Rant rant rant

The LADBible stuff on the Dad’s WhatsApp group was tedious but bearable. BUT THE NEW GUY WHO’S OPENING GAMBIT IS FOR THOSE WHO KNOCK THE TORIES, FOLLOWED BY THE VERY LONG BAR BILL ANALOGY. REALLY, WHERE DID WE START TALKING POLITICS. P* OFF.

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Not really - you will never get a balanced view from the Guardian which if you’ve forgotten was the home to Corbyns Marxist privately educated creep - Seamus Milne.

Public ownership has not transformed the service. It was transformed as a private run franchise and then handed back when the operator couldnt make the return payments to the government. That is, the service was run efficiently, was meeting all the government targets bar one - the cash back payments, so rightly it was returned to public hands in a decent, efficient state - something no public service has ever done.

What happened then was that the public sector took over the running and suddenly started to overspend to increase the alleged quality of service and suddenly the government found that the costs were rising as they always did under the public sector, for only marginal increases in service. This was something that the private sector was contractually unable to do, as it had to hand back cash and was not allowed to spend more. Now central government has a higher operating cost and its not getting any cash back at all, so its being hit twice.

So, with once again, the public sector run organisation burning through taxpayers cash for little advantage, ignoring all the cash limits, the rail regulator decided that if the government was happy to increase the amount the franchise was allowed to spend to the levels the public sector was wasting, then the private sector should be allowed to compete again as it was refused the opportunity in the past. Its a bit like disqualifying someone in a game and then changing the rules afterwards so you can break the rule that got the others thrown out.

And the private sector gave the government the finger as all trust was broken - would you bid for something you sorted out, failed to make enough money on, and had to give it back (as agreed in the contract) - only then to see the public sector being allowed to operate under completely different limitations (say no limitations) and as a result blow a hole in the budget and then be asked to come back to sort out the overspend by the public sector ? Nobody in their right mind would.

So now the government has happy passengers and a massive overspend to sort out and nobody with any competence at such things will help out. Said passengers will soon be unhappy of course, as there will be cutbacks to cover the losses the public sector are making with spades.

@Jorgan - firstly because not all stations have enough space for more than two carriages - and you cannot really have commuter trains which extend over the platform space at both ends by more than half a carriage otherwise you end up with people stuck in end carriages unable to get out without going into the next carriage and not enough time to do it.

Secondly, franchises are too short for people to buy rolling stock which lasts 40 years, when a franchise only lasts 10 years or less. If they lose the renewal, then they have some used rolling stock for which they cannot use. Consequently the banks won’t lend them the money to buy any new train sets.

I spent about 3-4 years with the franchising teams on TOC’s, InfraCo’s and with Network Rail on franchise agreements and they are all a bugger as they are too short and too inflexible.

The fundamental issue is that there are too many people on too small sections of track and there is literally nothing that can be done in commuter areas as the tracks are basically full - and they cannot add more trains (not enough headway between them, and the PUBLIC SECTOR signalling system cannot cope ) and they cannot make trains bigger (platforms too short and not enough power to larger trains).

And people expect ticket prices to drop (what a joke) when this years money has to pay for investments for the next 10 years when passenger numbers and capacity is needed to increase, not shrink. Too many morons travelling on the railway who cannot even do basic mathematics to understand and think that prices will drop when all that is happening is that they are paying for something to grow as well as this years costs.

Just details. Jez will sort it out.

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The irony of private rail franchising in the UK is that many of them are publicly owned, but by the governments of other countries :joy:

WHY ARE PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT THE POLITICS OF TRAINS ON THE RANT THREAD FFS!!!

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What’s a Dad’s WhatsApp group?

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Something nowhere near as bad as the Mum’s WhatsApp group (see: Motherland) and much better than your Family WhatsApp group, you may get invited for drinks, or a quiz, down the local pub, with Martin, Dave and Alasdair. If you’re lucky.

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“Gentle reminder …”

OH PLEASE, A REMINDER IS A REMINDER. STOP TAKING UP VALUABLE SPACE IN THE UNIVERSE WITH THAT BLOODY REDUNDANT WORD YOU PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE MORON

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Plus you get the occasional witter banter mixed in with some occasional racist/mysogonistic/crude banter.

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I despair at the stuff that goes through my wife’s mum whatsapp group! It is beyond me.

I odn’t know any of the dads yet. I’ll try and keep it that way for a while! haha

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WOMENS PLAYGROUND POLITIX, AND THE KIDS SUFFER BY NOT GETTING INVITED TO A CERTAIN PARTY OR ANOTHER.

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Take a wild guess.

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Same. My wife’s in one called Molesey Mums. FML :roll_eyes::yawning_face:

It’s just inane nonsense and people getting very flustered over colour of gym shorts or something just as exciting.

(says he that wastes his time on a tri forum whining about all sorts of rubbish with a bunch of strangers! :joy: :joy:)

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Well obviously a WhatsApp group for “dads” but what’s the common link, it’s not some group with 20million UK dads in it (or maybe it is, and I’ve just never been invited) so where are all these dads coming from? I thought it might be school - but I’m not sure why there’d be a “dad” school one, vs a class/year one for all parents of any type, and Adam’s kid isn’t old enough for school and there’s a mum’s group in Molesey.

The school/class/year/pta WhatsApp groups are the absolute worst. The inane drivel from the non working parents I have to ignore on a daily basis.

School dads. It’s a village school, so <100 kids. We all live locally. NO TOWNIE W*NKERS AROUND HERE👊

:laughing:

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Set that bad boy to mute

We must live in a cave, we don’t do any of that. Mrs FP has a group to do with work but that’s all. There is some kind of portal that school uses to push out mass messages like closures etc but that’s it. F**k that Pony Club Mum shite.