UK Rail services to come under unified state control

Re:UK Rail services to come under unified state control by signal11 on Thursday May 20, 2021 @07:41AM (#27219850)

London to Birmingham is an exception because you have three train companies but also two separate sets of tracks -- the West Coast Main Line (WCML) and the Chiltern Line. This builds a lot of resilience into the system. I wish other lines had this as well.

That said, the WCML is extremely well run relative to the horrow shows in S and SE England.

If you live along the WCML (think Bucks, Coventry, etc), you have two providers: Avanti (formerly Virgin) and London Northwestern/West Midland (formerly Midland). You actually have Southern as well, but they are... not a credible provider.

HS2, if it's ever done, will further reduce pressure on the WCML and increase resilience.

But on the other hand, go up North and there used to be trains which are modified bus bodies[1]. Are those still there? So yes, absolutely, the rail network does need to improve across the country.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacer_(British_Rail)

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Re:UK Rail services to come under unified state control by iso1631 on Thursday May 20, 2021 @07:52AM (#27219964)

Go up North and you have Northern, which as well as running pacers for years (I think they're all gone now) drained funds, because running a rail network with few passengers is expensive.

That means either higher tax to subsidise it, or it means higher prices on profitable parts of the network to cross-subsidise it

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