Timewasting mickeytakers

[Rave]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4626921.stm

Screw these clowns. It serves them right for buying Railtrack shares. They weren't complaining when Railtrack was making obscene profits at the taxpayer's expense were they?

Gits.

Edit: Seriously this makes me so angry. Railtrack were handed the Goose that lays Golden Eggs and still managed to absolutely **** it up.

SUE THE DIRECTORS YOU UTTER MORONS! THEY'RE THE ONES WHO STOLE YOUR MONEY!

The government went out of their way to pour taxpayer's money into Railtrack and they still failed- so then the shareholders sue them. These people need to be paraded through the streets while we all stone them:hate:

I'm protesting in London tomorrow anyway, I might turn up at the High Court and spit on a few of these ****s first.

[rajagra]

Agreed.

Railtrack, which had been making huge losses, relied on public funds to keep it solvent

And these shareholders are claiming some kind of right to be bailed out at public expense?

[iranu]

The government are now pouring more money into Notwork Rail, which is making even larger losses, than they ever did to Railtrack. But Gordon has said sshhhhhhh keep it quiet by not putting the debt on the books.

[IBM]

The government are now pouring more money into Notwork Rail, which is making even larger losses, than they ever did to Railtrack. But Gordon has said sshhhhhhh keep it quiet by not putting the debt on the books.

Is this for real?

[nichomach]

They're having to; Network Rail may be a not-for-profit, so no shareholders are getting rich off it, but given the years of track neglect under Railtrack, there's a LOT of remedial work to be done. Railtrack absolutely SLASHED the inspections for tracks as compared to what they were under BR and just poured money into shareholders' pockets. I'm not surprised that NR are having to shell out a hell of a lot to correct that. And I'd rather they did that, with the attendant disruption to services, than adopt the Railtrack approach of just not doing the maintenance, farming it out to the lowest bidder and then denying culpability when people die.

RPSAG

I swear I'd laugh if it wasn't so ****ing sick. Taxpayers' money gets poured into subsidising their dividends, the company that they're shareholders in neglects its responsibility, people die on their damn track, and they want compensation when it gets taken away from them. Why do I have an almost irresistible urge to remind them that "the value of your investments may go down as well as up"?

[G4Z]

Nich all fair points and I agree but im going to play devils advocate for a sec here and point out that Buyers did in fact allow it to go under and lied to a judge by saying it couldnt be bailed out when in fact it could (not that I am saying they should have), Simply not allowing the judge to make an informed decision. Do you think thats right?

Basicly whatever this govt does its allways followed by lie after lie.

[nichomach]

Personally, I think Byers did the right thing; Railtrack was a failed company - it was losing taxpayers' money hand over fist and still paying out dividends to shareholders and bonuses to directors. They simply assumed that the gravy train (you should pardon the expression) would keep on rolling, that they could simply go on taking our money and putting it into their own pockets indefinitely. All the while ignoring warnings from their own staff that the rails were deteriorating into a dangerous state (like the warning with regard to the Potters Bar crash site received 3 weeks before it happened). Byers refused to bail them out anymore, but if they were an effectively run company, they wouldn't have needed it. The stock value was collapsing anyway, and the shareholders have already received about 90% of the value of the shares when trading was suspended in compensation anyway. Also note that the taxpayer paid 2/3 of the £500m required to buy out Railtrack, and NR inherited RT's £7bn of debt. So do I think the poor little darlings were hard done by? Well what do you think. Byers did what needed to be done.

[G4Z]

Like I said, maybe he was right but it actually wasnt his call to make the company insolvent was it? It was supposed to be down to the judge, I would have thought being involved in law you would be able to see that point of view.

[nichomach]

He didn't make the company insolvent, he merely declined to bail them out of their insolvency anymore; I see your point of view, but I also recognize the distinction between law and morality. Railtrack in their "negotiations" tried to hold a gun to the government's head, telling Byers that there were 3 options.

1. Restructuring, which would have involved writing an open-ended blank cheque and guaranteeing not only RT's solvency but their profits (yes, the government would have had to guarantee that the shareholders made a profit). This would also have involved suspending regulation of RT for FOUR YEARS.

2. Renationalisation.

3. Administration.

RT attempted to force the government's hand into accepting option 1 by threatening them with 2 and 3, and forcing an open-ended perpetual funding arrangement on them. RT wouldn't even put a provisional figure on how much more taxpayers' money they intended to leach. Byers, to his credit just called their bluff and said "OK, administration it is then".

Now maybe Byers was economical with the truth (if he'd actually lied, he'd have been prosecuted for perjury; that's happened to cabinet ministers before), but he acted for the public good against a bunch of profiteers who were ripping off the taxpayers and the travelling public, and presiding over a rail system that they'd allowed to become so shambolic that it was actually killing people.

[Rave]

Excellent post nicho.

[G4Z]

good post but nich still hasnt asnswed my question.

do you think its right that Buyers withheld information from a judge?

