Friday, March 04, 2016

Railway News

JD writes:

Have you heard of the EU's Fourth Railway Package? 

http://www.euractiv.com/section/transport/news/eu-ministers-agree-on-injecting-competition-into-domestic-rail-service/

If you search Google News for "EU's Fourth Railway Package" the first item on the list is from The Morning Star - 

In the 20 years since John Major privatised our industry — a privatisation, incidentally, which even Margaret Thatcher described as “a privatisation too far” — we have seen rolling stock get older, trains get more crowded and fares go through the roof. We now have the highest fares in Western Europe, because of privatisation.

But the European Commission is determined to impose this flawed model on the rest of Europe. And, if it succeeds, it will prevent us from ever bringing the railways back into public ownership.


https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-4ae9-Well-vote-to-leave-to-save-Britains-rail#.VtjMGUBv63Y

It is one of the reasons why the rail union ASLEF is backing Brexit.

I know from experience that Germany, France and Spain have very good and very cheap State run rail services.The EU wants to privatise all of Europe's railways. Well, why not. It has worked so well in the UK :)

As our pragmatically minded American cousins are fond of saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!" 

The EU leaders are insane, but we knew that anyway! :)


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2 comments:

Nick Drew said...

I am bemused by the glowing descriptions of German railways: I have been a frequent traveller for over 30 years and can report first-hand that some of their rolling-stock is crap (think BR circa 1990) and they are as frequently running late as in the UK

and their late-arrival annoucements are not at all helpful: "wenige minuten" is all they will ever tell you

now Italian trains are really cheap - so cheap, you don't even care how late they (frequently) are

Sackerson said...

I loved the old, crap, dusty, smelly rolling-stock of the 60s/70s, let alone 90s. It was... homely. Who minded if you put your feet up?