, you are.
In almost all the country anyone who wants to go into work has to not just pay their own way to do so, but has to more than pay their own way since transportation is so heavily taxed, not subsidised.
Why should your commute be subsidised while other people's commutes are taxed? If you can't afford to commute into wherever you're commuting to, maybe you shouldn't be working there? That's the choice most of the nation faces.
Why should someone in Wigan commuting by car to their workplace not just pay their own commute, but subsidise your commute too?
Whilst I can understand this argument, you are being fabulously selective. Why should tax payer A pay for tax payer B's expensive operation?
Because everyone's operation is covered. Healthcare is covered.
Transportation isn't. Instead some people's choice of transportation is covered, while everyone else's is taxed instead because transportation is a private not a public good.
People who choose rail over cars shouldn't be subsidised for their choice, it was their choice, they should pay for their own choice just as everyone else does.
Healthcare is not covered, it is subsidised. Some people's choices / luck make them more expensive for the NHS, so they are directly subsidised by the healthy.
I don't have a problem with you making extreme libertarian arguments, but you have to be universal if you don't want to come across sounding like Bulgy the Bus as you do now.
Only caricatures are universally consistent.
If I wanted to take my libertarian principles to extremes I'd abolish healthcare coverage. I'm happy to see healthcare covered despite my principles, not because of them.
But not transportation. Transportation is a private good. @CorrectHorseBattery getting into work is his own commute, not a public good, he gets paid for it, he should pay for his commute - just the same as absolutely everyone else in the rest of the country does.
"Public transport" in almost all the country is busses, not rails. Rail commuters tend to be richer and wealthier than the average, yet are so conceited and selfish they expect to be subsidised anyway rather than paying their own way.
Trevelyan has knifed Mordaunt on LBC. Went AWOL and other ministers had to pick up the pieces, apparently.
I have been fascinated at what appears to be the depth of sheer dislike for Mordaunt. It seems to go beyond genuine policy disagreement and more into a need to take her down and humiliate her. Wonder what the background is to all this.
It does rather appear that everyone who’s actually worked with her, doesn’t have a good word to say.
If we privatised the railways here and removed all subsidies, we'd have no railways left.
Japan built their railways and maintained them via the Government for decades, easy to privatise when it worked fine in the first place. We are not there yet - but we could be.
On the surface the story looks pretty similar. Investment by private companies at the start, followed by nationalisation in the 20th century, then privatisation just before the turn of the century.
Indeed, but the privatisation was done better. Much better.
People forget just how bad ‘80s BR was, before privatisation.
Their own slogan was “We’re Getting There”, and the timetable was about as optional as the catering.
My train the other day was an hour and a half late. And it cost me £90.
And yet that's still better than what you'd have had under nationalised railways, and yet you want to keep our failing system instead of adopting a proper, privatised, functional, subsidy-free system whereby railways companies need to put YOU their consumer first to get their income instead of lobbying politicians to get it instead.
You are what, 39? Born around 1983? So about 11-14 when nationalisation came? Your personal experience of the nationalised railway wouyld have been, at most, ticking off loco names ...
I can tell you that in many ways BR was a lot easier to deal with than the chaos of nationalisation. Above all if you wanted long journeys other than simple commuter ratruns, or properly designed interiors, or connections which were held even if train 1 was a little late.
There is some truth to that, but I'd really argue with your last point. It was easier to hold a train for a late connection back in the 1980s, as there were far fewer trains. If a train ran on a line every hour, you could probably delay it for ten minutes to allow a late connection. If it runs every half-hour, delaying it ten minutes causes all sorts of chaos to the schedule with other trains on the line. The more trains there are, the greater the need to run to schedule.
You have missed the best part - delay attribution. It costs operators per minute of delay they are responsible for. So even if the branch line connecting train is the only one for x number of hours it won't be held if the connecting train is another operator running late.
