East Coast line to be taken back into public ownership again



They should have paid £3.3Bn - whether they did or not is irrelevant.

Now the Government will run it - and obviously not charge themselves to operate it, skewing the figures massively.
£3.3billion was to run it from 2015 - 2023. Wasnt there something about it being structured so the majority of that figure was paid in the last few years of franchise or something similar anyway.

It begs the question that if as a country we have to bribe private companies with funding to run railways to allow them to make profit is it worth all of the hassle when it could be run as it will be soon (for the 3rd time) by arms length not for profit company. Will it be DOR again?
 
£3.3billion was to run it from 2015 - 2023. Wasnt there something about it being structured so the majority of that figure was paid in the last few years of franchise or something similar anyway.

It begs the question that if as a country we have to bribe private companies with funding to run railways to allow them to make profit is it worth all of the hassle when it could be run as it will be soon (for the 3rd time) by arms length not for profit company. Will it be DOR again?

If you sold the infrastructure - rails, locos, land - to a private company they'd have zero bother running it.

It's the fact we try and get greedy and want companies to rent it of the public purse.

Interesting fact, Network Rail is the third largest landowner in the UK.
 
So what will happen in this regard? Will Virgin's services essentially be running under government ownership/supervision?

Hopefully they knock the prices down a notch too.
 
If you sold the infrastructure - rails, locos, land - to a private company they'd have zero bother running it.

It's the fact we try and get greedy and want companies to rent it of the public purse.

Interesting fact, Network Rail is the third largest landowner in the UK.
Surely if a private company had all of the infrastructure and bailed as it wasnt making the profit they required and forecasted for then you have a national transport network screwed.

ps we give them money to run the line
 

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