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Privatize Irish Rail, yay or nay?

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24

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    #32
    corktina
    Closed Accounts Posts: 17,733 ✭✭✭✭corktina


    Hilly Bill wrote: »
    If CIE does get fully privatised and the travel cost goes up and the service doesnt get any better, what then? will you just want it to be changing hands until the few on here are happy?

    Thats the idea, let out a franchise and if they dont perform, take it away.


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    #33
    corktina
    Closed Accounts Posts: 17,733 ✭✭✭✭corktina


    I;m sorry but GSR was effectiively bankrupt on the formation of CIE. Years of having no capital for renewal meant that the whole system and the rolling stock was in need of renewal and GSR (a private company) had no means of raising the money necessary to keep the system going. Well into CIE days, you would see almost derelict 6 wheeled coaches in use and not only on branch lines, often hauled by brand new diesels which HAD to be bought as the steam fleet was almost completely knackered.


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    #34
    Judgement Day
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,549 ✭✭✭✭Judgement Day


    corktina wrote: »
    I;m sorry but GSR was effectiively bankrupt on the formation of CIE. Years of having no capital for renewal meant that the whole system and the rolling stock was in need of renewal and GSR (a private company) had no means of raising the money necessary to keep the system going. Well into CIE days, you would see almost derelict 6 wheeled coaches in use and not only on branch lines, often hauled by brand new diesels which HAD to be bought as the steam fleet was almost completely knackered.

    Yes, but it shouldn't be forgotten that many of the railway's problems stemmed from the two World Wars not just lack of investment. The aftermath of WWI saw a surge in the growth of own account operators particular on the road freight side of things and private bus operators also proliferated - pretty much like the present day. No sooner had the GSR begun to get on top of things than WW II arrived with all the associated fuel problems. So, in my opinion, it is wrong to portray the GSR has some sort of moribund concern like CIE - it was a professional outfit and a victim of circumstances outside of its control.


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    #35
    corktina
    Closed Accounts Posts: 17,733 ✭✭✭✭corktina


    quite right and the UK companies were pretty much on their knees after ww2 also


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    #36
    n97 mini
    Registered Users Posts: 8,295 ✭✭✭n97 mini


    Keep the rail "network" in state ownership (but contract out running and maintenance). Then contract out the various routes.

    Someone said the ticket price would go up. Given the level of inefficiencies already in IE the total cost of running the railways would go down.

    And anyway, it's not fair to lumber tax-payers in Cavan, Monaghan, and Donegal, or other places, with the cost of subsidising a railway that they don't realistically ever get to use.


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    #37
    CIE
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,463 ✭✭✭CIE


    corktina wrote: »
    I;m sorry but GSR was effectively bankrupt on the formation of CIE. Years of having no capital for renewal meant that the whole system and the rolling stock was in need of renewal and GSR (a private company) had no means of raising the money necessary to keep the system going. Well into CIE days, you would see almost derelict 6 wheeled coaches in use and not only on branch lines, often hauled by brand new diesels which HAD to be bought as the steam fleet was almost completely knackered
    "Effectively bankrupt" meaning what?

    Sorry, but I don't take the state's word as gospel. The GSR was created by an act of the Free State to monopolise all the railways they could within the borders of the 26 counties, as well as get their hands into competing trucking and bus operations (most notably Irish Omnibus), so that's not exactly a private company. There were subsequent legislative acts after the acquisition of the largest roads (GSWR, MGWR, DSER, CBSCR) to allow GSR to swallow up remaining roads. CIE's subsequent behaviour certainly bore out the folly of state operation. Ireland was at least a decade late (if not two) in terms of converting from steam to diesel, and that was most likely due to the GSR's machinations. Therefore that company was merely an intermediate, and a state-conceived apparatus, to make the transfer to open state ownership more palatable to the public.

    Of course, CIE is perpetually "effectively bankrupt", but that's the nature of state entities, isn't it? CIE merely followed the pattern set by other countries, which also included dieselisation of passenger services, running three-quarter-century-old passenger stock until it was falling apart on the rails, then have the state subsidise the passenger service, then have the state take over the operations outright. (Those that left freight service in private hands experienced a renaissance of railfreight though.)

    Leave public-private partnerships alone. Those derived from the fascist economic model.


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    #38
    Cookie_Monster
    Registered Users Posts: 24,470 ✭✭✭✭Cookie_Monster


    Privatise them

    Split infrastructure and operation

    To those who say prices will go up etc, there will obviously continue to be gov subvention to the private company but it will be much lower than to IE, since the private company will obviously have far fewer overheads, non unionised staff going spare all over the place for example.


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    #39
    CIE
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,463 ✭✭✭CIE


    Split infrastructure and operation
    You envision dispatching under "operation", I take it?