Connection held: Branch line operator fined £300 a minute, passengers get to their destinations with minimal delay Connection not held: No fine to the branch line operator, intercity operator picks up the bill for delayed passengers getting a refund / taxi / hotel etc
The system is specifically designed to not hold connections. Because that is more efficient.
Delay attribution is brilliant.
Why?
In the good old days of BR, there would be a problem on the line. The infrastructure peeps would throw a TSR (Temporary Speed Restriction) onto the line, for instance saying that trains could go at a maximum of 50MPH instead of 100MPH.
Obviously, the problem needs fixing. But the trains are still running, and the infrastructure peeps are watching their budget. The operations dept. do not want to pay for the work either. So the TSR remains, and it eventually becomes a PSR (Permanent Speed Restriction).
The same with operations failures: if a train breaks down, it does not cost the operator much. Most passengers do not claim refunds, so it is just an inconvenience of calling out a rescue loco. So a fleet-wide issue that increases failure by 1% does not get fixed.
But delay attribution comes in (and AIUI it was being brought in by BR *before* privatisation, once the computer system were powerful enough to allow it).
Now the infrastructure peeps get charged for the delay caused by that TSR. It comes out of their budget. They now look at it and say, "bu**e,r we'd better fix it." Likewise, it is in the operator's interest to do the work to increase reliability, as it costs them if they cause delays.
Delay attribution has been a massive positive for the railways. By all means simplify it, but getting rid of it would be incredibly stupid.
I've mentioned this before, but one of the East Coast operators failed because they'd banked on NR being a bit shit and factored in lots of schedule 8 payments. In reality, NR did quite well and the TOC went under.
Penny needs to sack whoever is doing her social media. That's the worst pie chart I've ever seen.
All Penny's graphics and bits and bobs are a bit rubbish and '10 years ago' too. Not sure whether that's a good thing under the circs, or something she should have addressed.
Trevelyan has knifed Mordaunt on LBC. Went AWOL and other ministers had to pick up the pieces, apparently.
I have been fascinated at what appears to be the depth of sheer dislike for Mordaunt. It seems to go beyond genuine policy disagreement and more into a need to take her down and humiliate her. Wonder what the background is to all this.
A lot of people can say goodbye to their Ministerial careers.
British trains often feel a bit cramped and for a long time I assumed Britain had a narrow gauge and therefore the carriages were narrower.
(As you can see I am not an engineer and know nothing about trains).
Having learned today that Britain is standard gauge, I presume therefore that the privatised operators merely pack the seating more densely.
I visited the Railway Museum in York a few weeks ago and came to the conclusion, judging by the seats in the vintage carriages, that people are much wider nowadays.
British trains often feel a bit cramped and for a long time I assumed Britain had a narrow gauge and therefore the carriages were narrower.
(As you can see I am not an engineer and know nothing about trains).
Having learned today that Britain is standard gauge, I presume therefore that the privatised operators merely pack the seating more densely.
Standard gauge for the line but it's very small gauge for loading because the tunnels are so small.
We could therefore not support double decker trains, except for on HS1, HS2 and I assume the Elizabeth Line (but only in the new tunnel)
We have actually had double-decker trains on the Southern Railway. They were not an unqualified success, for AIUI an odd reason: the need to get down the stairs increased the dwell time at each station, meaning that the Southern's commuter-style railway with frequent station stops negated the benefits of increased passenger numbers on an individual train. You got more people on a train, but as it took longer to make the journey, you could fit fewer trains on the network.
If you look at the 4DD's arrangement, that might have been difficult ...
But on the whole: have double-decker platforms for one line ever been tried anywhere? I can't think of it. The guard would have a bit of a job as well...
(Some stations have two decks, but with separate lines on each deck.)
If we privatised the railways here and removed all subsidies, we'd have no railways left.
Japan built their railways and maintained them via the Government for decades, easy to privatise when it worked fine in the first place. We are not there yet - but we could be.
On the surface the story looks pretty similar. Investment by private companies at the start, followed by nationalisation in the 20th century, then privatisation just before the turn of the century.
Indeed, but the privatisation was done better. Much better.
