The debacle with new railway timetables is entirely of the Tory government’s own making (Report, 6 June). It’s been obvious for years that the franchising system is both dysfunctional and has destroyed the operational economies of scale that were an essential part of the British Rail integrated network. What is truly alarming is the escalating cost of propping up the failing franchises, now in the billions and possibly about to rise yet further if GTR and Northern collapse.
As your editorial (5 June) rightly says, in Chris Grayling we see a minister so fixated with privatisation and viscerally opposed to the idea of a public service railway system of the kind used all over the rest of the EU, that he has become incapable of objective judgments and unwilling to accept any responsibility. At the heart of the argument is an economic theory, peddled by rightwing ideologues for the past 40 years, that only private profit can encourage efficiency, that the state can never match the private sector, and that the only measure of market performance is price, dividends and earnings per share in a (fictional) perfectly competitive economic environment.
Since none of this has ever been true of rail transport and never can be, the time has surely come for train services to be taken out of private hands and handed over to accountable local transport commissions similar to TfL. Grayling, or more likely his successor, can then put his economic theories to the test in the real world and see which performs better for the public. I have absolutely no doubt what the outcome would be.
Adrian Berridge
Clacton on Sea, Essex
• While I sympathise with commuters around the country suffering daily rail chaos, as a leisure traveller I am very used to weekend and bank holiday services – often sketchy at best – being cancelled due to planned engineering works. We who use the train for reasons other than commuting have long known that we are viewed as second-class citizens.
Nevertheless, I am astounded at the proposal (Railcards could be axed under radical plan to simplify fares, 4 June) to “simplify” fares by averaging out the difference between peak and off-peak charges and abolishing “old-fashioned and restrictive” railcards (shame on you, Guardian, for uncritically repeating that description). At a rough calculation, this would see railcard-using off-peak travellers faced with fares of around three times their current level.
At a stroke, hundreds of thousands of leisure rail users would be priced off the railways. Some would take to their cars, increasing traffic congestion. Others – non-drivers like myself – would have to endure the purgatory of the long-distance coach or simply travel far less. Shorter day-trips would become almost impossible due to the near absence of rural buses. Meanwhile, rail revenue would tumble as daytime trains ran empty, and the tourism and hospitality industries would take a hit. Congratulations, Rail Delivery Group, on your visionary plan.
Rob Sykes
Oxford
• Your editorial talked about Grayling’s “dogmatic obsession with privatisation”. All the more curious then, in your account of his tenure as justice secretary, that you omit to mention his enforced privatisation of a very large part of the probation service, and his bailing out of those private companies whose calculations about their profit margin per offender proved to be so awry. Also omitted was any reference to the standards of service delivery of some of those companies, who, according to reports from the probation inspectorate, appear to think that a telephone conversation with an offender constitutes an appropriate level of supervisory contact.
Andy Stelman
Bishops Castle, Shropshire
• At present, here in France the rail service is badly disrupted by official strikes twice a week and trains run normally on other days. If Mr Grayling were to implement this system in the UK it might be seen as a significant improvement on the current timetable and go some way to restoring his tarnished reputation.
Mick Sheahan
Poitiers, France
• Re Operators of Northern rail and Thameslink could be barred from new franchises (5 June), perhaps they could join together and rename themselves “Off the Rails”?
Patricia Mitchell
Morecambe, Lancashire
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