In the news

I worked for Northern TOC up in York and have seen all the changes for good and bad. I was there for the Sectorisation (Provincial), Regionalisation (Regional Rail NE), Privatisation (MTL Serco, NED rail, Arriva), Re-Sectorisation (Loss of Trans Pennine Trains to TPE), Re-Organisation (Combining North West and North East in to Northern) and finally working under the Operator Of Last Resort.
Personally it has been very good to me, Forty Five years at Retirement. For our travelling public, not so much. Although at local level we worked very well with the operators we share lines with, LNER, TPE. XC, Avanti, Serco, East Midlands, West Midlands, Merseyrail, TFW, Grand Central, Lumo and a myriad of Freight Operators it can be seen from the list how many lines of communication and conflicts of interest there can be. There has to be a rule of the plan for each intersection of operators.
It is huge and full of conflict and there is no simple answer. Least of all Nationalisation without having an overall strategy or dream of how the Railways should look.

I'm now working for a civils contractor on HS2

Not Martifer I hope. (or Severfield lol)

Just finished a stint on the viaduct out of Birmingham: expensive shit-show.

Nope.

MWCC, not well-known in the UK. yet.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c70ezyrep1go

City of London will be distraught to hear that British criminal gangs are going all the way to Russia to launder money when they're based right here...

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Just another example of London labour costs being uncompetitive on the World stage?

CEO of notoriously shitty US Healthcare Company assassinated.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/crmn2ry1224t

The Reddit comments, from frustrated healthcare insurance customers in the US, are not kind.

Another UK-based courier network was run by Semen Kuksov, the son of a Russian oil executive. He and his associates collected more than £12m in drugs cash in just 10 weeks to be exchanged for virtual currency. Last February, he was jailed for almost six years.

I'm presuming he spunked it all

Is that the welding issue?

As you point out, there are natural monopolies, such as water, power, public transport and roads. Where standardisation is needed.

You can't have 5 different train companies running services between popular destinations (e.g. Guildford <-> Waterloo).

Some people suggest that this is exactly what should happen. The model would be the same as airlines where (as I understand it) airlines bid for departure slots and it's then on them to make their service as competitive as possible to attract custom and make profit. The claim is that what you end up with is a price war and better and better deals for customers.

I guess where the analogy falls down is that trains are a necessary public service in a way that air connections are not. Therefore you need someone to run services on routes that aren't profitable, and to work out how to incentivise them to do that.

Although some are quite amusing.

The claim is that what you end up with is a price war and better and better deals for customers.

Where the companies cut costs and fuck over staff while taking on debt to try and undercut the competition for long enough to make them go bust so they can obtain a monopoly and grossly inflate prices.

I agree. I'm not convinced that it's a viable plan for the railways.

The nursing subreddit is fucking savage.

Bullet in chest (ICD-10 S21.301A: unspecified open wound of thorax with penetration into thoracic cavity) sounds like a pre-existing condition. Sorry, no coverage. Maybe try physical therapy.

Some people suggest that this is exactly what should happen.

Interesting idea but there are so many barriers to it being possible to implement. Multiple depots? Shared depots? Who pays for what?

I guess where the analogy falls down is that trains are a necessary public service in a way that air connections are not. Therefore you need someone to run services on routes that aren't profitable, and to work out how to incentivise them to do that.

There are equivalent in the airline world, look up Public Service Obligation routes. These are subsidised routes that mean some regional airports are connected to the national hubs where no alternative public transport exists with a journey time of under 3 hours.

Even the right wing ghouls on letsrun.com forum aren’t extending their usual boolicking to the billionaire oligarchy to this guy. Man he must have been hated.

It also falls down on its not just time slots, but the relative speeds of the services, the number and location of stops and the time taken to embark/disembark at each station dependent upon the type of train and number of passengers on that service. It's also dependent upon the number of lines e.g. 2 pairs or lines (one fast one slow), just one or bi-directional, and the signalling layout (can only ever run one train per block).

I defer to your expertise on this, but my understanding is that it wouldn't create those problems if they don't already exist. Rival companies would effectively bid to run specific services (or bundles of services) within a constrained timetable against certain obligations.

Rival companies would effectively bid to run specific services (or bundles of services) within a constrained timetable against certain obligations.

I think this would be a shit-show of epic proportions.

People in the monopoly discussion seem to be failing to consider the possibility (certainty!) that the private sector should be abolished entirely

The amount of money and time spent already on delay attribution is sodding horrendous.

yeah - it doesn't work.

it's just about feasible to have two operators on long distance routes (e.g. the open access operators like Lumo and Grand Central). On metro style services it doesn't work at all.

Is that for the delay-repay thing? I'm always amazed at how much money must end up being returned to customers.