Impact of the privatisation of British Rail

Old rolling stock was extremely profitable to the ROSCOs, as they were able to charge substantial amounts for their hire even though British Rail had already written off their construction costs.

[18][19][needs update] The rolling stock manufacturers themselves suffered under privatisation; with the hiatus in new orders for new trains caused by the reorganisation and restructuring process, the former York Carriage Works (acquired by ABB) had been severely downsized and eventually closed.

[21][22] The former Metro-Cammell plant in Washwood Heath (later owned by Alstom) followed suit in 2004, closing its doors once the last of the Class 390 rolled off the assembly line.

[23][24] Of the original manufacturers, only the former Railway Technical Centre and associated British Rail Engineering Limited works in Derby and Crewe survive to the present day; now owned by Bombardier.

From a base of almost 90% of trains arriving on time in 1995, the measure peaked at more than 92% in 1996, before dipping to around 78% in 2002, mostly due to stringent safety restrictions put in place after the Hatfield crash in 2000.

Due to the Hatfield accident in 2000, Railtrack undertook large-scale track relaying without sufficient planning, and much of the work was substandard and subsequently had to be re-done.

According to Dr David Turner, the expectation that there were considerable costs that could be slashed from the system was not fulfilled; new operators found that BR had already done much of what could be done to improve efficiency.

Government in recent years has reportedly set a target of recovering 75% of costs from passengers, a figure achieved only once since privatisation, but several times before.

Journalist Aditya Chakrabortty published calculations by the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change indicating that "in the financial year ending in March 2012, the train companies gained an average return of 147% on every pound they put into their business.

"[46] However, fullfact.org found that in reality the amount of return made after subsidy and paying money back to the government was 3.4% for the financial year ending March 2012 (i.e. the same period).

Criticism has also arisen due to the fact many of the private companies are themselves owned by the state-owned transport concerns of other nations, including the largest freight operator.

In July 2015, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) introduced plans to increase competition for inter-city routes, laying out four possible options for reform:[49] A necessary side-effect of splitting the railway network into various parts owned by different private companies, with their relations between each other and the government dictated by contracts, is the requirement for a system of dispute resolution, up to and including settling disputes in the courts.

Critics of privatisation have argued that these systems are costly and time-consuming, and ultimately serve no real purpose when compared to dispute resolution in markets where there is genuine competition.

A major dispute arose after the Hatfield rail crash in 2000, when Railtrack imposed over 1,200 emergency speed restrictions on the network as a precautionary measure against further track failures.

With political intervention stalled, eventually the passenger and freight train operators—who were losing very large sums of money as a result of the severe operational disruption which was taking place—applied to the Rail Regulator for enforcement action against Railtrack.

[52] In 2013, The Guardian wrote that "on balance, rail privatisation has been a huge success" in terms of passenger numbers, fares and public subsidy, as well as Britain having both the safest railways in Europe and "most frequent services amongst eight European nations tested by a consumer group".

[58] In a 2016 article for The Independent, Simon Calder argued that the rail industry was a victim of its own success in increasing passenger numbers.

[62] Calder's article quoted Mark Smith (a station manager for Charing Cross, London Bridge and Cannon Street in the early 1990s who later started the seat61.com international rail website) as saying that Britain was doing better than the rest of Europe.

Even our on-time performance stacks up surprisingly well against the French, Germans or Italians these days, with my own local operator Chiltern Railways even giving the Swiss a run for their money.

"[62] Lew Adams, General Secretary of the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF), who vigorously opposed the privatisation of British Rail,[63] declared in 2004: "I was vehement that we wanted to stay in the public sector, and of course there were all the usual concerns trade unionists have regarding privatisation: safety issues, job losses, protecting the conditions of service and pensions.

[65] This is one of the reasons which led Network Rail to take back into its direct control all responsibility for infrastructure maintenance, whereas previously the company had used subcontractors.

[68] Two British academics, Shaw and Docherty, wrote in 2014 that "of all the European countries that came to investigate Britain's great railway privatisation experiment, not a single one has chosen to adopt the same approach".

[68] Shaw and Docherty further wrote that 'the domestic railway network has, compared to mainland Europe, been "starved of investment for decades, has been considerably reduced in scope, is significantly overcrowded and in many cases is not a particularly comfortable way to travel.

"[68] The pair note that 'whilst other [European] countries have ... developed wide-ranging electrified and increasingly significant high speed railways ... the UK has achieved comparatively little ... What is more, at least some in the government seem to regard this approach to investment as having been a success'.

In 2004, the Labour Party Conference voted by 2 to 1 in favour of a TSSA motion calling on the government to take the TOCs back into public ownership as franchises expired.

[85] Government policy has focused on building a new high speed line, which was approved by Parliament in early 2017,[86] as well as other upgrades to the rail network.

[citation needed] Without the Enabling Act, GBR lacks legal powers to award passenger contracts, manage the infrastructure or set fares and timetables.

[citation needed] In 2012, the Labour leader Ed Miliband hesitantly suggested the Party may put a promise to renationalise the railways in their 2015 general election manifesto.

[91] The policy was later dropped in favour of keeping the current system in place and creating a government-backed Intercity franchise to compete with the other train operators.

[101] In October 2014, then Scottish National Party (SNP) Transport Minister Keith Brown said 'Scotland's railway has attracted a world leading contract to deliver for rail staff and passengers'.