If British Rail still existed..

[allypally]

I presume not many people noticed the 'resemblance' of the Class 170 series to the Network Turbo units then, for those who say they weren't built. The class 168/0 being so similar to a 165/166 wasn't a coincidence. A new cab front hides much it seems!

[charlierc]

Maybe we could have a London - Edinburgh HSL in the pipeline... seeing as it was proposed in a book I was reading.

Which book was that?

Some book I got about Intercity. I got it off ebay.

[yj03ppv]

I don't think (new) foreign stock has been an astounding success. 458s anyone?

I thought the 458s were built at Washford Heath in Birmingham and were rubbish.

John

[mattvince]

Nick - be careful when mentioning Class 458s and 'foreign'. They were GEC-Alsthom's post-privatisation rehash of the Networker, assembled in Birmingham with a traction package from Preston. NSE's plans were to inflict Networkers across the south-east - as it is, the quality of the stock is much higher, and somewhat cheaper thanks to the ROSCOs ordering most of the Electrostars en-masse, rather than the many smaller orders for Networkers.

Would Open Access have happened, with the resulting cherry-picking of traffic? Undoubtedly - Foster Yeoman were the pioneers, and even if still in public ownership, BR would have had to make allowances for private Open Access operators - indeed the EU could well have required it. Chances are, something akin to the Class 66 would have appeared, if only in smaller orders. The EU could well have meant that BR had to accept 'foreign' tenders for rolling stock contracts, possibly resulting in foreign orders if BR Procurement were sufficiently attracted by the deal.

[dikkidee]

JBilton says - If there is a God, Thatcher and her kin will burn in hell forever.


Hear Hear, John - its strange how short some peoples memories can be. I Hope her and her cronies rot in the same place.

Dick D.

[MuzTrem]

JBilton says - If there is a God, Thatcher and her kin will burn in hell forever.


Hear Hear, John - its strange how short some peoples memories can be. I Hope her and her cronies rot in the same place.

I don't want to drag the thread off topic, but I can't let such comments be posted unchallenged! Privatisation is a good idea in principle, but unfortunately Major's government made a mess when it came to the railways. Look back at railway history and you'll realise that they had the most sucess when they were under private ownership, not when they were held back by a cash-strapped treasury and governments that really favoured raod transport.

[jbilton]

Major's government made a mess when it came to the railways. .

They didn't make a mess of it at all..........they made millions out of it.
All into their fat already overflowing bank accounts.
Do you really imagine these sort of people even travel on public transport....you live in cuckoo land my friend.
Anyone who doesn't earn £50,000 or more and still votes for the Tories is a fool.
However the failing Tory party at the turn of the 20th century managed to hood wink the lower middle classes, into thinking they cared about them....and the trick is still working.
Cheers
Jon

[johncard]

Does anyone else have the book "Britain's Railway - The only transport for the future" by Colin Garratt? I love it because it's just so ironic reading it today - an absolutely glowing report of BR from 1993, slating iminent network "fragmentation" and the involvement of "cherry picking cowboys" and "property sharks"

John

[mattvince]

For that we have none but the then Secretary of State for Transport (Malcolm Rifkind or John MacGregor), and his 'minions' at the Civil Service, to blame - for it was him who pushed for the fragmentation, whereas the proposals favoured by Major were based on the Hibbs proposal. Hindsight suggests that Professor Hibbs' model would have fared better.

What they should have done was to carbon-copy the 1986 JNR privatisation, breaking BR into six or seven geographically-contained areas, each able to wash its' face financially, and given them charge over their own destinies. Unfortunately this plan would render the DfT powerless - unlike the present situation. There is an argument that the level of level of DfT involvement in franchising means that the railways are nationalised - the franchisees are mere slaves to the occupants of Great Minster House.

[MuzTrem]

What they should have done was to carbon-copy the 1986 JNR privatisation, breaking BR into six or seven geographically-contained areas, each able to wash its' face financially, and given them charge over their own destinies.