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    #40
    DWCommuter
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,032 ✭✭✭DWCommuter


    Cookie_Monster wrote: »
    Privatise them

    Split infrastructure and operation

    To those who say prices will go up etc, there will obviously continue to be gov subvention to the private company but it will be much lower than to IE, since the private company will obviously have far fewer overheads, non unionised staff going spare all over the place for example.

    The most obvious next step.


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    #41
    DWCommuter
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,032 ✭✭✭DWCommuter


    CIE wrote: »
    You envision dispatching under "operation", I take it?

    Snore.:rolleyes:


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    #42
    Cookie_Monster
    Registered Users Posts: 24,470 ✭✭✭✭Cookie_Monster


    CIE wrote: »
    You envision dispatching under "operation", I take it?

    No, a Network Rail type setup.

    What I should have stated in the original post would be keep the infrastructure owned by the state and operated by a state owned but independent company to ensure no asset stripping or excessive shareholder payments etc takes place. It's a difficult one to balance to ensure you get as little state interference as possible but enough control maintained to keep it focused in the right way.

    The operations side (the rolling stock basically) can be leased out Luas style to a private operator(s) to run set service levels and so forth. Or simply sold fully to them. There can be allowances to increase or decrease services in line with available slots on routes, passenger demand, minimum service levels and so forth.


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    #43
    purplepanda
    Registered Users Posts: 1,051 ✭✭✭purplepanda


    BrianD wrote: »

    I think IR is too small for to be anything but a state body and I also think that the network is to small for any competitors to enter the market.

    So once IE decides to close down a regional rail line no other rail operating companies should be allowed to run services?

    Just because IE don't have the ability to run any regional railway service doesn't mean that another private rail operator can't attract more passengers & run a more frequent service.

    If IE fails it's remit others should be given a chance, IE has closed enough lines over the past 50 years :mad:


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    #44
    CIE
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,463 ✭✭✭CIE


    Cookie_Monster wrote: »
    No, a Network Rail type setup.

    What I should have stated in the original post would be keep the infrastructure owned by the state and operated by a state owned but independent company to ensure no asset stripping or excessive shareholder payments etc takes place. It's a difficult one to balance to ensure you get as little state interference as possible but enough control maintained to keep it focused in the right way.

    The operations side (the rolling stock basically) can be leased out Luas style to a private operator(s) to run set service levels and so forth. Or simply sold fully to them. There can be allowances to increase or decrease services in line with available slots on routes, passenger demand, minimum service levels and so forth.
    Be careful what you wish for. I warned against PPPs earlier in this thread. The former operator of the South Eastern services is now running Luas, after all (got a seven-year contract cut short at four years). Complaints about fares being too high haven't quietened down in general over in Network Rail land. There's also the matter of foreign companies running your rail and as to whether or not they have the best interests of the local passengers at heart (Connex/Veolia and Keolis being French, and over in Britain, Deutsche Bahn now running EWS; DB in particular have been criticised for lack of investment in their overseas bus company and railway purchases).


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    #45
    corktina
    Closed Accounts Posts: 17,733 ✭✭✭✭corktina


    CIE wrote: »
    "Effectively bankrupt" meaning what?

    Sorry, but I don't take the state's word as gospel. The GSR was created by an act of the Free State to monopolise all the railways they could within the borders of the 26 counties, as well as get their hands into competing trucking and bus operations (most notably Irish Omnibus), so that's not exactly a private company. There were subsequent legislative acts after the acquisition of the largest roads (GSWR, MGWR, DSER, CBSCR) to allow GSR to swallow up remaining roads. CIE's subsequent behaviour certainly bore out the folly of state operation. Ireland was at least a decade late (if not two) in terms of converting from steam to diesel, and that was most likely due to the GSR's machinations. Therefore that company was merely an intermediate, and a state-conceived apparatus, to make the transfer to open state ownership more palatable to the public.

    Of course, CIE is perpetually "effectively bankrupt", but that's the nature of state entities, isn't it? CIE merely followed the pattern set by other countries, which also included dieselisation of passenger services, running three-quarter-century-old passenger stock until it was falling apart on the rails, then have the state subsidise the passenger service, then have the state take over the operations outright. (Those that left freight service in private hands experienced a renaissance of railfreight though.)

    Leave public-private partnerships alone. Those derived from the fascist economic model.

    history is history. You can't put spin on it. Other countries did NOT run 75 year old falling apart 6 wheelers into the post ww2 period.Ireland was actually advanced in adopting Diesels. Please stop manipulating facts to suit your own agenda.


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    #46
    -Chris-
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,035 ✭✭✭✭-Chris-


    DWCommuter wrote: »
    Snore.:rolleyes:

    Post constructively please


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    #47
    silverharp
    Registered Users Posts: 17,840 ✭✭✭✭silverharp


    I'm not convinced that Ireland can afford railways, you have a small population which is dispersed. Given the fixed costs involved, is it fair to tax people who never use the service. If it can be run at a profit then it can fund itself. Essentially people want a way of getting from A to B at a cost they can afford and if they are not willing to pay the unsubsidised cost of travel then its a waste of resouces to provide the service.
    so privatise it and see what survives.