People forget just how bad ‘80s BR was, before privatisation.
Their own slogan was “We’re Getting There”, and the timetable was about as optional as the catering.
My train the other day was an hour and a half late. And it cost me £90.
And yet that's still better than what you'd have had under nationalised railways, and yet you want to keep our failing system instead of adopting a proper, privatised, functional, subsidy-free system whereby railways companies need to put YOU their consumer first to get their income instead of lobbying politicians to get it instead.
You are what, 39? Born around 1983? So about 11-14 when nationalisation came? Your personal experience of the nationalised railway wouyld have been, at most, ticking off loco names ...
I can tell you that in many ways BR was a lot easier to deal with than the chaos of nationalisation. Above all if you wanted long journeys other than simple commuter ratruns, or properly designed interiors, or connections which were held even if train 1 was a little late.
There is some truth to that, but I'd really argue with your last point. It was easier to hold a train for a late connection back in the 1980s, as there were far fewer trains. If a train ran on a line every hour, you could probably delay it for ten minutes to allow a late connection. If it runs every half-hour, delaying it ten minutes causes all sorts of chaos to the schedule with other trains on the line. The more trains there are, the greater the need to run to schedule.
You have missed the best part - delay attribution. It costs operators per minute of delay they are responsible for. So even if the branch line connecting train is the only one for x number of hours it won't be held if the connecting train is another operator running late.
Connection held: Branch line operator fined £300 a minute, passengers get to their destinations with minimal delay Connection not held: No fine to the branch line operator, intercity operator picks up the bill for delayed passengers getting a refund / taxi / hotel etc
The system is specifically designed to not hold connections. Because that is more efficient.
Delay attribution is brilliant.
Why?
In the good old days of BR, there would be a problem on the line. The infrastructure peeps would throw a TSR (Temporary Speed Restriction) onto the line, for instance saying that trains could go at a maximum of 50MPH instead of 100MPH.
Obviously, the problem needs fixing. But the trains are still running, and the infrastructure peeps are watching their budget. The operations dept. do not want to pay for the work either. So the TSR remains, and it eventually becomes a PSR (Permanent Speed Restriction).
The same with operations failures: if a train breaks down, it does not cost the operator much. Most passengers do not claim refunds, so it is just an inconvenience of calling out a rescue loco. So a fleet-wide issue that increases failure by 1% does not get fixed.
But delay attribution comes in (and AIUI it was being brought in by BR *before* privatisation, once the computer system were powerful enough to allow it).
Now the infrastructure peeps get charged for the delay caused by that TSR. It comes out of their budget. They now look at it and say, "bu**e,r we'd better fix it." Likewise, it is in the operator's interest to do the work to increase reliability, as it costs them if they cause delays.
Delay attribution has been a massive positive for the railways. By all means simplify it, but getting rid of it would be incredibly stupid.
The concept is fine, the application less fine. In my example lets assume that the late-running intercity service was because of something in their control. They have to pay for their delay. Which is fine.
The problem is that the passengers suffer because the other company decided to send the connection. Watching it pull out as you pull in - with the next one hours away - is a uniquely frustrating experience.
Especially when its a branch train with buckets of padding in its own schedule. So the delayed start won't cause problems.
Delay attribution could be used to maintain connections. Instead it does the opposite.
One problem with official met office stats is there's an absolute dearth of official measurement in some places. The south looks absolubtely caked in measurements whereas there's nothing anywhere near Doncaster which looks like it might be one of the hottest places (According to ECMWF) in the country tommorow.
Trevelyan has knifed Mordaunt on LBC. Went AWOL and other ministers had to pick up the pieces, apparently.
I have been fascinated at what appears to be the depth of sheer dislike for Mordaunt. It seems to go beyond genuine policy disagreement and more into a need to take her down and humiliate her. Wonder what the background is to all this.
