Broken Rails

-

Interesting piece in the FT Weekend by Christian Wolmar about UK railways, and the ills it suffers as a result of its botched privatization and the current "Not my problem..." stance by our current Transport Minister, Grant-Cannon-Fodder-Shapps. As with all national networks, the railway system has never lent itself readily to the concept of fragmentary, devolved ownership. The main reason it was nationalized in the first place was to remedy the disaster that was its private-era, a time characterized in its earliest days by different rail gauges and even different local time.

Chuck in the cherry-picking of prime trade and its converse, ditching the unprofitable routes and times; inherent in an unregulated free market: and the resultant stew of inefficiency and poor service was ripe for rational-and-national-isation. Wolmar rightly points out that the newly-state-owned system failed to quite live up to promise and remit, due to a hangover of ingrained feudalism between the regions, that was eventually dealt with by - guess what? - state intervention, post which, our national railway system functioned well and largely profitably in the service of its customers.

We've seen similar disastrous reversals of good, functioning examples of state-owned national network businesses in the power and telecommunications fields as well. We might as well go back to private road network ownership and tolls every few miles: an idea so alien and stupid to us all now, that I fail to understand the reluctance of so many to accept that some things are just simply better left to public ownership: hey, maybe socialism ain't all that weird?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Of Feedback & Wobbles

-
Image
Many years ago I came up with an analogy for poorly damped feedback loops. The feedback loop that prompted this frankly tart analogy was indeed a horror. Anyone who remembers shame-faced their first attempts at clutch control resulting in the good old kangaroo launch across the lights only to stall in the middle of the crossroads will have some idea of the kind of data transfer lag involved in said system. The analogy I made was that of a large blancmange. Untouched, a model of stasis and eminently stable and predictable; but prod the bugger and the resultant chaotic behaviour needs a very complex physical model and some very decent computing horsepower to predict its outputs, if at all. The system in question was a large and complex audio-visual display at what eventually became 'The Electric Mountain' in Llanberis. We were ultimately contracted to maintain the thing having been witness to and peripherally involved in its installation. Certainly not involved in its des...
Read more

A Time of Connection

-
Image
I was just reflecting on the vacuum of continuity that's left behind when someone dies: that sudden sense of disjoint, of fracture, in one's personal history that takes one completely by surprise at the oddest moments. These pinch-points in memory can often yield some surprising revelations of fact about periods in one's past. One such occurred to me tonight, tending my rather lazy meal of pizza in its journey from shrink-wrap to mouth via the oven. Al's recent demise still catches me out from time to time: the space he left bounded by forty plus years of friendship. But the thing that struck me tonight was just how much change was happening on a personal and social level in the very early years of our acquaintance. Between moving here from Birmingham in September 1980 and our buying our first proper house eighteen months later, all manner of things occurred that would chart the course of our lives to the present day. At around the time of our meeting Alan & Irene [...
Read more

Sister Ray

-
Image
Ray Keats - aka Ann Key - local artist & family friend, died this morning. She'd been ill for some years, but never let it get in the way of her work or of tending to the massive network of friends, colleagues and fans she had accumulated over the decades. Her house on the High Street of Rachub, just below where we live - a former cockle factory(!) - bought many years ago when she and her late husband Ronald moved here from Manchester to set up home in Yr Achub, is currently still home to her paintings and drawings, and the front window displays her work, including the last drawing she made in hospital, just days before she died. Her good friend Colin has been a diamond in her latter years, looking out for her and just being there when she needed him. She will be much missed by this tiny community of ageing bohemians up here in the hills, but suffice it to say, George, her cat, will be well looked after now she's gone.
Read more