Bush to seek Amtrak subsidy cuts

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by DanS
Bus and rail take about 4 hours. Maybe a couple minutes longer for bus.

You have found your problem.

For the record:
Paris-Brussels per bus = 3h45
Paris-Brussels per train = 1h25

[MikeH]

As an aside for Spiffor - Planes are cheaper than rail in the UK already for long distances.

If you're going to newcastle or scotland from london for instance it's cheaper and quicker by plane.

And those distances are very short in US terms.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by DanS
It's pretty easy to figure out what the problem is. It costs $35 roundtrip from Washington to NYC by bus and $152 by train.

As I pointed out. That, however, is not the problem, but an effect of the problem.

What idiot would subsidize the train enough so that it is competitive with bus? And this is an area (the NE corridor) where passenger rail is supposed to make sense!

Trains are more efficient as far as pollution and traffic are concerned. Given the massive gridlock in that area, as well as the commuter pollution, it might be well worth the subisidy. With the population of the U.S. expected to increase by an additional 200 million in the next fifty years, any solution to the coming traffic nightmare is going to have to include quite a bit of subsidized commuter rail.

Or do you asserate that Americans are too stupid to manage to make work what the Europeans and Japanese have done for decades?

[Kidlicious]

This is a question for Spiffor, but anyone can respond.

Is the competition in Europe for the same line and for the same time? That is, if I want to go to Paris to Berlin at 8 am do I have significant choices. Because that is really what competition is. It's not diferent companies offering services at different times and places.

[MikeH]

No. There's one track. One company operates the service on that line. It's impractical to have several companies operating the same services on the same line.

There is some competition when the company bids for the licence to operate that line, and if they don't perform they can lose the rights to another company. There are also regulations so, for instance, they can't just serve the popular routes at peak times.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Is the competition in Europe for the same line and for the same time? That is, if I want to go to Paris to Berlin at 8 am do I have significant choices. Because that is really what competition is. It's not diferent companies offering services at different times and places.

For what I know (and this is only France, where rail is almost completely public, and Germany where privatization has been postponed), no.

My experience of other countries' trains (and thus other institutional arrangements) is very limited. So it would be a better idea to ask the nationals of other countries to ask how it is in their countries: privatizations are widely different from one European country to another.

When I was in Sweden, I seem to have understood that there were several companies that offered travels on the same lines. However, the national rail company offered a booking engine that included all those companies. It allowed to compare and to have the best prices at the best times. Now, I didn't really understood what was going on while I was in Sweden

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by MikeH
No. There's one track. One company operates the service on that line. It's impractical to have several companies operating the same services on the same line.

There is some competition when the company bids for the licence to operate that line, and if they don't perform they can lose the rights to another company. There are also regulations so, for instance, they can't just serve the popular routes at peak times.

These look like policies that have been designed by someone who has a brain. How come the British rail is such an abysmal failure? I thought that was precisely because you allowed the companies to do whatever they pleased.

[Kidlicious]

Well then it is like I imagined. Privatization is only for privatizations sake and not form sake of competition.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Well then it is like I imagined. Privatization is only for privatizations sake and not form sake of competition.

That's not true (and keep in mind that I strongly oppose the privatization of the French Rail, and that I despise the consequences of Germany's botched attempt).

The idea behind privatization is that a private company will undergo great lengths to keep the favour of the political institution that grants its licence. Although corruption can have a say in this, the basic idea is that the operating company will see its license challenged by other competitors every few years. As such, the private company must strive to keep a low price and a high quality, to be better than the would-be operators.

This idea relies on the prejudice that public companies are always complacent and mismanaging, while private companies are always on the edge and good-managing (or if they're not, they're rooted out). In truth, it is false. A public company can be well managed, and can have edges than a private company cannot have. Also, a private company can make money while utterly sucking.

But for the people who have been brainwashed into thinking that private enterprise will always be better than public ones in ventures where you sell something, privatization makes sense from a consumer-satisfaction point of view.

[Brundlefly]

Originally posted by MikeH

There is some competition when the company bids for the licence to operate that line, and if they don't perform they can lose the rights to another company. There are also regulations so, for instance, they can't just serve the popular routes at peak times.

Yes, this is exactly what we need here in US. The consumer will win in this situation because this will result in better customer service, comfort, and prices..

[alva]

Originally posted by Spiffor

For what I know (and this is only France, where rail is almost completely public, and Germany where privatization has been postponed), no.

Passenger transportation is still in the hands of the state but AFAIK transport of goods is more privatised than it used to be.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Spiffor

That's not true (and keep in mind that I strongly oppose the privatization of the French Rail, and that I despise the consequences of Germany's botched attempt).

The idea behind privatization is that a private company will undergo great lengths to keep the favour of the political institution that grants its licence. Although corruption can have a say in this, the basic idea is that the operating company will see its license challenged by other competitors every few years. As such, the private company must strive to keep a low price and a high quality, to be better than the would-be operators.

This idea relies on the prejudice that public companies are always complacent and mismanaging, while private companies are always on the edge and good-managing (or if they're not, they're rooted out). In truth, it is false. A public company can be well managed, and can have edges than a private company cannot have. Also, a private company can make money while utterly sucking.

But for the people who have been brainwashed into thinking that private enterprise will always be better than public ones in ventures where you sell something, privatization makes sense from a consumer-satisfaction point of view.

Well that is really a different situation. Right now there is pressure on Amtrak to maintain good service and low price, otherwise there will be political backlash. That's not the same as companies existing in a competitive market. It's hard for outsiders to know how efficiently a company is running without competition. With real competition a company has to operate efficiently or they are elimiinated automatically form the industry.

[Sandman]

These look like policies that have been designed by someone who has a brain. How come the British rail is such an abysmal failure? I thought that was precisely because you allowed the companies to do whatever they pleased.

Well, for a long time, the railway infrastructure was given over to a private monopoly called Railtrack. Presumably the fact that it had shareholders was supposed to make it better somehow. Railtrack allowed the track to decay - what would have been routine maintainance under British Rail they now called 'upgrading' - and there were some accidents due to unmaintained track. And so the whole network was thrown into chaos as frantic repairs were made.

The thing is, passenger numbers have been increasing, so just getting back to the standard of BR isn't enough - we should have been moving forward with the railways, instead of spending a decade and a half just trying to keep them from collapsing.

Railtrack has now been wound up, thankfully, and replaced by a nationalised company, Network Rail. The trains are still private, though. The Scottish network was recently given over to the bus company.

The government recently revoked the license of a train company in the South of England somewhere (due to poor performance), and took over the running of the trains itself until a new company could be found. The trains in that network are now amongst the most punctual in the UK, but the government is still insisting that it will put them into private hands again.

And this is only scratching the surface of the problems with the British rail system.

Mind you, at least the British government recognises that railways are an important national asset that can't just be allowed to go 'bust'. I'm doubtful that the Americans will care in the least as what little they have is allowed to go to ruin. Their loss.

[Spiffor]

Thanks for the explanation, Sandman

The trains in that network are now amongst the most punctual in the UK, but the government is still insisting that it will put them into private hands again.

Considering that the public network is proving its superiority over private ones, why the heck would the gov want to privatize it again?:

[Sandman]

They're New Labour. They're afraid of being seen to willingly nationalise anything. Even if it's a good idea.

This is despite poor transport being one of the main gripes of British business.