Davostag

[Gonk]

Fifth Time’s the Charm: HKP Finally Sells Off the National Rail Network

Rikspremier Knudson at the government's public announcement of the upcoming sale of the national rail network to private operators.

  

Davostag’s long, painful, and often ridiculous battle to privatize its rail network is finally over.

Five attempts. Five governments. Endless coalition horse trading. And now, after years of SDEP foot-dragging, BF-FP posturing, and HKP frustration, the national rail system is being sold off.

This time it stuck.

The latest bill passed the Riksdag after yet another round of backroom deals between the HKP and its uneasy partners. The same argument that’s been made for years finally carried the day: a state-owned monopoly was bleeding money, delivering mediocre service, and acting like it owned the tracks instead of the people who paid for them.

The government is now moving to issue Requests for Proposals for the national network. Early indications suggest the bidding process will be split into regional packages rather than one massive national winner-take-all deal. That’s smart. It creates competition and stops any single operator from holding the country hostage.

Who’s circling? The usual suspects. A couple of big Atlasian rail operators with experience running privatized networks. At least one Sekowan consortium that helped turn around parts of their old Shinkansen system. And a domestic player backed by pension funds looking for steady long-term returns. The government is making noises about “national interest” clauses and local content requirements, but don’t expect them to block the best bids just to protect jobs that were already underperforming.

The public reaction has been mixed, as you’d expect.

Plenty of regular Davostagers are fed up with late trains, dirty carriages, and the feeling that the old state operator treated passengers as an inconvenience. 

“Anything, and I mean anything, would be an improvement over the experiences I’ve had on the national rail” says Sophie, a student who attends the Nationella Konsthögskolan in Kivonia, but is originally from, and still spends summers and breaks in Österdovland.

They want results and they’re willing to give private operators a shot; as long as prices don’t explode and the service actually improves. The usual suspects on the left are already screaming about “asset stripping” and “selling off the family silver.” You’ll hear the same tired lines about profit before people. Meanwhile, the folks who actually ride the trains every day are mostly asking one simple question: will it run on time and cost less?

The political theatre leading up to this moment was typical. The SDEP kept warning about “lack of regulation” while quietly trying to protect their union base. This culminated in a quite public threat from Rikspräsident Nyström, who outright threatened to veto the Bill due to this perceived lack of regulation. This can be blamed, in large part, on the aggressive style of the Riksminister of Infrastructure and Transport Ferdinand Svane, who introduced the Private Trains Act in the Riksdag and accompanied it with a social media and advertising blitz.

The Rikspräsident issued the threat of a veto during a scrum outside government offices

  

Rikspremier Knudson, in his usual relaxed style, took to the floor of the house in response to the Rikspräsident’s comments during debate for the Private Trains Act and spoke, admittedly long-windedly, about the regulations that would be put in place to ensure strict standards of service. The new operators will have to hit performance targets on punctuality, cleanliness, and safety. There will be price caps on key commuter routes and penalties for poor service. It’s not the Wild West some on the left are pretending it is. But it’s also not another bloated state bureaucracy pretending competition doesn’t exist.

Riksminister Ferdinand Svane, posing for a photograph following an interview shortly after introduction of the Private Trains Act

The BF-FP wanted their pound of flesh on regional protections. The HKP, to its credit, kept grinding away at it through multiple coalitions. They didn’t give up, and the BF-FP, the HKP’s junior coalition partner, voted in favour of the bill, despite reports of some discontent among their caucus.

Now that the political handshaking, dealmaking, backscratching, and voting has ended, the real work can begin.

The rail network is the backbone of this country. For too long it was run like a government bureaucracy that didn’t have to answer to customers. That era is soon to be over.

Whether the new private operators deliver is still to be seen. But this scribbler is pleased that they will at least have to try. The old system stopped trying years ago.