Margaret Thatcher and the railways - complicated?

[Gareth Marston]

She famously espoused the "great car economy" and told BR Managers to their faces that they were useless as they worked for BR. She had a reputation for allowing industry's perceived as dying and inefficient to ruthlessly swept away and was hell bent on destroying union power.

However as the Fact Compiler @ Railway Eye http://railwayeye.blogspot.co.uk/says

However, under Blessed Margaret Hilda's premiership the following were delivered:

Electrification of the East Coast Main Line (with new InterCity 225 train sets)

Brand new DMUs for the Regional Railways business

And the Chunnel - as a rail link

And of course we also had support for Sir Robert Reid's business led railway and Sectorisation (before the idiot Major's 'botched privatisation').

How come the railway survived intact under her premiership? It was full of union members, perceived to be a dying industry and nationalized to boot. She also had the Serpell Report demanding its death.

Was it to far down her list of things to do/deal with it somehow escaped or were there other factors at play?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I suspect she though it was worthless (ie nobody would buy it).
The early privatisations were all of going concerns which netted large amounts for the Treasury to pay down the National Debt.
I think BR and the Post Office were seen as too difficult for the likely returns.

The scale of investment from the mid-80s was surprising when you consider it also included the 317-322 fleets, Thameslink, Networkers, Chiltern modernisation, Channel Tunnel route upgrades, Eurostar, Waterloo International etc.
Settle & Carlise was reprieved (by Mr Portillo), and thanks to the boom the railway at last began to expand.

But then there were problems too: Clapham and King's Cross accidents, strikes over DOO and flexible rostering, cancellation of APT etc.
The picture is very mixed, but BR was certainly better in 1990 than it was in 1979.

 

[asylumxl]

Electrification of the ECML, done under Thatcher and we're still paying for the penny pinching ...

 

[Mikey C]

Electrification of the ECML, done under Thatcher and we're still paying for the penny pinching ...

How much electrification happened between 97 and 2010 under Labour

 

[Helvellyn]

Maybe it was far down on the 'to do' list, but it also underwent massive reform, moving from the railway run by the regions to one where it was commercially led, both in delivering for the customer and looking at a balance sheet. This was something that was still taking place in the 1990s, as the Sectors actually became responsible for the maintenance of the track.

InterCity moved to a point of not requiring a subsidy and Network SouthEast, I believe, was within a year of doing this when the Train Operating Units (predecessots to the TOCs) were set up and the sectors were dismantled.

BR couldn't have been privatised as it was in 1979, but there was never a hint that a Thatcher government would privatise it too. Indeed, it was John Major's government that did this, and in a very complicated way. A Thatcher inspired privatisation might have seen InterCity ans NSE (and possibly Parcels and Railfreight) sold off with public flotations, like with BT, British Gas, British Airways, etc.

Indeed, InterCity PLC would have been an interesting business, and it's interesting to speculate how a business led BR could have moved from public to private ownership based on the sectors as the businesses to be privatised.

Also, despite the massive investment of the 1980s BR did start undergoing massive restructuring. Non-core businesses were sold off - Sealink; Hotels; Traveller's Fare. The engineering side, BREL, underwent big restructuring and some big railway towns lost their works - just like Steel Works and Mines shut elsewhere - most famously Swindon, whose closure was announced during the GWR 150 anniversary.

 

[12CSVT]

Electrification of the ECML, done under Thatcher and we're still paying for the penny pinching ...

And only happened after British Rail were given permission to spend their own money.

 

[LE Greys]

As I've said on the other thread, BR had some good managers around then, Sir Peter Parker and Sir Robert Reid, along with Chris Green at NSE and (IIRC) John Prideux at Inter-City. As someone else pointed out, Maggie stayed relatively hands-off with the railways. One thing they did very well was sectorisation, which although it had its faults, such as locomotives not being quite so inter-operable, some services getting misplaced (Waterloo-Weymouth ought to have been IC) and so on, did manage to build up a number of good brands that sold very well and were able to cross-subsidse the not-so-good ones. Passenger rolling stock also vastly improved, even if it meant trading train length for frequency. I'm not privy to the decision-making, but I believe it was more co-incidence that it happend when Thatcher was the PM. When Major really did try to interfere, he seriously messed things up.

