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Comment by Pharmakon | Hacker News Reader

If they’re willing to pay for it, and put up everything they own as collateral, then great. This however is a piss-in-the-wind IPO from Branson, who is horrendous. If you ever come to England, Virgin will become a curse word in your vocabulary. Rail can be great, but not Virgin rail.

Edit: Changed “one” to “wind”. Thanks for pointing that out!

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I use Virgin Euston to Manchester a couple of times a month and it's a great rail service. Painless, clean, fast, tables, power etc., quiet off-peak and such a good work environment I've almost stopped driving.

OT: I think the phrase is "piss in the wind" ... As in it will be a terrible waste of time and you'll just end up with piss on you. May be a different meaning over the pond.

On topic: Are there stories about how Branson/Virgin has screwed up industries and companies in the UK? Have they already given him control over some rail systems that were mismanaged? Would be interested to hear about the source of Branson's poor reputation in his home country. As far as I know he has a decent reputation here in the US.

That was a typo, thanks for catching it. As to Virgin, yes the national rail service was privatized, and various contracts to run it have been passed around since. Notable for unreliable schedules due to underinvestment, apps and systems so Byzantine even the people at the till can’t tell you what the lowest fare is, bus replacement services galore, and a general lack of profitability.

One place to read the horror stories would be: https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.virgintrains.co.uk

A typical “whoopsie” on the fares here: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/dec/21/virgin-trains-...

Definitely not going to argue about Virgin – they're useless – and this may be an unpopular opinion but.. let's not pretend it's just Virgin. As an ex-pat having lived in London for years it's my firm belief that this is just the way business operates in the UK. Thames Water for instance double billed me for a full year. They acknowledged their mistake, told me to pay the invoices anyway to avoid automatic late charges and then refused to refund. First Direct won't let me close my bank account, or transfer my funds unless it's to another UK bank. Black cabs will short change you.. And the constant non-apologies, the "we're sorry if this causes you inconvenience" etc.. no one owns up to their faults and mistakes there. I've sinced moved out, and I'm sorry to high jack your thread, but that article on the fare "whoopsie" just made me cringe – par for the course when it comes to English business, in my experience.

British Rail was privatized between 1994 and 1997. Let's just say that for those of us who ride the rails in the UK, it didn't necessarily make things better. (State subsidies rose, punctuality fell, and ticket prices rose faster than inflation.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatisation_of_British_Rail

Part of the problem is that the railway tracks were sold off as a unit, the trains/rolling stock that ran on them as several other units, and then a bunch of franchise operations were set up to operate the trains.

Branson has turned Virgin into a branding exercise in recent decades and slapped his logo on a couple of different operator franchises. But he never owned the track and never owned the vehicles, so ...

Network Rail which is an arm's length arm of the Department of Transport, and they own the tracks. [1]

The the passenger service are sold off as franchises, which are are bid for by various companies.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Rail

Network Rail currently own the tracks, but prior to them was Railtrack, which was a group of privately owned companies. Their negligence in maintaining the railway led to the Hatfield crash in 2000, resulting in re-nationalising essentially all fixed infrastructure that makes up the railways.

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