Atomic Systems

After looking on the radio 4 website I found two very intresting prorames intilted "Back To Beeching" these were aired in Febuary and March of 2003 these can be listened to again by click the links below :

Program 1 : http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/bee ... rog1.shtml

Program 2 : http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/bee ... rog2.shtml

Anyway after listening and reading I found out that in 2004 history might repeat itself in the form of "The Beeching Cuts" many branchlines may be closed 40 years after being saved by protesters in the late 60's. The goverment are doing a spending report on the railways to be released in 2004, it may hold many branchline closers just like the beaching era, it looks like history has come back to haunt us

No, I don't think so there will be cuts. There's now more passenger that at anytime since 1947. I believe the public would want to see a re-organisation of the structure of the railway before any drastic action is taken. At least I hope so.

There's no doubt that the SRA and the government is playing about with ideas to save money. For example putting buses on instead of trains. The fact remains that the train travelling public prefer trains to buses, that's why they use them. If you put buses on, I suspect you might start seriously impinging economic activity in some towns.

Compare the following two groups of places:

1) Peterborough, Swindon, Milton Keynes, Leeds, Ipswich, Brighton, Oxford, Darlington, York.

2) Middlesbrough, Hartlepool, Mansfield, Gloucester, Hull, Sunderland, Bradford.

Group 1 has a good train service and is on a main line. Those towns if you visit them tend to be far more prosperous than the second group.

Good communications are essential to the well being of communities and the country as a whole. Time from London and other major centres is a big factor in their growth.

If you start cutting the network, the main lines will suffer as well as stopping many communities from enjoying connection to the main network.

Many people forget that the railway has a very large market share of passengers between some cities.

In addition if you starve the main lines, but cutting branches, you'll create further problems in the long run. Probably the biggest reason why we are in a transport mess today is the decisions taken by former Labour and conservative governments in the 1950s and 1960s. Not to mention the Tory privatisation of 1996.

Thr only real problems with the railways are track maintenance, and the SRA. If the SRA didnt focus all its efforts on fining people left right and centre {TOC's}, and actually helped TOC's to get the best out of their franchise, then the service provided would improve, as TOC's would have more money to spend on staff, maintenance and other things like onboard facilities.
If the track maintenance was split into 4 groups, North East South West, but then also, major routes like the WCML and ECML, and people were payed to maintain that area, and made to directly employee all staff, then track maintenance wouldnt be so bad, as it wouldnt be 1 massive finance project, but several smaller ones.

The problem with the railways today is that the railways are run by a collection of looney toons who hire incompetent idiots to drive trains and maintain tracks e.t.c. Potters bar and hatfield are examples of gross incompetence, For instance the excuse for passing a signal at danger "Well its situated in a bad place" In my day drivers would bloody well refuse to drive on a road with such a badly possitioned signal reason being any signal passed at danger was an automatic three days suspension an imediate eye test including a colour blindness test and a lot of serious stick off other drivers.Then we get several people killed because a set of points are in a terrible state of repair I tell you in all honesty in 40 years as a railway man i never ever saw points as bad,The only excuse management could come up with "Well it might be sabatage" what a load of ..Can anybody imagine some idiot or idiots walking onto a railway track with all the tools needed to perform this operation in such a busy place not even at night would they be unseen.
Going onto the Ernie Marples thing he was an economist brought in to do a specific job SAVE MONEY by cutting jobs and services,Today such a man is not needed because we got a government thats expert at doing that.On a recent visit to a manchester station i walked the length of two of the platforms just looking at the state of the track it was a disgrace, made me glad to be a retired railway worker and desperatly sorry for the poor sods who pay through the nose to travel on such a . system.

Believe me, if they are going to wreck something, they'll go tooled up to do it.
Ever seen a set of seats dismantled?
It requires a socket set, well i've seen a unit that had it down over a weekend, a whole coach worth of seats dismantled!

