UK: Privatizing British Rail was a mistake, say the people who did it

At a rail industry meeting in London, the Conservative Party's shadow transport secretary said that it had been a mistake for Britain's last Conservative government to break up and privatize British Rail, back in 1993.

Why might the Conservatives come to such a conclusion. The Guardian's Simon Jenkins offers these statistics:

Within seven years [of being privatized] the railway was costing the taxpayer three times what it had cost before de-nationalisation (up from £1.3bn to £3.7bn). . . . In the 1980s fares covered 76% of rail costs, last year 42%.

Got that, railfans? Privatization cost taxpayers more money, and resulted in a far greater loss per passenger. (Of course the trainspotters made out handsomely, what with all those snazzy new paint schemes.)

So where do the Conservatives want to take the rail system now? They want to re-integrate it. Said the shadow secretary Chris Grayling: "We think, with hindsight, that the complete separation of track and train into separate businesses at the time of privatisation was not right for our railways."

This is very bad news for anyone who advocated breaking up Amtrak using the UK experiment as a model. For it appears that the experiment has failed--and that the Tories are ready to make the network look more like. . . wait for it . . . Amtrak's Northeast Corridor.

US Airways to put ads on airsickness bags

reports AP. That's in addition, of course, to the ads on tray tables, commercials over the PA and ads on boarding passes. It's enough to make you . . . well, you can fill in the blank.