Time to nationalise the trains?

Read in The Times this am:
National Express wants taxpayers’ cash to keep running East Coast trains - Times Online

At a time where rail fares have been increasing faster than inflation, I was reading this and thinking it was a further proof that the rail privatisation did not work, in the UK or anywhere else.

Its results are:

• a poor deal for the consumer with one of the most expensive transport system in the world, sending more people than ever on the roads (an overused infrastructure with little investment over the last 20 years)
• little progress in upgrading and investments, with for instance no high-speed links between London, the Midlands and Scotland ; I mean Crossrail and HS1 are not much in 20 years
  
• overall, the service is sort of improving but is running on many lines over-capacity 

In the meantime, the government continues with its double standards and taxes cars CO2 emissions while not taxing aviation fuel and not phasing out diesel train engines with electrified lines.

UK, rail, railways, transportation, richmondtransits.blog

Should the UK follow Zimbabwe?

BBC NEWS | World | Africa | Zimbabwe abandons its currency

Should the UK retain the Sterling? The exchange rate variations we see those days are hurting the British economy badly, whereas it's un-deniable that the Euro-Zone is much better off thanks to the single currency and the financial rules that it brought...

What if those who govern us had a long term view about strategic infrastructures?

I posted the following comments on this blog post of this morning:
The Toleration Of Public Transport on Jonathan MacDonald.com

These are the consequences of the refusal to invest in a proper public transportation system for 30 years: high prices and bad service.

They've tried to privatise and introduce competition, but the idea just doesn't work with infrastructure: you just can't make a profit, provide universal access, good interconnections and good service with redundant infrastructure.

If the government had taken a long term approach, the results could be:
- that the Eurostar platforms don't stand un-used for a year after they've innaugurated High Speed 1 and St Pancras International, when on the other hand trains are waiting for a platform on approach to Waterloo station
- that the Waterloo and City line would not be an isolated branch but would serve as a junction tunnel between the overground in Waterloo to the overground in Moorgate (strange that no one ever thought that trains could come from Reading / Portsmouth all the way to Stevenage / Cambridge)
- an airport in the estuary with 5 runways instead of 5 airports in dense conurbations, each with 1 or 2 runways
- a high-speed line to the Midlands and Scotland, with an interchange with the Eurostar
- Water pipes that are buried so that they don't freeze when the temperature drops

And so on... it's a long story of incompetence and short-sighted decisions.

UK, politics, transportation, trains, rail, ai, airways, BAA, DfT, richmondtransits.blog

Darling and the impact on the Sterling

Read this morning Pre-Budget Report and Alistair Darling's £1 trillion debt gamble (Times Online)

What the chancellor, and the media, forget to say is that VAT cut won't help much in an economy that's hooked to imports.

More borrowing probably in fact will further weaken the Sterling Pound, resulting in more imported inflation and negating those 2.5% VAT cut.

Time to join the Euro?

UK, economy, politics, budget, euro, richmondtransits.blog