On Thu, 30 Sep 2004 16:21:11 +0000 (UTC), "Chris Henderson"
wrote:

When British Rail was created, what were the reasons for not making the
London Underground part of it?

London's Transport has always been treated differently from the rest of
the country. This is simply the consequence of politics and the need to
secure votes in London. How you treat the travelling public in London
has a big impact at the ballot box.

The fact that the systems are in, a number of ways, very different also
has ramifications as to how they were / are built, owned and operated.

Perhaps you'd like to ask the Department of Transport why they opted to
sell the Waterloo and City line to LUL when the main line railway was
privatised rather than turn LUL into a franchise and sell it off?

Doesn't the existence of two very separate railway networks in London make
travelling in or across London harder (when separate fares and/or tickets
are needed),

You obviously do not appreciate that there is extensive through
ticketing between the systems and that such has existed for many, many
years. The fact that people do not ask for through tickets is not
necessarily anything to do with the organisation or ownership of the
railway companies. You can buy a ticket from Aberdeen to Worthing that
works via the LUL system.

less well informed (due to relative lack of public knowledge of
the ability to make many journeys by NR instead of/as well as by LU, or vice
versa),

please provide evidence to support this assertion as I don't understand
what you are trying to say. Why the public don't understand things can
result from a whole range of factors that are completely outside the
scope of railway management(s).

and more expensive (due to missed economies of scale in management,
staffing and many other areas) than could be the case with one merged
network? What mitigating circumstances are there?

Please evidence your argument that LU being owned by the main line
railway would be more "efficient".

A metro system that is part of the National Rail network seems to work
perfectly well in Liverpool. Are there reasons why it wouldn't in London?

You call the Merseyrail system a Metro? Interesting. If it "works" have
you considered why it has been franchised on a completely different
basis to the rest of the National Rail network and why Merseyside PTE
are trying as hard as they can to gain control of the tracks and signals
from Network Rail?

Are you also saying that the Tyne and Wear Metro, Glasgow Underground,
Midland Metro, Nottingham NET, Sheffield Supertram and Croydon Tramlink
don't "work"?

What is it about the national network that makes you imagine that it
"works" better than any other separately owned rail system in the UK?

(Genuine questions from a puzzled non-expert.)

Out of curiosity why are you asking the questions? for research?

You seem to be assuming that big is always beautiful. It's not
necessarily the case. Your arguments about everything being one system
could apply equally to the SNCF Suburban network, RER and Metro in Paris
and yet they all work extremely well despite being separate - even where
one RER line is run by SNCF north of Gare du Nord and by RATP (the Paris
version of Transport for London) south thereof. The drivers change over
on each trip - doesn't stop the service running properly. You need to
explain why your view of efficiency seems to be financially based with
the maximum efficiencies and least cost. This does not always give the
best customer service or most effective operation - ask the Japanese as
their cost base for their railways is not based on lowest cost. It is
based on zero breakdowns and the maximum ability to move large numbers
of people over long distances as quickly and safely as possible.


--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!