 

[ainsworth74]

How much electrification happened between 97 and 2010 under Labour

A quick play with the ORR's Data Portal reveals that in financial year 97/98 Great Britain had 5166km of electrified track by financial year 09/10 this had increased to 5239km a total increase of 73km or 45 miles.

 

[asylumxl]

And only happened after British Rail were given permission to spend their own money.

Who pulled the purse strings?

 

[Mojo]

There were also a huge number of line and station (re)openings under the 1979-1997 Conservative Government, many (most?) of which took place outside the South East.

 

[mrcheek]

Is it true that BR recommended closing the Far North Line, Heart of Wales line, and Settle-Carlisle during Thatcher's term in office, but she saved them all? (although Portillo of course claims credit for the third....)

 

[John07]

She reputedly never travelled on a train during her spell as Prime Minister.

 

[bnm]

She reputedly never travelled on a train during her spell as Prime Minister.

Yes she did:

 

[Oliver]

She reputedly never travelled on a train during her spell as Prime Minister.

Her reluctance to travel by train was due to the passing of compartment stock, where a group of passengers might talk with some privacy. Her main contribution to the railways was the indirect result of her broader policies. Overall I would say that Britain was in a better shape at the end of her time as PM than it was at the start, though there was quite a lot of pain along the way.

 

[yorksrob]

I don't really see the complication.

Mrs Thatcher was disinterested enough in the railways not to screw them up.

Rare, admittedly, given the quality of Government in this country but not complicated.

 

[Aldaniti]

Electrification of the ECML, done under Thatcher and we're still paying for the penny pinching ...

The 'new' WCML doesn't seem too reliable either......what was it £9 billion?

 

[gordonthemoron]

I thought Maggie's dislike of the railways stemmed from Geoffrey Howe losing his trousers on a sleeper

 

[D1009]

She reputedly never travelled on a train during her spell as Prime Minister.

I recall BR designated a Mk 3 coach which (for a large fee) could be attached to a service train for the exclusive use of private parties. Didn't she once make use of this? I think what she really wanted was her own Royal Train.

 

[asylumxl]

How much rolling stock was purchased per year under Thatcher and how much under Labour for the aforementioned periods?

 

[jon0844]

I think what she really wanted was her own Royal Train.

Why do you think that? Where's the evidence that she lived an extravagant lifestyle and would have acted like such a diva to want her own train? She was incredibly frugal by all accounts and, as she said when she was stabbed in the back by her cabinet, too many politicians are in for themselves. I believe that, right or wrong, she thought she was doing her job to help the country.

She presumably had reasons for not wanting to travel by rail, even if she didn't suddenly decide to close them down as a result. It was continuing a time from the 60s onwards where most people did think that owning a car was the future of personal freedom.

Perhaps another consideration was the ongoing threat from the IRA and a security concern for both herself and other passengers?

 

[313103]

How much rolling stock was purchased per year under Thatcher and how much under Labour for the aforementioned periods?

The thread is called Margerat Thatcher and the Railways-Complicated. It is not a comparison between Thatcher and Labour (which incidentally came long after Thatcher had been deposed from office!). If your doing comparison then compare Thatcher with Major and then Brown with Cameron.

Also by the time Thatcher had left Government, Major changed the political spectrum of the railways and privatised them, so comparing Thatchers nationalised railway industry with the privatised railways under Major or Labour is going to be difficult as so much had been spent on getting it privatised in the first place that it would of cost twice as much to put the railways back where they were under Thatcher.

 

[jon0844]

...by the time Thatcher had left Government, Major changed the political spectrum of the railways and privatised them, so comparing Thatchers nationalised railway industry with the privatised railways under Major or Labour is going to be difficult as so much had been spent on getting it privatised in the first place that it would of cost twice as much to put the railways back where they were under Thatcher.

The thread is called Margerat Thatcher and the Railways-Complicated. It is not a comparison between Thatcher and Labour.

 

[Zoe]

One thing they did very well was sectorisation, which although it had its faults, such as locomotives not being quite so inter-operable

What we will never know is how well the 1990s restructuring (where the sectors gained full control of infrastructure and operations) would have worked. The EU directive would have required a track access charge to be levied and so not only would the sectors be charging each other for infrastructure use but would also have to split accounts/operations and charge themselves. The sectors were also subdivided into "profit centres" which at least in some cases closely mirrored the first round of TOCs so I'm not sure if the situation would be any different to how it is now if there would still be fragmentation with infrastructure/stock allocated to specific profit centres.