Surprise frontrunner, better emotional skills than other politicians, focused suspicion of her intellectual rather than emotional skills, sometimes blending into misogyny here and there. Plus with all her talk of a broken dirigiste and not sufficiently consensual and collaborative political system, the right of the party is suspicious of her ultimate agenda, wherever she decides to land it.
Quite likely all true. Still I think this goes to show just how problematic the divisions in the Tory Party are, that they feel the need to destroy and diminish one of their promising talents. This isn’t the party that Cameron, Osborne et al built in the mid noughties.
Trevelyan has knifed Mordaunt on LBC. Went AWOL and other ministers had to pick up the pieces, apparently.
I have been fascinated at what appears to be the depth of sheer dislike for Mordaunt. It seems to go beyond genuine policy disagreement and more into a need to take her down and humiliate her. Wonder what the background is to all this.
I think the speech that was unearthed in which she said she'd have to be sneaky to get her agenda implemented did her few favours. People expect sneaky, but don't expect politicians to be so brazen about it.
Obvious trends and sub-plots. Looks like there really was a golden Edwardian era before WW1: all those ladies with white parasols. It is noticeably warm
Camden Square used to be a major weather station!
There is a distinct mid-century cooling off, the 1950s-60s are a bit rubbish, likewise the 1980s
But in the 1990s it perhaps begins to pick up and the global warming trend is surely discernible from about 2000 onwards, esp the last decade. And today
(Also some weird anomalies. Hottest place in 1979? Poolewe in the Scottish Highlands - 28.8C. In 1980, Cors Fochno in Dyfed, 29.4C)
The Go Between, published 1953, set Edwardian, makes the "grate heat" a major plot point.
Trevelyan has knifed Mordaunt on LBC. Went AWOL and other ministers had to pick up the pieces, apparently.
I have been fascinated at what appears to be the depth of sheer dislike for Mordaunt. It seems to go beyond genuine policy disagreement and more into a need to take her down and humiliate her. Wonder what the background is to all this.
Anne Marie Trevelyan is on the right-right. Former, if not current, climate change skeptic and enthusiastic ERGer.
That doesn’t mean she’s wrong about Mordaunt, but it might be part of the explanation.
~35C around London in various spots. At this rate the all-time record will get smashed
Have you got air conditioning?
Nope. One Dyson fan. But my flat is "just" 28C and that temp doesn't seem to be moving, so all the good advice here and elsewhere has worked
It's perfectly comfortable to sit here in the shade and type, in my shorts. Thick Georgian walls probably help, and maybe high ceilings? Dunno
But I can *sense* the heat out there, lurking beyond my blinds
If it is 35C now and we have 3-4 more hours of warming - the highest temp is usually at 4-6pm in these conditions - then the record should fall easily. The question then is: 40C?
Why not pop out and have a few tinnies up on Primrose Hill?
According to the Met Office as I understand it, the figures are only going to rise about 2 degrees on now over the course of the afternoon in various places. So if you can manage now, you can probably manage at 5.
Yes but remember your home is slowly heating up and will be slow to cool.
What makes the make up of the panel correct? Are they conscious about regional biases?
It's not a balanced sample but it is consistent and doesn't allow double voting or other manipulation.
So all the flaws of a focus group?
As we are seeing from PB, people viewing the real world through the prism of what is good for their “favourite”. Some media and the campaigns themselves are weighing in behind these surveys as though, as Beth would say “we know what the members are thinking in that scenario”. I’m not sure we do.
And do we know how many members comprise the electorate? Anything between 100,000 and 200,000 is not the most accurate of measurement. Does the Conservative Psrty have a central database - will we even know what turnout was in this election?
~35C around London in various spots. At this rate the all-time record will get smashed
Have you got air conditioning?
Nope. One Dyson fan. But my flat is "just" 28C and that temp doesn't seem to be moving, so all the good advice here and elsewhere has worked
It's perfectly comfortable to sit here in the shade and type, in my shorts. Thick Georgian walls probably help, and maybe high ceilings? Dunno
But I can *sense* the heat out there, lurking beyond my blinds
If it is 35C now and we have 3-4 more hours of warming - the highest temp is usually at 4-6pm in these conditions - then the record should fall easily. The question then is: 40C?
