 Brining All Heavy & Light Rail under National Rail
Mark Morton wrote:
> Having travelled recently on the Merseyrail (which appears to be pretty
> much self-contained network) and had the trainline quote me the wrong
> fare for a train plus Metrolink journey to Altrincham, I wondered what
> the pros and cons would be of bringing all rail-based public transport
> (Glasgow Subway, London Underground, T&W Metro etc) into the National
> Rail system.
>
> Treat each light-rail operator as if it's a NR franchise holder and
> ORCATS could be used to distribute income where there's a choice of
> light-rail/heavy rail for a journey (for example, Manchester to
> Altrincham or Sheffield to Meadowhall). Through ticketing would be a
> lot easier (from the customers' end) if you had a journey like Whitley
> Bay to Tottenham Court Road.
>
> Possible downsides? "If it's not broke, don't fix it?" The costs?
Ha ha ha. Possible downsides - bringing the absolute mess that is the
franchised rail system to the other networks. You seem to be bringing a
thermonuclear bomb to crack a peanut - it might break open the shell
but it'll also destroy the peanut and everything else around it. So
maybe there's a slight issue with through ticketing but so what, the
non-National Rail networks do a lot better out of the system than in.
No no no! Thankfully such a thing has never been proposed and isn't
going to happen.
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