In other words, a return to something resembling the Big Four...now that would be a good idea.
Not so many companies that things become confusing, but enough to create healthy competition, which gives them a constant incentive to do better. You don't have to know much about railway history between the wars to see how the four companies were always striving to provide faster and better-quality services, and had WWII not intervened I think they might well have managed to hold out against the roads. As it was, they were nationalised in 1948...and went into a decline they have never fully recovered from.

[arabiandisco]

What they should have done was to carbon-copy the 1986 JNR privatisation, breaking BR into six or seven geographically-contained areas, each able to wash its' face financially, and given them charge over their own destinies.

In other words, a return to something resembling the Big Four...now that would be a good idea.
Not so many companies that things become confusing, but enough to create healthy competition, which gives them a constant incentive to do better. You don't have to know much about railway history between the wars to see how the four companies were always striving to provide faster and better-quality services, and had WWII not intervened I think they might well have managed to hold out against the roads. As it was, they were nationalised in 1948...and went into a decline they have never fully recovered from.

The decline was because of WW2, though. It was all in such a mess following that, that nationalisation was just about the only option. They'd have gone bankrupt left to their own devices.

[jbilton]

Hi
Sorry but I have to totally disagree with the last two posts.
The Labour party had plans to nationalise the railways in the thirties.
They even started to have talks with the Big Four, who were struggling against the depression, and were witnessing falling profits.( I have a copy of the original paper issued by the Labour party)
The war actually interrupted this process, and yes did damage the railways beyond repair,due to heavy usage and low maintenance.
But don't forget the share holders were paid very handsomely for this.
The biggest mistake was the eventual buy out. Massive amounts of public money was lavished on the shareholders, so they were happy....and the Labour government didn't want a fight, and needed to get the country back on its feet.
(To be honest this is one time I wish the Tories under Winston Churchill had got back into power, because he would soon of told the Big Four where to get off, and get their own mess sorted).
Unfortunately it meant BR was saddled with this debt from day one.
40 years later , as BR recovered from the huge debt, started to run profitable, excellent services.
Certain people saw that the railways could make them money again....so back into private ownership.
I can foresee sometime in the future, if these people are eventually made to invest properly into the railway, they'll be trying to sell their shares back to the nation again....at twice the price paid....proberbly get away with it too.
Cheers
Jon

[mattvince]

The falling profits were partly the result of Government intervention - the 1921 regulation of freight rates, based on 1913 figures, which completely ignored the effect of World War I and the emergence of effective internal-combustion engined trucks. This argument has been fought over time and time again and there has been no meeting of minds over it. The fact is we are where we are, and no amount of revisionist histories and political dogma will change that.

How we get from here to a railway which can achieve greater things is a far more important topic. Passenger traffic is on the up, and that is significantly related to the fact that many roads cannot take more traffic, and the step-change to give road the advantage it had in the sixties is near-impossible, unaffordable, and in the present political climate, unnacceptable. What we need is a railway structure which works, not a set of rose-tinted spectacles and a shelf full of photos-books from your era of choice. The only way I see for that is to vertically-integrate infrastructure and operations, but under a structure which can get money without restriction (subject to a business case), and is not subject to the whims of Political Figures.

[dikkidee]

Matt - Thats a pretty powerful point which I can't help but really agree with. Dick D.

[jbilton]

What we need is a railway structure which works, not a set of rose-tinted spectacles and a shelf full of photos-books from your era of choice. The only way I see for that is to vertically-integrate infrastructure and operations, but under a structure which can get money without restriction (subject to a business case), and is not subject to the whims of Political Figures.

Hi Matt
If that means in plain speech that the shareholders have to dip their hands into their pockets for a change....I'm all for it.
If it means all these private companies expect help from the good old tax payer....they can get stuffed.
Where I live (Lincolnshire) there is hardly a passenger service at all.
Lots of noisy, traffic stopping freight... making profit presumably.....so they want to keep the lines open.
Not enough to keep the Lincoln avoiding line open of course.....but enough to keep Lincoln's gates closed for about 40 Min's in the hour....during the day.
What a way to run a railway.
Cheers
Jon