Quote:
Originally Posted by Osem
Remember the days of British Rail and the GPO do you?  |
Other countries manage to have decent nationalised rail, some of them even own some of our franchises as well, and we also had to nationalise the track part after Railtrack after it collapsed and after there was a series of safety disasters. Even America has a nationalised rail network.
I don't think we should nationalise most things but rail is a natural monopoly. There any only be one provider for a given route so the intended benefits of privatisation, i.e competition, doesn't really work. The companies given franchises and there is little incentive for long term investment and they rarely get badly punished for poor performance.
To me it seems almost a religious obsession with either nationalisation or privatisation. People pick a side and then think everything should be one or the other. Privatisation his good because is good and more efficient no matter what it's applied too.