What could possibly go wrong with the British rail services?
Currently, the system is a mess. Late arrivals of trains are just one symptom of the problem. Routinely cancelled trains are another. Lack of maintenance of the rolling stock and the rail lines only add to the issue.
The Labour Party now promises, if it wins the imminent general election, to renationalize much of the system to help improve service and increase efficiency. And therein lies another problem.
Britain had a nationalized rail system for decades following WWII. I grew up waiting on train platforms for British Rail trains to arrive for much of my childhood. British Rail had zero competitors making the service both the best alternative and the worst at the same time.
The reality though was the service was much of the time awful, particularly in the early 1980s. I remember waiting for a train on the platform and looking repeatedly at the electronic board to see whether it was on time. And one time that board said the train was indeed on time, right up until the moment when it was supposed to arrive at that station.
At that very moment, the electronic board switched and indicated that the train, due to arrive that minute, was now five hours late. How could it be that a train that was due to travel six hours from London to the north, go from being on time to being five hours late?
Surely, the signal operators would have known after say 30 minutes that a train departing from London that had not left the station yet, would now be at least half an hour late.
When it hadn’t departed from London for an hour after its scheduled time, then perhaps it would be fare to say that it would be at least 60 minutes late.
So why wouldn’t British Rail officials let the passengers know this vital piece of information? I don’t truly know why anyone would leave passengers waiting like that without timely information.
Needless to say there were many other instances of epic failures by the train service.
However, I do have some ideas that might explain the situation.
First, British Rail had zero rail competitors at the time. That meant other than getting a bus or driving your own car, you had to put up with whatever lousy service the company offered.
If the trains perpetually provided less than decent service what would happen? Nothing.
If the service improved what would happen? The employees wouldn’t get paid more.
In fact, why even bother when there is no competition biting into your business because your service is poor? I get the picture.
Needless to say I am no fan of the old government owned system.
And my worry now is in the likely event Britain’s left-leaning Labour Party wins the next election that the new government follows through with its promises to nationalize the rail system.
If that happens I wonder how things will get better.
To be fair the ideas surrounding the Labour plan does include working with private companies for freight deliveries. However, all passenger trains will come under government control.
While I wish the Labour Party the best, I’m skeptical about it being much better than the current mails and I’m worried it’ll be back to the 1970s and early 1980s.