Railtrack might well go down as one of the worst privateisations since Thatchers era and it was all this governments idea and now they are lying to judges to wrap it all up.

Stinks as usual.

[nichomach]

Firstly, Railtrack WAS a Tory privatisation, G4Z; it was privatised under Major, and Labour inherited it. So before you go blaming THIS government you might consider that not only was the breaking up and privatisation of BR a Conservative idea, it was carried out in such a fashion that over 126 separate companies were created. Not because that was efficient, but because that would make it virtually impossible to ever return the railways to public ownership. Before you accuse the government of something you might at least make a cursory effort to get your facts straight.

As to witholding information, as I said, Byers might have been economical with the truth but as I also said, even if he were, that's a lot different to lying and given that it wound up that TORY-created multi-billion pound boondoggle, then yes, I think he did the right thing.

As for whether he misled the judge in the first place, sorry, but that assumes that the decision to have paperwork prepared for Railtrack's insolvency was the same as deciding that it should happen. Have you any idea how long it takes to draft 71 pages of legalese? The paperwork was partially drawn up on September 28th 2001; Byers stated that that was sensible contingency planning in case RT DID go into receivership. The decision was taken on October 5th. Frankly, if the decision to place RT into receivership was taken and then there was a week's delay for the paperwork to be done, everybody would be whingeing about "government incompetence leaving the railways in limbo". If I had been faced with the possibility of having to place a multibillion pound enterprise into receivership, I'D have made damn sure I had the paperwork ready to roll and not scrawled on the back of a fag packet. Personally I think you've allowed a little too much vested interest whingeing and a little too much Tory propaganda to cloud your thinking and your memory.

[Rave]

IMO, allowing Railtrack to go into administration was the one time this government have done the right thing for our railways. Before then, and since then, they've done basically sod all to sort out the almightly mess the Tory carve up left our railways in....in fact they're still handing out franchise extensions and subsidies to companies who CLEARLY couldn't organise a p1ss up in a brewery.

Nontheless, the greatest failure of them all was Railtrack. And the government was absolutely 100% in the right to say "NO! Youve stolen from us enough".

[G4Z]

Well, I do stand corrected and as I said earlier I was playing devils advocate and I dont believe any propganda has clouded my judgement.

Im only 24 and when this all happened I was pretty young and I didnt have much of an interest like most kids. I am interested now and thats why I participate in these discussions so that I can learn a thing or two. The more I learn the more cynical I get tbh.

[Rave]

The older I get G4Z, the more I hate everybody

[iranu]

Is this for real?

as far as I'm aware.

I've been following with interest this whole afair. There is certainly a fishy smell about this whole episode.

Those that want the railways to remain in Gov hands will always blame the Torys for the mess etc. I know that there are people who wanted the administration of Railtrack to happen, but there was no New Labour manifesto pledge to re-nationalise the tracks etc in 1997 or 2001 that I know of. Rail passenger numbers had been rising steadily throughout the privatised period. Yes I know that there was Government subsidy (read your hard earned cash) but there still is today (and a greater amount).

Nicomanch - the stock holders did not recieve 90% of their investment. iirc and correct me if I'm wrong cos this is rough, but the shareholders received @ £2.15 per share when the shares were listed at @ £9.00. If they got 90% back, they would not be paying ££ to go to court to get 100% ???

£500 million was not what the stock market valued the company at - see share price.

So do I think the poor little darlings were hard done by? Well what do you think. Byers did what needed to be done.

Unfortunately some of those "poor little darlings", were long time BR workers (and their families) who had been encouraged by both colours of government to invest in the railways. They thought that they would be able to invest money for a reasonable/modest return and know that they were investing in something worthwhile (and solid) and something they felt passionate about and had beeen involved in.

50,000 shareholders (sueing) is not about the big (fat) cats but a reflection of the small holder who feels wronged (sometimes out of a all/savings/pension/etc) and wants to know the truth. We all want The truth, it's in the interests of democracy, within reason.

The Hatfield crash was very unfortunate, as is any innocent loss of life.

Now we live in a world of risk. I, as an Engineer know the risks. I produce data (through testing) for Engineers to assess that risk and compensate for it in the most highly regualted travel industry of - Aircraft. We try DESPERATELY TO REDUCE RISK. Every forseable (AND WE CAN'T SEE EVERYTHING BUT WE TRY) aspect is catered for, every manual carefully drafted, every individual trained etc, etc but accidents DO happen.

We now live in such a legislative society where something is ALWAYS someones fault. Was this incident used?

After Hatfield the Government imposed such ridiculus safety restrictions on Railtrack that they had no option but to introduce speed restrictions. There has never been any released documents showing that safety was compromised on restricted lines as far as I'm aware.

This killed public confidence. You were more likely to be killed travelling in a car than the railways but when the media wagon got on board it got a good story. Un-necessary fear was created and railway paasengers plummeted.

Railtrack were forced to undergoe an expensive and un-needed restrictions.

This left them short of cash and they asked for their £5 billion early. The Gov said no and then rolled it up in admin.