Reply to post: Thatcher wasn't in favour of rail privatisation.

Why OH WHY did Blighty privatise EVERYTHING?

Sean Timarco Baggaley

Thatcher wasn't in favour of rail privatisation.

It was John Major's bunch of idiots who decided to privatise a natural monopoly that was also hamstrung by a number of issues that didn't apply in other countries. In fairness, when the plans were drawn up, nobody expected railways to last. At the time, passenger numbers had been falling for years, so the expectation was that the network would not need massive investment in infrastructure.

I hate to play the "special snowflake" argument, but it really does apply to the UK's rail infrastructure. The price of pioneering rail networks is that a number of mistakes were made. Other countries got to learn from and avoid those mistakes, but the UK is stuck with many of them and it makes the network rather more expensive to run compared to its cousins overseas.

The privatisation of British Rail by John Major's administration also managed to completely ignore all the most basic tenets of good (interface) design, but that's another rant. That no other country has even considered copying the UK's model speaks volumes for Major's incompetence.

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