So given that you agree with Nod, that makes us the 12th best railway in the world, not to mention that it must make you 5 times as knowledgeable about railways as him

The safety record in the UK is excellent but, service and "quality" of trains is second class.

It doesn't help that projects like HS2 take forever to sort our and then costs spiral out of control.
We are certainly behind the main EU countries.

Given the travel restrictions I doubt you will have travelled on any of these trains recently - comments like this need to be put in context. I can't remember the last time I caught a train and it was late - I catch a train on an average three times a month. Nothing wrong with the longer distance trains or the trains that do Leeds Ilkley etc. Leeds to Manchester - they are a disgrace.

The issue with the trans pennine trains is that there isn't enough capacity to match the demand. Or that was the case before the pandemic.

My experience of rail travel has generally been pretty positive. Given that I’ve travelled a fair bit, I’m surprised how rarely I’ve used trains abroad now that I think about it.

That is true - 50% of the time I had to stand the whole journey from Manchester to Leeds

How many of the train franchises have been taken back into public ownership because they failed.

The majority fail because they cant make sufficient return - that leads to reduction in investment in staff and trains - downward spiral. How many have had a go at the East Coast Mainline

The East Coast Main Line is a classic example of the foolishness of the privatised railways. GNER were gifted upon privatisation the Uk's most modern railway with a fleet of largely brand new, very high quality trains. And operating on a very lucrative route they made a lot of money. Now Jim Sherwood was a canny businessman and had already made hundreds of millions off the UK state by buying assets dirt cheap and selling them on for vast profits. But GNER didn't even need that side of it, they were gifted a brand new railway and enjoyed the rewards of what our tax money had built throughout the first franchise period. And, thanks mostly to the quality of the infrastructure they'd inherited and the nature of the route GNER became a supposed example of how privatisation was working.

Come the second franchise period and it was obvious there was going to be competition from other bidders who'd seen how much money GNER had made. And thus began the same scenario over and over - bidder wins franchise based on utterly implausible growth forecasts, signed off by idiot transport minister who sees the millions in franchise payments they're going to receive down the line. After a few years the franchise holder realises it can't make as much money as they've promised to pay and "hands the franchise back".

Now SeaCon went bust of their own volition but the others just walked away scot free. This isn't how a market should work. You overestimate your forecasts and enter into a contract that you can't pay for and you go bust. But the government simply can't allow the ECML to stop operating whilst that's sorted out because it would lead to chaos. So it always has to be there to step in.

As with so many of these idiotic schemes it's been a case of privatising the profit and the state keeping the risk. It's a grotesque parody of the free market and needed stopping long before Covid did for it.

That's exactly how the free market works - your liabilities are limited to the money you invest - if trading doesn't pan out how you had forecast you run out money you go bust. Everyone goes in with their eyes open - if the government hadn't done their due diligence correctly who is to blame? If creditors lend too much money who is at fault?

The government know they have to keep the line running then surely they need to select a franchise that is going to deliver on that basic premise. If no franchise can make a suitable return based on that scenario the government have a problem - they take it back into public ownership costs rise and we all have to pay.

We come back to public ownership - everybody has to pay to keep public services going even if they never use it - yes I get it for education but not for buses and trains.

I don't think you understand. The private operators didn't suffer any consequences at all for getting their sums wrong. Because that's not how privatisation works. We as taxpayers lost out, the other side just walked away from the mess they'd created.

The reality is the East Coast line is one of the huge cash cows of the network. It should be one which cross-subsidises the rest of the network. Quite why you think costs would rise if controlled nationally rather than us keeping all the profits for ourselves/the government is a mystery.

And your belief that the transport network isn't a core part of the national infrastructure which should be looked after by government is a niche one it has to be said. I'm sure you think the same applies to the road network of course.

I think i do understand - the private firms will have lost money and the opportunity cost will be significant. If the government couldn't see it was too good to be true then who is to blame?

The problem with all nationalised industries has always been cost control - look at the NHS, waste in that organisation will be enormous. So why would you think them running ECML they would be able to control costs - what evidence do you have to suggest your confidence is well placed?

You again are struggling with comprehension - the track/roads etc yes I agree should be in public ownership but the companies that operate on them should be private and if there isn't sufficient profit in them to encourage private firms to run them then we really do have a problem because one of two things will happen: Prices rise or public money going in rises. This seems unfair that the general population subsidises certain citizens method of transport.

Opportunity cost is irrelevant. These companies walked away from onerous contracts without any comeback from the people they were contracted with. That is not how a regular market works, or should work. They felt minimal pain.

Your dogged devotion to this myth is impressive if nothing else. You keep putting out the same stuff but have never supported it with any proof other than it just seems to be some sort of truthiness to you.

So it's time to Put up or shut up. How about maybe an international comparison of administration costs in healthcare?

An interesting mini documentary on Britain's rail privatisation. https://youtu.be/DlTq8DbRs4k

An interesting mini documentary on Britain's rail privatisation. https://youtu.be/DlTq8DbRs4k

The NHS is pretty efficient at what it does. It’s size and ‘market dominance’ (for want of a better term) gives it impressive purchasing and negotiating power, and the relative simplicity of the system (compared, for example, with the US), means there are fewer stakeholders with their hand in the till.

Obviously, with an elected government made up, at best, of people who don’t care and, at worst, want to see the NHS fail on ideological grounds or to get themselves or their mates a share of the spoils, it is working less well, justifying further efforts to undermine it. But never mind that, look over there at a spurious argument over fish with the dastardly French… it is almost panto season, I suppose.

Our GP suggested to my wife that she go private today for a minor procedure because she won’t be seen until the condition gets much worse because non-urgent stuff won’t be getting to the top of the list for the foreseeable. Come back when you’re worse and it is urgent is an inefficiency, borne of under resourcing (and COVID, in fairness), both in terms of health outcomes and healthcare resource utilisation. Because a lot of people can’t afford to go private and so will have to wait to get worse, pushing somebody else further down the queue.