    A belief in gender identity involves a level of faith as there is nothing tangible to prove its existence which, as something divorced from the physical body, is similar to the idea of a soul. - Colette Colfer



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    #48
    icdg
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 11,512 Mod ✭✭✭✭icdg


    Cookie_Monster wrote: »
    No, a Network Rail type setup.

    What I should have stated in the original post would be keep the infrastructure owned by the state and operated by a state owned but independent company to ensure no asset stripping or excessive shareholder payments etc takes place. It's a difficult one to balance to ensure you get as little state interference as possible but enough control maintained to keep it focused in the right way.

    The operations side (the rolling stock basically) can be leased out Luas style to a private operator(s) to run set service levels and so forth. Or simply sold fully to them. There can be allowances to increase or decrease services in line with available slots on routes, passenger demand, minimum service levels and so forth.

    You are essentially asking us to repeat all of the mistakes made in the privatisation of British Rail. Its often been wrote that the biggest mistake was to seperate infrastructure and operations. That was done to facilitate competition, but in fact Open Access (which was meant to be the ultimate goal of rail privatisation) never took off and only three open access operators exist, meaning that most companies run as a monopoly (particularly since franchises in London were reformed so that only one company runs out of most London terminals, you no longer even have a choice between an Intercity and an ex-Network SouthEast operator).

    What the seperation of infrastructure, operations, and (initally) maintenance did was create a "blame game", when after an accident (and there were a couple of high profile ones during the late 1990s), the operator blamed Railtrack, Railtrack blamed the maintenance contractors, they blamed the Rolling Stock Leasing Companies (who are licences to print money if they ever existed - naturally they were bought by banks). Nobody took responsiblity for anything.

    First thing Network Rail did when it was formed was to take maintenance back in house.

    As for franchises, it has turned out that franchises have had very short life expectancies. Take suburban services on the Great Eastern main line. This was the Great Eastern Railway franchise. The shadow franchise, operated by BR, was GER - Great Eastern Railway, it then became First Great Eastern on privatisation, the franchise was then combined with Anglia and became the stupidly named "one", then National Express East Anglia. Next year it will get another new name when another franchisee (NS) takes over. That's five brand names in seventeen years. That's by no means atypical of the British network. Very few of the original franchises survive, of the 25 granted in 1994-1997, only South West Trains and Virgin West Coast are left (and the latter only because Virgin was granted a super-long franchise which only expires next year). If the turnover rate of franchises is so high, they must all be doing something wrong? Or maybe there is something wrong with the system in the first place.


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    #49
    dowlingm
    Registered Users Posts: 5,309 ✭✭✭dowlingm


    Splitting Infrastructure and Operation is now required by EU law from which we have a derogation. How many derogations is Ireland going to get in years to come? I doubt the Eurocracy feels as benevolent as it used to.

    The problem with straight up privatisation is that at the moment there aren't many players with free capital to invest and those that are will want substantial assurance of a return (think toll bridges) as they will be aware of a default risk which even five years ago would have been laughable. The time to privatise is not at the bottom of the market and especially when that bottom comes with a credit crunch.

    (Actually I would say the canny government nationalises at times like this - pick up assets you privatised for 100mill for 10mill rather than leave the private owner have a firesale which leaves the assets useless, like when US and Canadian railroad abandon track and tear it up to avoid property taxation. Problem is that usually States can borrow when private players can't, or print money. Not this State.)

    Before the NPRF was given away at the behest of the ECB and the boards of the banks, there could have been some sleight of hand where the NPRF formed a rolling stock company and acquired IE's rolling stock and leased it back - everything is still owned by the State but pension fund capital invested into IE by the back door. It could have also decided to add TPWS and thus make stock leasable by NIR during busy periods.

    I would like to see Enterprise privatised - it's a unique service being crossborder so it doesn't fit snugly into either operation. I don't feel the current model where NIR and IE have to be in lockstep on any improvements is tenable because we see the effect - during the boom when an hourly clockface could have been put in it wasn't, and where the degradation of the line could have been protested by a private operator it was accepted by the State players.


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    #50
    Hilly Bill
    Registered Users Posts: 6,039 ✭✭✭Hilly Bill


    From what i read there are a few on here that supports the loss of hundreds of Irish jobs in favour of non irish companies who would employ foreign staff at less cost which means working longer hours for less pay and the quality of work will be worse.
    What about the cost of training new staff? Its easy enough to sit back and post your ideas on here but i dont think anyone has actually thought about the outcome.
    Look what happened in the UK and the accidents that happened, do you want that company working here? They have a history of undercutting to get contracts and would no doubt win a contract here if they do the same.
    Be careful in what you wish for, its people's jobs and income you are playing with.


