r/Glasgow Tools

Title
Author	dddiamonddd
Comment	It's not a shocking revelation, it's just one that proves the absurdity of insisting on having privatised railways when the contract gets awarded to, essentially, the Dutch government who use it to make their nationalised railways more affordable for Dutch people. It proves that we should really be nationalising our railways too. Especially since ScotRail is hardly raking in cash for Abellio and Dutch trains don't appear to be getting vastly more expensive in response, because the Dutch government clearly feels that it is better to keep public transport affordable for their residents than to try and make it break-even or profit-making. That's not "hating capitalism" (as someone alleged in reply to you, though I do have some choice thoughts about that too) or being ignorant (I am literally an accountant, through my work I help to push capitalism along whether I like it or not), that's recognising that capitalism has some glaring flaws that only become more intensely obvious when you apply them to a system like a railway that can only really, effectively, have a single provider. Capitalism is meant to be all about competition, and there cannot be competition on railways. I gain absolutely nothing if I can choose from 3 providers at my train station, because I am a captive market. I need to get the train regardless of the price because I need to get to work, and which train I choose will be largely chosen based on whether it gets me where I need to be on time. I don't have free choice of provider, so it may as well be a monopoly that's won by whichever provider manages to get their train in the timeslot that's the peak of peak-time travel. There's no room for competition. Shit, I have it on good authority that ScotRail are absolutely dying to cut my line off completely because it's not profitable for them. But given that most trains are more like a public service than they are a capitalistic venture, if they cut off my line, they cut off a lot of people's access to their jobs and leisure time, so they can't do so without experiencing a huge backlash. And I don't think they should be able to either.
Reddit Link	https://www.reddit.com/r/glasgow/comments/m1re6o/not_paying_for_train_tickets_has_had_a/gqfidaz/
Created	Wed 10th Mar 2021 9:52am
Status	normal ()

It's not a shocking revelation, it's just one that proves the absurdity of insisting on having privatised railways when the contract gets awarded to, essentially, the Dutch government who use it to make their nationalised railways more affordable for Dutch people. It proves that we should really be nationalising our railways too. Especially since ScotRail is hardly raking in cash for Abellio and Dutch trains don't appear to be getting vastly more expensive in response, because the Dutch government clearly feels that it is better to keep public transport affordable for their residents than to try and make it break-even or profit-making.

That's not "hating capitalism" (as someone alleged in reply to you, though I do have some choice thoughts about that too) or being ignorant (I am literally an accountant, through my work I help to push capitalism along whether I like it or not), that's recognising that capitalism has some glaring flaws that only become more intensely obvious when you apply them to a system like a railway that can only really, effectively, have a single provider. Capitalism is meant to be all about competition, and there cannot be competition on railways. I gain absolutely nothing if I can choose from 3 providers at my train station, because I am a captive market. I need to get the train regardless of the price because I need to get to work, and which train I choose will be largely chosen based on whether it gets me where I need to be on time. I don't have free choice of provider, so it may as well be a monopoly that's won by whichever provider manages to get their train in the timeslot that's the peak of peak-time travel. There's no room for competition. Shit, I have it on good authority that ScotRail are absolutely dying to cut my line off completely because it's not profitable for them. But given that most trains are more like a public service than they are a capitalistic venture, if they cut off my line, they cut off a lot of people's access to their jobs and leisure time, so they can't do so without experiencing a huge backlash. And I don't think they should be able to either.