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Well known railway writer Adrian Vaughan, and author of the very successful title "Railway Blunders", now turns his attention to what he considers to be the greatest blunder the railway industry has ever perpetrated, the privatisation of the 1990s. A personal polemic, he first gives a history from the dawn of the railway age up to 1948 when the industry developed into a number of large, centralised, integrated self-supporting companies, but the efficiencies borne from a common gauge and common standards enabled the railways to withstand even the very worst pressures that two World Wars brought to the transport system. The author then goes on to analyse the process of privatisation and the effects it has had on the industry in the ensuing years.He looks in detail at the franchisees, the contracts, the costs, the successes and more prevalent failures, the comparison with railways abroad, and to the final chapter where he poses the question 'Has privatisation achieved anything that could not have been achieved by BR?' All readers can judge for themselves in this often controversial but always absorbing study.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
A timely reminder of the winners and losers when economists of the free-market enterprise, 'Chicago Boys' school, regimen are given free reign for self service and helping out their consultant, lawyer and accountant friends.
If this book is a rant as some suggest then Vaughan has just cause as those who know a thing or too about the history of railways can so readily understand.
The millions wasted by successive governments, Thatcher and Major, on fees for experts could clearly have been better spent on real improvements that would have maintained and improved both services and safety makes it clear that BR was asset stripped to the point where track and signaling maintenance was severely compromised as Ladbrook Grove and other accidents make clear.
Consider the congestion on roads now, this could have been considerably eased if Earnest Marples Minister of transport, who had clear conflicts of interest such that he put his road building construction company under his wife's name, had never been given that role and been enabled to make competing with road hauliers so weighted against the railways, the railways also soon to feel the effects of competition with internal air carriers. The investment in roads vastly outweighed that in the railways - who gained I leave the informed reader to judge?
How can one present a balanced and technical account of the structure of a railway that has itself been made so technically unbalanced that engineers have to be imported from abroad because we have thrown away those with the necessary skills. Practical technical skills are a scarce resource these days whether it comes to railways or even household plumbing.
Brunel and Stephenson will have been spinning in their graves as the watched what happened to Britain's Railways. Sure modernisation over time was needed but babies and bathwater spring to mind.
If this book is a rant as some suggest then Vaughan has just cause as those who know a thing or too about the history of railways can so readily understand.
The millions wasted by successive governments, Thatcher and Major, on fees for experts could clearly have been better spent on real improvements that would have maintained and improved both services and safety makes it clear that BR was asset stripped to the point where track and signaling maintenance was severely compromised as Ladbrook Grove and other accidents make clear.
Consider the congestion on roads now, this could have been considerably eased if Earnest Marples Minister of transport, who had clear conflicts of interest such that he put his road building construction company under his wife's name, had never been given that role and been enabled to make competing with road hauliers so weighted against the railways, the railways also soon to feel the effects of competition with internal air carriers. The investment in roads vastly outweighed that in the railways - who gained I leave the informed reader to judge?
How can one present a balanced and technical account of the structure of a railway that has itself been made so technically unbalanced that engineers have to be imported from abroad because we have thrown away those with the necessary skills. Practical technical skills are a scarce resource these days whether it comes to railways or even household plumbing.
Brunel and Stephenson will have been spinning in their graves as the watched what happened to Britain's Railways. Sure modernisation over time was needed but babies and bathwater spring to mind.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book is an excellent read as it lets the reader know how not to run a railway. After the privatisation of British Rail by the myopic Conservative government, who had the habit of selling the national assets just so they could make a fast buck, the railways really went downhill - the Pendolinos are like high speed coffins they are that narrow!. People may have criticised BR but at least they knew how to run an efficient safe railway on a budget - they had to really as the government of the day (both Labour and Conservative) refused to invest the money needed, but as soon as rail privatisation occurred, public money (we are looking at billions here) was suddenly found to subsidise the numerous private companies involved, and it is still flowing - more public money has gone into the railways since privatisation than BR ever had to invest! - imagine what British Rail could have done with all those billions. However the book would have been better if there were more events described about the ludicrousness of the unmitigated disaster of rail privatisation, which leads to the obvious (and cheaper) thing and that is to renationalise the railways quickly.
