• The post you are reporting:
   
  Re #56 "Transport:Keeping our communities on the move."
  
  ....snip.....
  
  To pay for these commitments, We Will-
  
  (1)Tax foreign lorries using British roads.
  (2)Put all road maintenance out to compulsory---independently-assessed tender.
  (3)Sell Network Rail to the private sector.
  
  Network Rail was created to replace the catastrophic Railtrack which was the dismal failure of an organisation formed by the John Major government to run the infrastructure of the privatised British Rail. The board consisted entirely of financial wallahs with just a single engineering representative. They were totally clueless and only knew how to keep asking for more money. The network fell into rack and ruin and the government were compelled to essentially renationalise it under the name Network Rail, with the government being the sole shareowner.
  
  It is now £25 billion in debt and is subsidised by the government to the tune of £3.5 billion per year. One assumes that the government would need to write off all this debt before turning back the clock and offering it to the private sector. The individual train operating companies would certainly be interested in buying the track and signalling in their respective areas as it is one of their gripes that these are out of their control. This would restore what they term vertical integration and come closer to the ideal, that of the British Rail which we have lost, where the national rail system is run as an integrated whole rather than as the present very expensive fragmented multi-layered mishmash of franchised local monopolies.

Report Post

Your Name

Reason