You said provision of food. I assumed by that you meant provision as in producing it not delivering it. As to delivery it is not delivered by a franchisee who has a monopoly on food distribution for 15 years.



There is only one provider of passenger rail services from Chester to London. Virgin trains at the moment. If I want to go to Manchester on the train I can only do so on an Arriva provided service. If you are trying to suggest I could use a bus/coach service to make the same journey's so that provides competition that is a rather ridiculous argument given the services are not comparable e.g there are far fewer coach services to Manchester than train services - National Express has one coach at 12:15 and the next is at 17:00 for example.

You would do that? Really?

Its hardly a serious alternative though is it ?

If the question is how do I travel from London to Manchester on a train, then as a customer I don't expect to be told that there are two options but one of them involves travelling in a different direction and then changing trains to correct.

I travelled from Leeds to Birmingham via train on Monday, it was booked by my company via the Virgin Trains web site and if there was even a smidgen of a chance that they could have got me onto one of their services then they would have done - they could for instance have booked me on a Trans-Peninie train to Manchester and then on a Virgin train to Birmingham, but they didn't because they aren't so stupid as to think that I would consider that to be an excellent way to travel when there is a monopoly of a franchise on the Leeds/Birmingham route operated by Cross Country, which is what Virgin booked me onto.

Semantics. The point being, it's essential, but we have no concerns whatsoever about it being in the hands of private enterprise, despite an earlier posters insistence that essential services are better in the hands of the gov.



Why is it "One provider of rail services" rather than "providers of transport services"
Why is it "If I want to....on the train" rather than "if I want to travel"

The railway service is not a monopoly on transport. There are many other ways to travel.

Why is the question "how do I travel from London to Manchester on a train" rather than "how do I travel from London to Manchester" ?

No most people who use public transport dont have a choice between a train or a bus, they have to use one or the other depending on their circumstances.
Has anybody said that the railways are a monopoly on transport provision? I think what people have said is that there is no choice as to which train company you can go with. Which is true when most people use trains as a method to go to a specific destination for a specific time. If there were 3/4 trains all leaving the same station at the same time going to the same destinations then people would have a choice of those different train companies, in the same way that I can choose to go to Tescos, Asda, Sainsburys or my local shop, because they're all open for the vast majority of the day. The situation with the trains is like saying that I still have a choice between going to Tescos, Asda, Sainsburys or my local shop even though Asda, Sainsburys & my local shop are only open from 3am-4am each day. Yes they're their but not a realistic choice.

Because in almost all scenarios travel by train is the quickest, including bizarely, the option to travel by air when you take into account the draconian check-in procedures at airports.

I'm not overly familiar with London/Manchester but I do know almost every inch of track and motorway on the Leeds/birmingham route and to give you just one example from this week,
Leeds-Birmingham on Monday, Cross country Trains, departed 08.11, arrived 10.10, no check-in or departure procedures required
Birmingham-Leeds on Tuesday, car travel via M6, M42, M1, departed 15.50, arrived 19.10

Although I haven't calculated the cost of the car travel the rail ticket was £51, I suspect that the car travel was thereabouts too, if I'd done it in my car and charged the mileage it would have been considerably more.


Rail travel between two cities in the UK is more often than not quicker, and cheaper than any other form of travel.

And don't start to mention National Express because I'll fall of my chair laughing, the Leeds Birmingham route isn't measured by time on a clock, its measured by the dates on the calendar.

But again, why are you limiting yourself to the train and worrying that you can only use one train service provider?
To use your analogy, it's like going to a building occupied by Tesco to shop and complaining that Tesco have a monopoly on the provision of your shopping, and ignoring all other outlets.

That wasn't the point, Mintball suggest the only way to travel between London and Manchester was by Virgin - that is simply not the case.

You've got very specific now in your criteria for choice, and if you narrow down any scenario enough, you will get to the point where only one option is available.

But what you are telling me now, is that the train service is so brilliant, it causes you to dismiss the alternatives. That being the case, why are you complaining about the monopoly of train provision?