16 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
In this book, Adrian Vaughan provides many detailed examples of why the privatisation of the railways is a very very bad deal for taxpayers.
In numerous passages he describes "railway problem incidents" that now take ten times as long (at vastly increased cost) to resolve as they did before privatisation.
Adrian skillfully explains (with many examples) that the extra time is required because before any action is taken, the "interested parties" first have to have one or more meetings to decide "who pays" and they do this by first deciding "who is to blame".
This costly fiasco is a direct consequence of fragmenting a single public organisation (the old British Rail) into hundreds of smaller private companies who each have to employ managers, accountants, invoice clerks and lawyers and at the same time make profits. And the taxpayers subsidies continue so all of this extra cost is borne by the taxpayer and railway passengers.
The photos will be of interest to "railway enthusiats" but I'm not one of those. For me, the photos were a valuable addition because they helped me to visualise the many incidents that Adrian describes in the text.
If you are interested in a similar "fragmentation is good" fiasco, I recommend Allyson Pollock's book NHS Plc. The NHS is a different public service but if you read both books you see the same crazy "internal market" solution is creating a similar costly mess - and both are at the taxpayers expense. NHS Plc: The Privatisation of Our Health Care
The main premise of the book is that it is less costly and more efficient to manage a single system with a single organisation than to manage the same single system with lots of smaller organisations. Pretty obvious really!
So why did our Parliamentary champions of "efficiency" NOT understand that fragmentation increases costs and reduces service quality?
If the MP's expenses scandal makes you mad, then the detailed reports of these two authors will show you that the MP's expenses scandal is just the tip of a huge financial fiasco in the public sector.
Maybe the Daily Telegraph can get around to investigating this since they seem to be doing such a good job of exposing the roots of the present scandal of "MP's expenses".
In numerous passages he describes "railway problem incidents" that now take ten times as long (at vastly increased cost) to resolve as they did before privatisation.
Adrian skillfully explains (with many examples) that the extra time is required because before any action is taken, the "interested parties" first have to have one or more meetings to decide "who pays" and they do this by first deciding "who is to blame".
This costly fiasco is a direct consequence of fragmenting a single public organisation (the old British Rail) into hundreds of smaller private companies who each have to employ managers, accountants, invoice clerks and lawyers and at the same time make profits. And the taxpayers subsidies continue so all of this extra cost is borne by the taxpayer and railway passengers.
The photos will be of interest to "railway enthusiats" but I'm not one of those. For me, the photos were a valuable addition because they helped me to visualise the many incidents that Adrian describes in the text.
If you are interested in a similar "fragmentation is good" fiasco, I recommend Allyson Pollock's book NHS Plc. The NHS is a different public service but if you read both books you see the same crazy "internal market" solution is creating a similar costly mess - and both are at the taxpayers expense. NHS Plc: The Privatisation of Our Health Care
The main premise of the book is that it is less costly and more efficient to manage a single system with a single organisation than to manage the same single system with lots of smaller organisations. Pretty obvious really!
So why did our Parliamentary champions of "efficiency" NOT understand that fragmentation increases costs and reduces service quality?
If the MP's expenses scandal makes you mad, then the detailed reports of these two authors will show you that the MP's expenses scandal is just the tip of a huge financial fiasco in the public sector.
Maybe the Daily Telegraph can get around to investigating this since they seem to be doing such a good job of exposing the roots of the present scandal of "MP's expenses".
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Couldn't adapt to change!
The impression I gain of the author is that he resented the long overdue changes which were needed to drag the railway industry into the era of modern business. Read more
Published on 8 Sep 2009 by Mr. R. Kethro
Bit too ranty for its own good
This seems to be a mixture of tangentially related things, perhaps appropriate for the UK rail system. Read more
Published on 13 May 2009 by Matthew Whyndham
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