Title: Why not... nationalise the railways? - BBC News
Headings: Why not... nationalise the railways?
Why not... nationalise the railways?
The background
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Content: After the war, David Lloyd George judged that rail firms profits were too low due to too much competition, and decided to merge nearly all the UK's railway firms into just four firms, practically monopolies. Between 1923 and 1947 the so-called Big Four government-supported firms ran the roost and journeys fell to about 1.2 billion by the onset of the Second World War. After the war, these and others were consolidated further into British Rail. Under British Rail, there were steadily fewer and fewer journeys per year—from around 1 billion in 1948 to only 750 million by 1995, just before the onset of the franchising system. Now there are deep flaws with franchising, and undoubtedly it has been lucky, coinciding with higher congestion, fuel prices, and a renewed rise in London as the UK's economic centre. But the sharpness of the change since 1995 is undeniable. Since then journeys have spiked dramatically, rising every year to close on the 1.5 billion not seen for almost a century. The solution to our current problems is not more state bungling, it is a return to diversity, competition and open markets. View comments