Home    Essays                                                                                         October 2006

The state of public transportation in modern Britain is, bluntly, nothing short of diabolical. So called developments in this area can in no way be considered as progressive, as the now long passed transition from public to private ownership of our transport systems was in actuality, a backward and regressive move without any benefit to the very public that the system was intended to serve.

I remember of course, when the trains for example, were still operated by British Rail. It wasn’t perfect; there were times when any of us could find some reason to complain but by comparison it was a golden age compared to the situation now.

From a unified and functional rail and bus network, we have been thrown into a disorganised and chaotic web of different companies, with often competing agendas and poor integration. To maximise profits they have repeatedly increased prices to usually scandalous levels whilst cutting back on services, quality and of course the maintenance and upkeep which not so long ago led to a series of appalling rail disasters. Many train carriages and buses, plus the stops and stations, are aged and filthy and the trains in particular are rarely on time. So often I arrive to find that services are anything from 10 minutes to over an hour late or even cancelled altogether, and this is a regular occurrence. Twice, in recent years, I have been on a train full of passengers, waiting for over 20 minutes, being told only that there is a delay, and subsequently having to leave altogether for another service as a driver cannot be found for the train! I once waited at a station for over 40 minutes as all services had been delayed due to a faulty signal. I finally left and demanded a refund when it was announced that after this length of time, engineers had still not even arrived at the faulty signal yet. Deplorable.

Another factor is the provision of services. I happen to be lucky at least in that I now live in a village on the main route between major towns, so that there is effectively a regular bus service until late at night. However were I used to live, which was incidentally a far larger commuter village in the south east; there were no buses after 7:30 in the evening. In fact between the nearest town and Central London there were no train services for 7-8 hours after 10:30 at night. As for this area; between Durham and Newcastle there are no trains after 10:40 in the week and none at all after only 8:30 at the weekend! However the latter situation it must be said is partly due to the vile, irresponsible, selfish and moronic behaviour of various rowdy, beer swilling, tabloid reading louts that have caused trouble in the past. Which leads to the following issue, that of safety.

Security and safety is still a serious problem in many places, with not enough yet being done to deal with drunks, hooligans, loiterers, and criminals both on buses and trains and at stations. Of course, this costs money which is always going to be an issue with privately operated services, fixated as they are with maximising profits to the exclusion of any other factor. The situation in Durham bus station for example, has improved greatly but there is still more that needs to be done. There is still some trouble with noisy and rowdy groups of youths wandering about without any legitimate reason to be there, creating a nuisance because they are basically too mindlessly ignorant and unintelligent to find any more useful activities to involve their lives, individually or together. There is need for a law banning the entry to bus and most rail stations by those not using the transport and/or the associated facilities legitimately, with immediate fines for violators. I have had enough of it.

To return to the main issue in conclusion. The only way forward is to re nationalise these services and undo the irresponsible and selfish legacy of Thatcherism which is the route cause of this situation. Public services should be run for the benefit of the public, not for a minority of major share holders, many of whom, no doubt, have to rarely trouble themselves by using our failing transport. In a responsibly managed and publicly maintained system, the funding goes towards upkeep and upgrades to the infrastructure and services, and provides a useful, convenient and cheap alternative to driving. That is the ideal anyway, which can and will never be achieved through private ownership. Furthermore with the availability of fossil fuels and the dangers to the environment becoming an ever more serious and immediate issue, the sooner something is done to improve and encourage the use of public transport, the better; as the situation is, the government is labouring under a strange and blinkered delusion when it tries to promote the use of what is often an under funded, squalid and over priced nightmare.