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January 16 2002: The strategic rail authority has outlined its 10-year plan for Britain's railways, after Europe minister Peter Hain last week called them the 'worst in Europe'. We pick the best journalism on the net.
Special report: transport in the UK
The weblog: latest issues in links
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Blame Labour ...
This Evening Standard editorial, written as Tony Blair visited to India and Pakistan, typifies the discontent in the media at Labour's handling of the railways. 'Labour is directly responsible for the fact,' it says, 'that British commuters take longer to get anywhere, at higher cost, than almost any other nation in the industrialised world.'
Evening Standard
Getting back on the rail - Scotsman
No one left to blame - Spectator
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... or just blame politics
The New Statesman is equally scathing of both main political parties - and, specifically, 'a short-termist, gimmick-ridden political culture that refuses to take public services seriously'. Of beleaguered transport secretary Stephen Byers, it says: 'He at least had the courage to stop Railtrack.'
New Statesman
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How bad is our transport system?
Jim Coates of public management website SourceUK.Net says there may be good reasons for the cost of commuting in the UK, and the time we spend. Citizens of densely populated countries, it suggests, 'perhaps choose to have long commuting times, in order to enjoy the space and peacefulness of a more rural environment ... If we want to modify these trends, perhaps we should put more public funding into better public services in inner cities.'
SourceUK.net
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What happened to railway investment?
Sir Peter Kemp, also writing in SourceUK.Net, believes the relationship between departments and the Treasury may have been to blame for consistent underinvestment in public services. This, he says, was one of the reasons for privatisation of the railways.
SourceUK.net
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Why did privatisation fail in practice?
The separation of track and trains, said Railway Gazette this summer, was to blame for privatisation's failure to work in practice. (Registration is required.)
Railway Gazette
How not to run a railway - Economist, October 2000
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Privatisation: the good and bad
Economics education website biz/ed marshals the arguments for and against rail privatisation, creating a balanced and useful resource.
biz/ed
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Railtrack: a 'malevolent act of theft'
Peter Oborne of the Spectator spits blood about the government's 'assassination' of Railtrack in October, which he calls a 'malevolent act of theft'. The piece is accompanied by a monstrous picture of a naked Tony Blair, grinning as the railway system collapses beside him.
Spectator
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Will the City fund UK railways?
The strategic railway authority's 10-year plan says £34bn is needed from private investment in the railways. But after the Railtrack experience, the BBC's Declan Curry suggests, private money may be hard to come by.
BBC
A Cinderella service needs more than three wishes - Times
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How rail privatisation gave unions more power
One of the ironies of privatisation, reports Barrie Clement in the Independent, is that it gave rail unions even more power as they play operating companies against each other. Last week's South West Trains strike, which partly precipitated the current row, is perhaps a case in point.
Independent
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