Why not pop out and have a few tinnies up on Primrose Hill?
I'm off to a beautiful little pub near Regent's Park in a minute. Got a 2 hectare arboretum, a full size ice castle and English Fizz Fountains
Trevelyan has knifed Mordaunt on LBC. Went AWOL and other ministers had to pick up the pieces, apparently.
I have been fascinated at what appears to be the depth of sheer dislike for Mordaunt. It seems to go beyond genuine policy disagreement and more into a need to take her down and humiliate her. Wonder what the background is to all this.
It does rather appear that everyone who’s actually worked with her, doesn’t have a good word to say.
Quite, and there might be something in that. But the way to go about that is to refuse to endorse them and let that speak for itself. It’s not to go on the airwaves to trash talk them, not in an internal process.
Maybe I’m just being old fashioned, I just find it difficult to believe this would have happened even 5 years ago.
Trevelyan has knifed Mordaunt on LBC. Went AWOL and other ministers had to pick up the pieces, apparently.
I have been fascinated at what appears to be the depth of sheer dislike for Mordaunt. It seems to go beyond genuine policy disagreement and more into a need to take her down and humiliate her. Wonder what the background is to all this.
It does rather appear that everyone who’s actually worked with her, doesn’t have a good word to say.
Same with Boris but he still won. Are Conservative MPs once bitten, twice shy?
Trevelyan has knifed Mordaunt on LBC. Went AWOL and other ministers had to pick up the pieces, apparently.
I have been fascinated at what appears to be the depth of sheer dislike for Mordaunt. It seems to go beyond genuine policy disagreement and more into a need to take her down and humiliate her. Wonder what the background is to all this.
A lot of people can say goodbye to their Ministerial careers.
But then, I suspect they knew that.
I think it might be different tribes. Puzzles me how David Davis who worked with her has nothing but great things to say, and Lord Frost who worked with her has nothing but bad things to say. I think we need to hear from the Magician she insisted. 'Always disappearing' would I suppose be more of a benefit in that role though.
One problem with official met office stats is there's an absolute dearth of official measurement in some places. The south looks absolubtely caked in measurements whereas there's nothing anywhere near Doncaster which looks like it might be one of the hottest places (According to ECMWF) in the country tommorow.
I know the manager of the Met Office station network and I have pointed this out to him more than once.
The issue is not really Doncaster itself but the whole area of low lying land south of the Humber / Ouse, some of which is below sea level (hence Flatlander).
There used to be official stations at Bawtry (on the Notts border) and Finningley airport (a bit higher and on the sand), but there really is nothing now. Finningley still publishes readings but they aren't from an official station and the exposure is poor. Gringley on the Hill, is, well, on a hill.
The only representative station is at Cawood agricultural research station nr Selby but that's quite a long way north.
@Steven_Swinford Sounds like Tom Tugendhat has already lost quite a few of his 32 backers ahead of tonight's vote
Team Mordaunt thinks that they're going to pick up a fair few of them - enough to retain a lead over Truss
Others are going over to Sunak
Team Pen would tell the world that of course wether truth or not, but she has not performed well since the last voting 😟 and not to forget Bravermans voters as well as Tom’s, considering Badenoch momentum has wilted under scrutiny too this weekend.
There were posters on here, rather boringly in the early excitement saying it will drift to a Sunak Truss run off longer it goes on? Looks like they have been proved right, thanks to Penny underperforming 🙁
Comments
https://www.netweather.tv/live-weather/map
Alternatives to the met office wow site which seems to be buckling under the strain
I am not aware of one.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/18/opinion/putin-russia-ukraine-winning.html
It's also interesting to look at the reasons *why* the decline in passenger numbers ceased in the 1980s and 1990s - and a large one was the massive change in the internal organisation of BR under Thatcher.
Odd way of looking at the world.
