With the takeover of the East Coast Main Line in to State ownership,I was wondering why this line has had so many problems and The West Coast seems relative free,apart from a few hitches when Virgin took control. I have traveled the West Coast several times and you could not wish for a better service. After all both Line,s are Virgin backed,so why all the hassel with The East Coast.
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If not - dear, oh dear, oh dear!!
Run a successful business and make lots of money = congratulations you are now rich(er) as a result of providing a necessary public service for which the basic infrastructure was there anyway.
Run an unsuccessful business and fail to make lots of money = cut your losses and hand the problem back to the government. You aren't expected to make a loss you know. Let the public take the hit.
So companies are quite reasonably asked to pay a lot of money if they want to run the trains which use it.
Unfortunately it is very difficult to estimate exactly how profitable it will be so the franchising process leads to some companies overbidding. Almost by definition the highest bidder will have misjudged it slightly and offered too much while the lowest bidder would have made an enormous profit if they had got the contract!
Twice the government has accepted the highest bid which is doomed to fail even if the line itself is making a reasonable profit.
For me the whole franchising system is just politically motivated fuckwits in the government playing with trains to prove a vague philosophical point about competition always being best. They hope this will justify why they have so much money and other people don't. Personally I wish they'd just piss off and let normal people get on with running the railways!
There's history between the 2 posters that's been bubbling over for months and has sadly come to a head in this bitter exchange.
Completely uncessary IMO and has soured royal wedding week for me :-(
Hope I haven't upset you.
I think a forum ban of 1 month should suffice and we can all move on and put this whole sorry episode behind us and embrace Saturday's joyous occasion with peace of mind.
Of course they are talking bollocks and they know it. They know perfectly that Deutsche Bahn, which is both track operator and dominant train service provider, is 93% owned by the German State, and that the "N" in SNCF stand for National. Berks.
The Single Market Directive simply calls for private operators to be given access to provide competition, which is happening in both Germany and France.
Phwoar!