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Comment by jleask | Hacker News Reader

Cutting corners and costs e.g. shutting ticket offices, doing just enough to barely offer the service. It's not like your passengers have any sensible alternative. If that doesn't do it then you can also load the company up with debt and pay yourself a nice dividend until rates rise.

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> load the company up with debt and pay yourself a nice dividend

I am new to this. Doesn't a dividend come from profits? What profits are there if you need debt? And who will loan to you if your business plan is to exit scam?

> Doesn't a dividend come from profits?

A dividend can be paid with money from any source, it's all money.

> And who will loan to you if your business plan is to exit scam?

Ambitious junior bankers. Or you get the government to guarantee your debt.

> What profits are there if you need debt? And who will loan to you if your business plan is to exit scam?

If you’re a water company, after government bailed out the banks, chances were good you’re not going bust. What are they going to do? Let the entire population of London die of dehydration?

And since a lot of investors in large utility companies are international, should the government somehow not make them whole (or worse, just expropriate), there would typically be repercussions - with international arbitration courts adjudicating reparation with processes that are typically stacked in favour of businesses.

It's a sham market.

I just explained the thought process, I never said it was guaranteed to hold true.

> shutting ticket offices

Why should I pay higher prices/taxes to keep ticket offices 90% of the country and increasing don't use open?

International Airlines finished moving to e-ticketing 15 years ago

Why should I pay to maintain a road I’m not using now, or a fire service I haven’t used yet?

Because ticket offices are a costly relic from the 20th century that simply are not needed, as evidenced by the collapsing usage of them.

Company: "Use the app" / cut back front line staff

People: "ugh, I will use the app"

Company: "Look, nobody uses the front line staff"

There's a considerable portion of the population that does not own or feel comfortable using the Internet, and would prefer in-person interactions.

And they should thus pay the extra cost for that privilege.

30 years ago Terry Wogan was using his radio 2 breakfast show telling the 40-60 demographic how to send emails and watch his webcam. That demographic are now 70-90. I do sympathise for independent 95 year olds who can't use a ticket machine. I'd rather we spent the money in a far better way -- increasing services for example.

Have you ever tried to get off the train in a wheelchair? Or find out which stations have wheelchair access?

Ticket office staff won't help you there.

they literally tell yoy which stations are accessible and which ones arent.

"get off the train in a wheelchair"

Nothing to do with accessible stations, where they simply look up entries in a database and will have very little personal knowledge.

I dont think this is true, but suppose it was - so what? If I am travelling eith my daughter I often need advice from the ticket office folks. It does not matyer how they aquire it.

Additionally, often the ticket office gives better rates -

https://twitter.com/CraigJordanBak1/status/16786743395735101...

The fact that you dont know this, betrays the fact that you havw no idea how the UK ticket prices are actually set

It could possibly be achieved here if our prices weren't so arcane and difficult to understand. There's tickets you can't get from the machines etc. There was a photo yesterday of a queue of 10 odd people waiting next to 4 idle ticket machines. It's solvable but nobody seems interested in actually doing it, presumably because it costs money to fix. International Airlines I assume gained some competitive edge by that move, there is no competition in a lot of our privatized industries so no real incentive to do anything but the bare minimum.

What happens if you're blind or disabled?

Same as happens at the majority of stations now. If you need assistance you book it.

Sounds like Amtrak... the zombie of a train service, constantly revived by new cash injections from Congress whenever it does poorly (which is always)

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