(edit - why does autocorrect default to adding apostrophes where they're not wanted ?)
They are now desperately trying to claw back money and the service has taken a hit in return.
If it was nationalised today, would make no difference beyond the money not going to the Hong Kong Metro and SNCF. I sure do love paying for their new railways.
SWR is going slowly bust. You can see this by the fact they've given up refurbishing the trains.
https://mobile.twitter.com/DmitryOpines/status/1548988107080491008
Another weapons dump on fire this morning, now that’s what winning looks like.
Oh, and the British M270 just turned up, to rain Hell from 50 miles away.
You going into the office is a choice, you could always work elsewhere instead.
You getting a taxi is a choice. A ride-share would normally be considerably cheaper, as would driving typically, there's a reason drivers don't normally get taxis.
You working from home is an alternative choice.
There are many choices, all you're short of is your imagination.
There are many, many, many alternatives. Which is why the numbers have varied by over 100% variance from privatisation to date
Yet under privatisation it has failed three times.
This is ideology above all else.
I don't think we should nationalise the energy companies - but the trains, yes.
In fairness, she did campaign on a crackdown on speeding. Most efficient.
Tory police boss banned from driving after breaking speed limit five times
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/18/tory-police-boss-banned-driving-breaking-speed-limit-five-times-caroline-henry
(As you can see I am not an engineer and know nothing about trains).
Having learned today that Britain is standard gauge, I presume therefore that the privatised operators merely pack the seating more densely.
It must be because they privatised the railways, oh, oh dear.
The problem with "just nationalise it" is that you hand direct control to the DfT fuckheads who have made every single stupid and expensive decision over recent years. They are the last people you want involved in the detail.
Create RailCo, commercially operated but owned by the state. With rail professionals out to operate the public service that everyone bar BR knows it to be. And low interest rate borrowing on 25 year terms. Like all of the foreign stateco operators we already have like Arriva.
We could therefore not support double decker trains, except for on HS1, HS2 and I assume the Elizabeth Line (but only in the new tunnel)
Will it go? Gun to head I'd say yes, but somewhere a little north of London
My overall prediction for this heatwave was a max temp of 39.8C in London or Cambridgeshire; I made that several says ago, not bad. But I think 40C could topple! The excitement builds, with the heat
German model please.
In almost all the country anyone who wants to go into work has to not just pay their own way to do so, but has to more than pay their own way since transportation is so heavily taxed, not subsidised.
Why should your commute be subsidised while other people's commutes are taxed? If you can't afford to commute into wherever you're commuting to, maybe you shouldn't be working there? That's the choice most of the nation faces.
Why should someone in Wigan commuting by car to their workplace not just pay their own commute, but subsidise your commute too?
And almost certainly tomorrow.
My solar panels are working flat out, fortunately I have an EV and can dump the surplus into the car.
Might have to sit in the car later on with the aircon and ventilated seats, very satisfying to think the sun is providing the power to keep me cool.
Same line, same trains. In a lot of cases, same owner of the two companies!
I am passionate about this subject, I do not appreciate the snarky replies about just buy a car, I want to actually get the railways to be good.
Now I am off for lunch! Have a good afternoon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR_Class_4DD
And it works. Same under privatise operators at various times - the infamous Northern franchise let with zero growth in passenger numbers assumed. Numbers went up, found the trains full and unreliable, so amazingly enough numbers then went down.
The irony is that volume should drive costs down. Instead it does the opposite thanks to the lunatic cost of all the contracts...
There they're not subsidised, they're ran well and more people use them.
But yes cars are a very sane alternative. As is commuting somewhere else instead and plenty of other viable alternatives for competition. There's no divine reason you need to be doing your existing commute, on the rails.