 

[jon0844]

There are lots of things we don't know about what might have happened, especially as the EU would have no doubt put a stop to subsidising the workers in the mines and steel works if we'd opted to bail them out as so many people think we should.

 

[asylumxl]

The thread is called Margerat Thatcher and the Railways-Complicated. It is not a comparison between Thatcher and Labour (which incidentally came long after Thatcher had been deposed from office!). If your doing comparison then compare Thatcher with Major and then Brown with Cameron.

If you've read the thread then you will see I am not the one who started the comparisons, so please could you quote the people who did so prior and correct them? Appreciated :P.

We going to leave out Blair too? Let's compare them all for fairness.

 

[The Ham]

There are lots of things we don't know about what might have happened, especially as the EU would have no doubt put a stop to subsidising the workers in the mines and steel works if we'd opted to bail them out as so many people think we should.

The problem of the miners and industry would have become a problem at some point down the line if she hadn't done anything about it. I think that if it had been left longer then it would have been worse and the economy would be in a worse place than it is now.

At least by taking the bull by the horns it forced those manufacturing companies that were doing OK to look at ways of working smarter and more cost effectively which means that we have a good number of highly skilled engineers in the UK now who, when working on high quality engineering projects, can give China a run for their money on cost.

If the UK had dithered then we may not have had the ability to buy UK built trains, the skills needed to maintain and build new rail infrastructure projects may have mostly only available from overseas and our trains would have a lot less passengers to travel in them as our work force would have been a lot smaller.

 

[neilm]

There was a programme about this on bbc4 which most likely will never be shown again as it talked about jimmy sav appearing in adverts and how great it was!

Anyway most of the people said on there BR was so successful because thacture left the railways alone there was no interference they were able to succeed in their own. Which does make sense considering the railways are in such a mess now is because of a government department after all...

 

[swcovas]

She famously espoused the "great car economy" and told BR Managers to their faces that they were useless as they worked for BR. She had a reputation for allowing industry's perceived as dying and inefficient to ruthlessly swept away and was hell bent on destroying union power.

However as the Fact Compiler @ Railway Eye http://railwayeye.blogspot.co.uk/says

How come the railway survived intact under her premiership? It was full of union members, perceived to be a dying industry and nationalized to boot. She also had the Serpell Report demanding its death.

Was it to far down her list of things to do/deal with it somehow escaped or were there other factors at play?

The lack of action on Serpell is interesting. It came at an all time low in passenger numbers but was perhaps still too soon after the Beeching period. Ok, it was 20 years after Beeching was published but mass closures were still quite fresh in the mind. It was different to Beeching in that it was a set of alternative proposals as opposed to Beeching's ONE set of proposals....including a high investment option!

The govt sat on the report for a while but much was leaked......testing public reaction perhaps? It also came just before an election which admitedly the conservatives did win. Why they didn't act in any way after is a matter for debate and within the year passenger numbers were on the increase though the one closure proposal which was put forward was of course the Settle & Carlisle, again testing public reaction perhaps? And we all know what happened there, thankfully!

 

[cjmillsnun]

She famously espoused the "great car economy" and told BR Managers to their faces that they were useless as they worked for BR. She had a reputation for allowing industry's perceived as dying and inefficient to ruthlessly swept away and was hell bent on destroying union power.

However as the Fact Compiler @ Railway Eye http://railwayeye.blogspot.co.uk/says

How come the railway survived intact under her premiership? It was full of union members, perceived to be a dying industry and nationalized to boot. She also had the Serpell Report demanding its death.

Was it to far down her list of things to do/deal with it somehow escaped or were there other factors at play?

Quite simply it was down to her political skill and also that of Peter Parker.

Parker ensured that option A was the one that was heavily publicised. Thatcher recognised that the railways occupied a place in the hearts of the middle class (her core vote) and canned the report.

Bob Reid (the first one) and the transport secretary actually then sat and looked at the social implications of the railway. Surprisingly it got them some investment in much needed stock I believe on the promise of the efficiency improvements under sectorisation (they were actually delivered)

 

[yorksrob]

It also has to be remembered that a lot of Tory voters were commuters and/or lived in the Shires, so a Serpell like programme of closures wouldn't have been very astute politically, even in the early 1980's.