Kevin Tennent, Me and Terry at Battersea Beer Festival, 2011 |
Should Passengers Pay
Higher Fares?
This issue comes up
every year, and produces the same sterile arguments from the main protagonists:
Passenger Focus, ATOC, et al. How much of the cost of running the passenger
railway should be charged to the ‘fare box’ is, of course, a matter for public
policy. Some countries, e.g. France
and Italy, have historically
charged more to tax-payers than we do in the UK. If that is justifiable, then
passengers should pay less here too. On the other hand, in countries which load
the burden onto tax-payers, the operation represents a subsidy to rail users,
who are in general not the poorer members of society that subsidies really
ought to reach. I would say that increasing the fare box via higher fares is
justifiable, but only if: 1] railway costs are as low as they could be; and 2]
journeys made on the spur of the moment, i.e. non-APEX fares, are not
punitively high.
Can we say that this
is so?
Christian Wolmar: Well, what can be said about Christian Wolmar that hasn't been said already? Christian is Britain's leading transport commentator, popping up on TV and Radio almost every week. But more than that, he has written widely about railway issues and history. The first book of his I read, many moons ago, was the 'Subterranean Railway', his engaging account of the history of the London Tube. Subsequently, I have consumed most of his other books, including 'Fire and Steam', 'On the Wrong Line' and 'Engines of War.' I also am an avid reader of his fortnightly column in RAIL magazine. Therefore, as an author whose writings I have thoroughly enjoyed through the years, I was thrilled when he agreed to write a paragraph for this anniversary. Many, many, thanks to Christian:
Without understanding history,we cannot learn its lessons. In the research for my various books, it is remarkable how the same dilemmas over railway politics have occurred throughout their history. Italian politicians, for example, were debating whether to nationalise their railways in the 1880s, and interestingly it was the Left who opposed state control. Discussions over open access to railways predate that by some decades and nearly all rail companies realised that providing the traction as well as the track was the best option, a lesson of history missed by those who supported the rail privatisation of the mid 1990s. Subsidy, too, has always been a thorny issue and subject to much handwringing from politicians. If only they understood the history and learned from it, they would not make the same mistakes as their predecessors. Maybe that is too much to hope for, but as historians – and I have become one by default – we must strive to educate today’s decision makers about how the past can inform them.
Christian Wolmar: Well, what can be said about Christian Wolmar that hasn't been said already? Christian is Britain's leading transport commentator, popping up on TV and Radio almost every week. But more than that, he has written widely about railway issues and history. The first book of his I read, many moons ago, was the 'Subterranean Railway', his engaging account of the history of the London Tube. Subsequently, I have consumed most of his other books, including 'Fire and Steam', 'On the Wrong Line' and 'Engines of War.' I also am an avid reader of his fortnightly column in RAIL magazine. Therefore, as an author whose writings I have thoroughly enjoyed through the years, I was thrilled when he agreed to write a paragraph for this anniversary. Many, many, thanks to Christian:
Without understanding history,we cannot learn its lessons. In the research for my various books, it is remarkable how the same dilemmas over railway politics have occurred throughout their history. Italian politicians, for example, were debating whether to nationalise their railways in the 1880s, and interestingly it was the Left who opposed state control. Discussions over open access to railways predate that by some decades and nearly all rail companies realised that providing the traction as well as the track was the best option, a lesson of history missed by those who supported the rail privatisation of the mid 1990s. Subsidy, too, has always been a thorny issue and subject to much handwringing from politicians. If only they understood the history and learned from it, they would not make the same mistakes as their predecessors. Maybe that is too much to hope for, but as historians – and I have become one by default – we must strive to educate today’s decision makers about how the past can inform them.
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