Betfair next prime minister
2.14 Rishi Sunak. 47%
3.55 Liz Truss 28%
4.2 Penny Mordaunt 24%
21 Kemi Badenoch 5%
160 Tom Tugendhat
230 Dominic Raab
Next Conservative leader
2.22 Rishi Sunak 45%
3.55 Liz Truss 28%
4.3 Penny Mordaunt 23%
23 Kemi Badenoch 4%
130 Tom Tugendhat
To be in final two
1.02 Rishi Sunak 98%
1.83 Liz Truss 55%
2.1 Penny Mordaunt 48%
11.5 Kemi Badenoch 9%
100 Tom Tugendhat
Ben Stokes has announced his shock retirement from one-day cricket and will play his final match at his home ground of Durham on Tuesday.
England’s Test captain, who famously led his country to glory in the 2019 World Cup final with an unforgettable performance, has decided that he can no longer give his all across all three formats.
The all-rounder, 31, said the idea was now “unsustainable” and hinted at the unacceptable toll of the England fixture list. He will take the field at Chester-le-Street against South Africa in the first of three ODIs.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jul/18/ben-stokes-to-retire-from-odi-cricket-after-durham-farewell-appearance
Several local records have already gone, according to Netweather
For a measure of this heatwave, we are already recording higher temps than any temps seen in the UK throughout the 1980s
Connection held: Branch line operator fined £300 a minute, passengers get to their destinations with minimal delay
Connection not held: No fine to the branch line operator, intercity operator picks up the bill for delayed passengers getting a refund / taxi / hotel etc
The system is specifically designed to not hold connections. Because that is more efficient.
In fact, we're spending an awful lot of money increasing the loading gauge slightly on some lines, in order to allow better use of containers on trains, e.g. https://www.railjournal.com/infrastructure/network-rail-to-increase-loading-gauge-on-doncaster-immingham-line/
It's ... really pleasant. Lovely. Give me a month of this (albeit with the odd massive downpour to top up the reservoirs).
Even the back bedroom, which is the hottest room of the house, is not stultifying. I could happily snooze in this, given the chance.
Now granted it's only 32, and forecast to get a few degrees hotter. But still. It's a perfect summer's day.
Wife and #1 daughter on the other hand are not enjoying it one bit.
Transportation isn't. Instead some people's choice of transportation is covered, while everyone else's is taxed instead because transportation is a private not a public good.
People who choose rail over cars shouldn't be subsidised for their choice, it was their choice, they should pay for their own choice just as everyone else does.
https://www.trevorharley.com/hottest-day-of-each-year-from-1900.html
Obvious trends and sub-plots. Looks like there really was a golden Edwardian era before WW1: all those ladies with white parasols. It is noticeably warm
Camden Square used to be a major weather station!
There is a distinct mid-century cooling off, the 1950s-60s are a bit rubbish, likewise the 1980s
But in the 1990s it perhaps begins to pick up and the global warming trend is surely discernible from about 2000 onwards, esp the last decade. And today
(Also some weird anomalies. Hottest place in 1979? Poolewe in the Scottish Highlands - 28.8C. In 1980, Cors Fochno in Dyfed, 29.4C)
I have been fascinated at what appears to be the depth of sheer dislike for Mordaunt. It seems to go beyond genuine policy disagreement and more into a need to take her down and humiliate her. Wonder what the background is to all this.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/forecast/gcpvhy2jx#?date=2022-07-18
Rail travellers are better off on average than drivers.
I don't have a problem with you making extreme libertarian arguments, but you have to be universal if you don't want to come across sounding like Bulgy the Bus as you do now.
Edit. Here it is again.
https://www.trevorharley.com/hottest-day-of-each-year-from-1900.html
And edit again. I see you're ahead of me.
I'll have to update this for 2019 (new record) and 2022 (new record).
The 42C being forecast for tomorrow would be *extraordinary*.
It might be that the distribution has a longer tail than expected, but still, I would not have seen this coming.
I think we might just fall short of the record, today
Why?
In the good old days of BR, there would be a problem on the line. The infrastructure peeps would throw a TSR (Temporary Speed Restriction) onto the line, for instance saying that trains could go at a maximum of 50MPH instead of 100MPH.
