The UK's Failed Experiment in Rail Privatization

Writing by Sam Denby
Research by Sam Denby and Tristan Purdy
Editing by Alexander Williard
Animation by Josh Sherrington
Sound by Graham Haerther
Thumbnail by Simon Buckmaster

Select footage courtesy the AP Archive

References

Musicbed SyncID:
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[dojokonojo]

The big irony about British Railways privatisation was that the majority of railways ended up being owned and operated by foreign state-owned rail companies.

[sarah_fides]

"some of the highest fares in Europe" - literally *the* highest fares, the second-highest average rail fares are in Denmark, and those are 50% of the average UK price.

[jeffbrogan]

Also, Railtrack the infrastructure owner was renationalised in 2002 after a series of fatal crashes and since 2002 a state owned company Network Rail is the owner of the infrastructure

[tSp]

One important note forgotten here: many of the 'private' operators were actually state-owned companies in various parts of Europe and China. We were still subsidising them, but the profit was funding other countries' budgets, not ours.

[nedk]

It was when I flew from Marseille to London and then got a train to Oxford for double the price of my flight I realised how broken the UK rail network is. You are basically incentivised to own a car

[coolkirk]

“Its time to get Britain back on track”. Some speechwriter must have felt terribly clever about that one.

[_stephanie]

I live in the UK and had completely missed the news that the government have effectively taken over the trains. I read the news daily, how did this get buried? Husband had no idea either and he gets his news from a different site!

[harrisonofcolorado]

Update: As of now, a new Nationalized train company called, "Great British Railways(GBR)" is currently a planned state owned company that is expected to start operations in 2023. It is expected to run passenger services, take over rail infrastructure in the entire country, and even carry the famous double arrow logo from British Rail.

[nbarrett]

You forgot to mention the ultimate irony. Many of the 'private' train operating companies in the UK were subsidiaries of state-owned railways from other European companies

[Delta_Hotel]

Much as I wish the Minister for Transport was named Grant Schnapps, it's actually Grant Shapps.

[jimsvideos]

Sounds like the folks painting trains were the real winners.

[MyLittleMagneton]

As someone who moved to the UK in 2017, it was massively confusing being at Euston station seeing like 5 different ticket machines for the same thing.

[CobraGaming]

Coming from the Netherlands and living in the UK for cose to 10 years, I can say the fares in the UK were absolutely insane.

[intruder]

Everyone in the UK knew this was going to be a giant mess with insane fares. It still is.

[economicsinaction]

Wendover Productions: "If it ain't about planes, it'll be about trains"

[shioyoutube]

I truly hate the mess that England is in. Our government has this obsession with privatising systems for no reason and leading to worse service. Every single process, company, and system in the country relies on a bidding scheme just like the railways which *always*, *ALWAYS* leads to a company overbidding and failing miserably. Some services shouldn’t be nationalised, I admit it, but there are many more services that REALLY shouldn’t be privatised. I’m glad some parts of the railway are properly being renationalised now however as I’m so sick of our government making these mistakes repeatedly.

[nathancosta]

Not a single lesson was learned at any phase.

[mfaizsyahmi]

Wendover: _Makes a 20-min UK train video_
Geoff Marshall and Jago Hazzard: _Sweats profusely_

[MaximusRequiem]

"We got there first, and now we're the worst." Jay Foreman

[whatamalike]

"It brought the highest number of passengers onto the rails in the country's history"

Sorry but that had sweet FA to do with rail privatization. The reason this happened was due to the breakdown of local communities having places of work literally a 5-15 minute walk away. So-called 'company towns', particularly in the north of england, had industries like mining, steel, ship building/dockyards and textiles in which entire villages were built around. During the thatcher years (and admittedly a short while before), this began to break down and more and more people were starting to commute to places of work in town/city centers.