"Capitol" wrote in message
...


John Cartmell wrote:

snip

Re Major:-

So he privatised the railways.

Badly. The whole operation should have been privatised and price
decontrolled as one entity IMO. There is no case for the majority
of
taxpayers to subsidise the travel costs of a small minority(except
perhaps in poor rural areas).

True to a point. One thing though, are you talking about just one big
private 'British Railways Ltd.' or BR being split up, the former
would have caused more problems than it would have solved, the latter
would have worked if the railways had gone back to regional companies
(with running powers over shared lines and for running block trains
etc.) - much of the problem with the railways system as privatise is
due to fragmentation of income sources.

Airlines etc don't need subsidies(unless
they are American/European with poor control of wages and
efficiency due
largely to union strength/greed). Given a few (5?) years for rail
fare
adjustments to an economic level and provide a real return on
capital,
the market will sort out the mess the politicians always produce.

Would that not have an effect on the use of the railways system?
Public Transport needs to be accessible for to be used (rather than
people just using their own cars etc.), some services need to be
subsidised - not for the benefit of the company or share holders but
for the benefit of those who use the system.