Lizzy as per usual you have totally missed the point again,Am begining to think you are a sandwich short of a picnic. You are talking about an incident that happened at the weekend and probably in a quiet siding.What i am talking about is a very busy 24/7 railway junction do you know what sort of gear would be needed to loosen and remove those bolts? serious ironmongery.
Another thing i neglected to mention in my previous post,On my visit to the aforsaid station was the scruffy appearence of the staff.Is it ok to take some phtographs? i asked a porter? reply....some sort of grunt, I politely asked again yep said he (this was just before the ban at some stations) I was clicking away when i was aware of a fat arse protruding from the cab of a type 47 and much hammering and banging the driver as fat arse turned out to be was joined by two other guys and again there was much hammering and banging soon after the driver emerged from the cab carrying the drivers seat and legged it off down the platform and jumped on another engine.Could any of the more enlightened forum members tell me this.Is it a regular practice these days is there a shortage of drivers seats,And if so are we to hear anouncements like "We apologise for the 9:45 to Crewe being 10 minutes late and promise this train will be back to its usual 20 minutes late tomorrow the driver couldnt find a seat"?

They are thinking of closing branchline like the "Dent To mainline WCML JCN" route where you can't buy a return as once a week a train runs in 1 driection

Oh Dr. Beeching What Have You Done Indeed

Surely the fundamental problem is that the money we spend on our railways is spread too thinly.

As I understand it, the UK has the second largest rail network in Europe - a result of the Government in the late 19th century limiting railway companies' profits to a set rate of return on assets. Therefore, the only way of increasing their profits was to increase their assets by building lines into every corner of the UK. This means that UK railways are used much less intensively than those in most other countries and this lack of use is the main reason why the Government has to find cash to keep lines open.

As an example, in 2001/02 66% of all Government subsidy was spent on regional networks which earn less than 20% of revenue. ScotRail had the largest amount of subsidy and received about ten times the amount of subsidy that London commuter services received.

If you think that subsidies are acceptable as they ease things like congestion or pollution why do most of them go to areas such as the highlands of Scotland where these things aren't really a problem? What needs to happen is for subsidies to be targeted at those areas that do need them. Why aren't more subsidies provided for London & the South East? Almost three quarters of all rail journeys begin or end in London and they provide more than half of all passenger revenues but the TOC's providing those services receive only 18% of subsidies.

There clearly isn't a bottomless pit of money to spend on the railways and Lord Birt advised the Government last year that rail investment needs to be concentrated in London and the South-East. If that happens then some branch lines are going to disappear. The only alternative is a massive increase in subsidies which is only going to be funded by substantial increases in taxation and, despite all these protestations, hasn't the UK population consistently demonstrated that they don't want a heavier tax burden?

you raise some interesting points Robbie,Why should Jockland receive any cash from central government? They voted for regional government so they should provide funds from Jockland taxes you cant have it both ways.It seems to me Wales and Scotland want their cake and eat it.
I dont agree though with your assumption that the public would not want to pay higher taxes for a better Rail service god knows the present one is the pits. I think the whole lot should be taken back into Public ownership because nobody is gonna convince me that Branson went into the rail and aviation industrys to provide better services,No he got in because he wants to be another Bill Gates.Branson is a very disturbing case for example he owns a Modern airline a Railway and what does he do when he wants to travel round the world? Decides to travel by frigging hot Air balloon or does he know something we dont? maybe he considered the old balloon was the safest way to go.

boeing126 wrote:Lizzy as per usual you have totally missed the point again,Am begining to think you are a sandwich short of a picnic. You are talking about an incident that happened at the weekend and probably in a quiet siding.What i am talking about is a very busy 24/7 railway junction do you know what sort of gear would be needed to loosen and remove those bolts? serious ironmongery.

This happened while the train was in service. During a recent course, i was asked whats the first thing a driver checks when pciking up a train? Me and several others thought about it, and the logical answer seemed "Brakes?" to which the person asking the question replied "No, the drivers seat"
So what you saw was probably a seat not up to the standards of the driver, who unbelievably changed it himself

anakha wrote:This means that UK railways are used much less intensively than those in most other countries and this lack of use is the main reason why the Government has to find cash to keep lines open.

Woooo slow down a minute, you trying ti tell me theres places more intensive than Waterloo during a weekday peak?

Well lizzy you are sure right about the unbelievable bit,My dad who was a mainline engine driver in the 30s,40s and early 50s did some odd things but i never remember him having arse trouble due to an engine seat.

There are some services in the UK that only have one service a week though. An example of this is Stockport to Stalybridge which has only one service a week in one direction (I think its on a Friday).

mikey2001 wrote:There are some services in the UK that only have one service a week though. An example of this is Stockport to Stalybridge which has only one service a week in one direction (I think its on a Friday).

Saturday now. I live along the line, its a s**thole, everything is vandalised or has been removed.

I suppose its due for closure in the not too distant future? It doesnt sound as if the line has much of a future now.