- Staff Notice
Heavily unionised. The trains will go automatic, hence why there was strikes on one of the lines the other year which will stop that nonsense in the end.
The problem with rail privatisation these days is there are far too many people with fingers in the pie, whereas in the days before British Rail the companies owned the trains, the track and all the other infrastructure, today we have the train operating companies who just run the trains while leasing the trains from another company over tracks owned by someone else.
The rail system was broken up as it is now because the track is shared and breaks off into different directions. If you had one or more tracks going to each destination, those tracks could be individually owned by the train companies, but the train companies have to share the tracks with each other and thus why we have Network Rail. And the trains are leased becuase the franchises are so small. If the train companies had franchisees of 30 years say, they probably would buy their own trains.
The c2c line (the former Misery Line) by me going from Southend into Fenchurch St is one such track that only goes in one direction and thus is owned by one company, but that is not the norm.
As for the cost of tickets I just dont get the pricing for instance I live in Banbury and sometimes travel to Oxford and Bicester, the tickets to Oxford cost around £6 for a off-peak standard return whereas the tickets to Bicester costs around £9 for a off-peak standard return you only have to look on a map to see Bicester is not as far as Oxford, I have yet to have anyone give me a satisfactory explanation as to why it costs more to travel to Bicester than it does to Oxford.
Don't know Ron. Apart from London, I've never been on trains elsewhere between major towns and cities. Have you ever asked your train company why this is? Perhaps the Bicester route stops more and thus costs more to operate??