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However, if you read between the lines, you will see that this is more a criticism of privatization of the British rail system than of having separate infrastructure and operating entities.  In fact, the very first paragraph states that privatization was the "mistake".  No, Chris Grayling was actually admitting that having separate operating/ infrastructure entities was a mistake. What the quotee does is to blur the lines of distinction between the act of privatization and the act of separating track from train.  He makes the allegation that separation is the cause of higher fares, when in fact privatization is the real cause of higher fares.  When the railroads were run by the government, they were not expected to make a profit, rather they were effectively subsidized.  The fares charged for using the passenger trains under British Rail did not cover the cost of providing the service by a long shot.  (Hmmmm, sounds like Amtrak to me!) Utter codswallop. The 1968 Railways Act recognised the social railway and that a subsidy would be paid for that. the socail railway was one that was percieved to be losing money but vital to the local community. Believe it or not, there are bits of Britains railway network whoch are very difficult to cover by using bus. During the 1980's, BR was sectorized; InterCity, Provincial, Network SoputhEast (the social bit) and Freight. Of those, both Intercity and Freight were expected to run without subsidy and to a set return (5-7%). Thus they cut their cloth accordingly. The Freight business therefore concentrated on bulk haul and nothing else, whilst the Intercity Business concentrated on the major routes out of London and charging what the market could pay. And lo, British Rail actually turned a profit, but as we know when Investment Plans are in full swing and when the passenger business follows the economy a nasty recession can produce a sea of red ink. Thus Major Major decided to privitise the "deeply inefficient" BR. BR also applied Prime User charging to its routes which helped some opf the more marginal services which the Subsidy was paid for; that went when the system was privatised leaving some services facing 3x the track access charges they were paying before.   Now that fares are expected to cover costs and provide a profit, of course they are gonna go up!  Put that one in the "duh" file, will you Jay? Under privitisation most of the saver tickets which wre eavailable have been either severely restricted or have disappeared. However sason tickets are regulated for political reasons which does not make much environmental or social sense rreally. Funny, but there is no mention here of comparative freight rates pre-privatization vs post-privatization.  The whole idea of open access is to allow natural market forces to drive decision making, which means moving the stuff that makes money, e.g. freight, not passengers.  Passenger trains do make money. Lots of it; Freight barely strugggles to make a 10% margin in this country. Thats why BR junked the marginal stuff and jacked the prices up to the captive shippers (hiss). Now that there is competition the rates have come down,  however the companies are finding it diufficult to get a decent return ( no suprise) and the infrastructure owner is finding it difficult to accomodate all users, or potential users. However, in Europe it is considered a natural right that citizens will have rail passenger services.  Anymore than it is considered a natural right for all Yanks to drink petrol drinking motorized vehicles.  It is hard wired into the socialist tapestry of the Continent, and is the number one reason that growth in rail freight is stymied.  [(-D] Doesn't really matter if it is private separated track and train operations, or private integrated track and train operations, freight will always play second fiddle to passenger trains in Europe.  The big difference between private OA operations and private integrated operations is that under OA, rail freight at least has a chance of growth, since 3rd party operators can bid for slots.  That is what is happening now in most of Europe, slowly but surely.  Under integrated operations, freight has no chance, because political forces will demand passengers first of the integrated operator, and 3rd party freight entities will be left out in the cold Some semblance of truth here. However, semblance only. Firstly what are the political forces aspirations. In many countries there are active schemes to promote freight onto the railways. If you are going to franchise a train operation which is not vertically integrated then the franchisee will run to what you pay it; a set timetable of lets say 10 trains for lets say £100 per year. The Franchisee can then have the option of adding extra services to that or not. Now, if there is space in the network and if the infrastructure operator is sufficently incentivised wither through regulation or fiscal inducement then whatever slots will be on offer can be then parcelled round and in the UK Freight pays mainly marginal costs. By Law OA operators where the market exists and b) if they do not abstract from the revenue of the franchisee in passenger terms can have a bite of the cherry, thier rights are protected. That is the real political aim of the Fascists........er, I mean the "Tories" - use the "mistake" of rail privatization as political tool to get votes.  Remember, passengers vote, freight does not.  Re-read the article, and you will see it is focused on higher passenger rates, not on the ostensible attempts at getting freight off roads and onto rail.  In truth, in this article OA is the straw man taking the pot shots for the higher passenger fares associated with privatization.  Take out OA and replace it with private integrated operations - you still will have higher passenger fares, and like the US you will have a lack of infrastructural investment to keep up with demands.  All that privatized integrated operations will accomplish is to create one or two monopolistic fiefdoms.  Yeah, that'll get those passenger rates down.[(-D][(-D][(-D] Sir Grayling is either less than honest, or an economic moron. Oh dear. Mussolini was fascist. So was Hitler btw. Not sure if you can count the Tories under that umbrella.
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