Obviously, the problem needs fixing. But the trains are still running, and the infrastructure peeps are watching their budget. The operations dept. do not want to pay for the work either. So the TSR remains, and it eventually becomes a PSR (Permanent Speed Restriction).
The same with operations failures: if a train breaks down, it does not cost the operator much. Most passengers do not claim refunds, so it is just an inconvenience of calling out a rescue loco. So a fleet-wide issue that increases failure by 1% does not get fixed.
But delay attribution comes in (and AIUI it was being brought in by BR *before* privatisation, once the computer system were powerful enough to allow it).
Now the infrastructure peeps get charged for the delay caused by that TSR. It comes out of their budget. They now look at it and say, "bu**e,r we'd better fix it." Likewise, it is in the operator's interest to do the work to increase reliability, as it costs them if they cause delays.
Delay attribution has been a massive positive for the railways. By all means simplify it, but getting rid of it would be incredibly stupid.
Which is only 95f
If I wanted to take my libertarian principles to extremes I'd abolish healthcare coverage. I'm happy to see healthcare covered despite my principles, not because of them.
But not transportation. Transportation is a private good. @CorrectHorseBattery getting into work is his own commute, not a public good, he gets paid for it, he should pay for his commute - just the same as absolutely everyone else in the rest of the country does.
"Public transport" in almost all the country is busses, not rails. Rail commuters tend to be richer and wealthier than the average, yet are so conceited and selfish they expect to be subsidised anyway rather than paying their own way.
But then, I suspect they knew that.
But on the whole: have double-decker platforms for one line ever been tried anywhere? I can't think of it. The guard would have a bit of a job as well...
(Some stations have two decks, but with separate lines on each deck.)
Sounds like Tom Tugendhat has already lost quite a few of his 32 backers ahead of tonight's vote
Team Mordaunt thinks that they're going to pick up a fair few of them - enough to retain a lead over Truss
Others are going over to Sunak
The problem is that the passengers suffer because the other company decided to send the connection. Watching it pull out as you pull in - with the next one hours away - is a uniquely frustrating experience.
Especially when its a branch train with buckets of padding in its own schedule. So the delayed start won't cause problems.
Delay attribution could be used to maintain connections. Instead it does the opposite.
People expect sneaky, but don't expect politicians to be so brazen about it.
COME ON WEATHER, YOU CAN DO IT
This is a bit like watching an England run chase
Former, if not current, climate change skeptic and enthusiastic ERGer.
That doesn’t mean she’s wrong about Mordaunt, but it might be part of the explanation.
As we are seeing from PB, people viewing the real world through the prism of what is good for their “favourite”. Some media and the campaigns themselves are weighing in behind these surveys as though, as Beth would say “we know what the members are thinking in that scenario”. I’m not sure we do.
And do we know how many members comprise the electorate? Anything between 100,000 and 200,000 is not the most accurate of measurement. Does the Conservative Psrty have a central database - will we even know what turnout was in this election?
Bit warm isn't it?
Maybe I’m just being old fashioned, I just find it difficult to believe this would have happened even 5 years ago.
COME ON WEATHER, ONE MORE HEAVE
Yet you just know Weather is going to fail. A lack of self belief. The potential is there yet something prevents the record falling. Psychological
This is a shit heatwave and I for one am off to the dry cleaners
The issue is not really Doncaster itself but the whole area of low lying land south of the Humber / Ouse, some of which is below sea level (hence Flatlander).
There used to be official stations at Bawtry (on the Notts border) and Finningley airport (a bit higher and on the sand), but there really is nothing now. Finningley still publishes readings but they aren't from an official station and the exposure is poor. Gringley on the Hill, is, well, on a hill.
The only representative station is at Cawood agricultural research station nr Selby but that's quite a long way north.
There were posters on here, rather boringly in the early excitement saying it will drift to a Sunak Truss run off longer it goes on? Looks like they have been proved right, thanks to Penny underperforming 🙁
https://en.allmetsat.com/metar-taf/united-kingdom-ireland.php?icao=EGSC