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    #51
    Cookie_Monster
    Registered Users Posts: 24,470 ✭✭✭✭Cookie_Monster


    Hilly Bill wrote: »
    From what i read there are a few on here that supports the loss of hundreds of Irish jobs in favour of non irish companies who would employ foreign staff at less cost which means working longer hours for less pay and the quality of work will be worse.

    just like aircoach right?

    What makes you think it wouldn't be an Irish company?


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    #52
    Ben Hadad
    Registered Users Posts: 186 ✭✭Ben Hadad


    Niles wrote: »
    It being "badly run" doesn't necessarily mean that it should be privatised... it could remain in State ownership while at same time undergo a restructuring to make it better. Likewise making it private doesn't automatically mean it will or won't be run well either. As for the staff, it's a bit of a generalisation to say that "in the main" they are rude, I've encountered plenty of helpful and friendly staff on the ground. Besides, if it was privatised in the morning I would imagine many of the staff would be recruited into the new company anyway. And lest anyone thinks so I don't work for the company nor do I have any relatives in it.

    Why the inverted comma for "badly run". It's my opinion, there is no need for the inverted commas dumbo.

    "In the main" = generalisation. There is no need to critique it for being what it is.

    Yeah right you don't work for the organsiaiton


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    #53
    Ben Hadad
    Registered Users Posts: 186 ✭✭Ben Hadad


    Hilly Bill wrote: »
    If CIE does get fully privatised and the travel cost goes up and the service doesnt get any better, what then?

    People just choose a more economical means of transport. CIE in its current guise is a tax on all non train using people.


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    #54
    Hilly Bill
    Registered Users Posts: 6,039 ✭✭✭Hilly Bill


    Cookie_Monster wrote: »
    just like aircoach right?

    What makes you think it wouldn't be an Irish company?

    What Irish company is out there that do Rail work? and who doesnt employ mainly foreign workforce.


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    #55
    Victor
    Registered Users Posts: 78,261 ✭✭✭✭Victor


    Ben Hadad wrote: »
    no need for the inverted commas dumbo.
    No need for insults.
    Ben Hadad wrote: »
    Why the inverted comma for "badly run".
    I preusme you are being quoted and they don't necessarily agree with you.


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    #56
    dowlingm
    Registered Users Posts: 5,309 ✭✭✭dowlingm


    Hilly Bill wrote: »
    Look what happened in the UK and the accidents that happened, do you want that company working here?
    Hilly Bill, acquaint yourself with RAIU reports (they will even email you when there's a new one). Start with the incident at Buttevant LC. Just because it's State-run doesn't mean it can't have safety issues.


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    #57
    n97 mini
    Registered Users Posts: 8,295 ✭✭✭n97 mini


    Hilly Bill wrote: »
    its people's jobs and income you are playing with.
    Irish Rail isn't a charity for it's staff. It has customers, who have to be put first.


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    #58
    Losty Dublin
    Registered Users Posts: 12,973 ✭✭✭✭Losty Dublin


    dowlingm wrote: »
    Hilly Bill, acquaint yourself with RAIU reports (they will even email you when there's a new one). Start with the incident at Buttevant LC. Just because it's State-run doesn't mean it can't have safety issues.

    I think he is referring to the corporate attitude from Railtrack that saw it take downright reckless chances on maintaining the railways in the UK based solely on pound shilling and pence savings.


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    #59
    Niles
    Registered Users Posts: 1,186 ✭✭✭Niles


    Ben Hadad wrote: »
    Why the inverted comma for "badly run". It's my opinion, there is no need for the inverted commas dumbo.

    "In the main" = generalisation. There is no need to critique it for being what it is.

    Yeah right you don't work for the organsiaiton

    I was merely using inverted commas for the quotation of specific phrases that I would question as being valid reasons in favour of privatisation. To clarify, I'm not saying that the company is or isn't badly run, but that being badly run is not in itself a reason to privatise it, a restructuring/change of management can take place while still in state ownership.

    And no, I really don't work for CIÉ or any of its constituents.


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    #60
    Hilly Bill
    Registered Users Posts: 6,039 ✭✭✭Hilly Bill


    Ben Hadad wrote: »
    People just choose a more economical means of transport. CIE in its current guise is a tax on all non train using people.

    But dont they do that anyway?


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    #61
    Hilly Bill
    Registered Users Posts: 6,039 ✭✭✭Hilly Bill


    n97 mini wrote: »
    Irish Rail isn't a charity for it's staff. It has customers, who have to be put first.

    Nobody saying it is and of course customers come first. I take it you support mass unemployment then ? or is it just when CIE is involved?


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