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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by daveklepper Thanks for the update. Do I gather that the Network as a whole is subsidized and still costs the taxpayers money? How is this handled? Or does it result in ca***o the Government? Do local authorities subisidies the service providers for commuter services? I understant some contract operators also run bus services. Do they compete internally, running buses and trains on the same routes? Are tickets interchangeable? What about a journey requiring two service providers? Has freight continued to shift from rail to road or is a return to rail in progress? [/quote] ok - fvrom a signaller and to add..... 1) It does cost the taxpayers money - roughly 5 times from the "deeply inefficent" BR days. NR is funded thru debt which is backed by the government; the train operators with few exceptions are funded through either central or local government (local in this case bing the welsh and scots). Remember that Britain is very very centralized in terms of finance. 90% of revenue and expenditure is based around the centre as a rough rule of thumb. There are various franchises which pay a premium to the government - examples being GNER; Thameslink and Gatwick Express. However if they go bust they can just renegotiate the terms and as the govt sets the track access charges and the timetlable basically it goes in one pocket and out of the other. As my fellow Brits have mentioned; there are open access operators - Heathrow Express and Hull Trains. However they are at the whim of Network Rail - the amount of paths they want is tailored somewhat. 2) Do Local Authorities provide financing.......yes, they do. But remember - local authorities in the UK (except as provided above) jare very dependant on the centre for their cash - it is not a federal system unlike North America. 3) Barring 2 exceptions (Sea Containers and John Laing) - all the train operator companies in the UK are in the hands of bus companies. And yes they do provide competing services. I could rant about that for a long, long time but it is very late at night here. 4) Tickets are interchangable - unless company specific which are usually book ahead and single toc journey tickets. The law states that there must be impartial retailing. There is a system (previously known as ORCATS) which divides the ratio of ca***aken by the number of trains provided by a particular operator on that stretch of line. 5) Freight - yes and no. Britain may have been the first industrialized nation and it is rapidly becoming the worlds first post industrialized nation. The amount of freight lifted has basically hovered around the 100m tonnes (UK) mark for a few years now - give or take 10%. The amount of freight carried by distance has increased rapidly - mostly as the logistical supply chain has got longer. I see as a signaller two freight trains per week.
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