Great Western Coffee Shop

http://www.christianwolmar.co.uk/2014/09/rail-756-no-justification-for-rail-fare-rises/

Looking for a short snippet from a long article to quote, I've chosen ....

Do read the article - interesting food for thought.    And a question from me - with ^34Bn of debt, how much of my train fare currently goes to the servicing of that debt?

Need to remember/realise Christian is standing for Mayor of London and therefore his blogs are politically oriented now, rather than truely subjective/objective

Every comment about how public services are funded (tax-payer/consumer balance) is a political opinion.  Some people are so convicted by their views that they offer themselves for public office and therefore become 'politicians'.  This forum is full of politics because most of us have an opinion on how government (not the Government) should distribute the country's wealth in respect of railways.  Objectivity in this realm is a concept that cannot be realised.

I guess I was distinguishing between politics & Politics. Christian's crossed the line between the two for the time being

Good question - difficult to answer exactly!

The statistics published by the DfT (for England and Wales) and the ORR (for all the UK) show that for the last couple of years the fare income from all the TOCs taken together pays for train operation and (very nearly) for all of Network Rail's ongoing operations, maintenance and renewals. Prior to that Network Rail also borrowed money to cover the deficit it ran on operations, maintenance, renewals and enhancements: NR has now managed to increase the bang it gets for each buck and the access charges now (very nearly) cover the ongoing operations, maintenance and renewals costs. The enhancements are still covered by borrowing, from now on from the Treasury rather than in the open market. Anyway, as you say, the total borrowings have now reached ^34bn.

The annual interest on these borrowings amounts to some ^1.5bn and is covered by the Network Grant made directly to Network Rail by the Government.

So the answer to your question is - it depends entirely on how one allocates the Network Grant! Should it be considered as effectively a subsidy to the TOCs to pay for enhancements to the infrastructure or should it be seen in the same way as road grants which pays for the infrastructure directly?

Total fare income is around ^7.5 billion, so in the first case the interest could be considered as taking up 20% of your fare. If it is considered as part of the cost to central Government of supplying the infrastructure then it doesn't take any of the fare - but does take a part of your taxes!

So, whichever way you look at it - you're paying!

Mystic Wolmar indeed..  ::)

7th Sept:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29098340