Which year was the lowest ebb in UK railways

[nw1]

I'm amazed to see mention of 1991, I thought the Received Wisdom on here was that this was the perfect era? Lots of colorful liveries but without actual privatisation, I thought that was what people on here liked?

In "South Western" land, May 1991 was generally a timetable of cuts especially around the peak. And September 1991 a timetable of shortened peak train lengths out of Waterloo, due as stated to the withdrawal of the HAPs without replacement.

The ideal era that you mention (colourful liveries in the public sector - i.e. NSE - but improving timetables) was more typified by 1987-90 round here. 1991 was a sudden reversal in the upwards trend, due presumably to the recession.

 

[Uncle Buck]

I'd agree with the early eighties being the lowest point, pretty much the lowest annual passenger numbers, BR were still closing lines (e.g. Woodhead), the Sprinterisation of the Provincial network had not happened yet (or Pacerisation?), the HSTs had been introduced but that only affected a small number of services, there seemed little light at the end of the tunnel

Wouldn’t this also apply to the early-to-mid seventies, but without the introduction of the HST?

the Elizabeth Line is covering a lot of 'problematic' routes

What does this mean?

Good shout, sir! I'd echo that. Seemed to take forever to get anywhere when making medium distance journeys, this because of all the various speed restrictions imposed across the network.

But surely everybody recognised that this was temporary, as opposed to feelings of near-terminal malaise in the Seventies and Eighties?

 

[William3000]

Yes, it's interesting. The working from home thing seemed a bit of a threat (still is, considering the amount of times the "unsustainable subsidy" line is trotted out by the PTB).

Personally, I never doubted that the passengers would be back - simply due to being sick of being at home.

It's interesting that at my place of employment, office work has changed immeasurably compared to pre-pandemic. Compared to pre-pandemic where we all used to crowd into the office everyday, nowadays most work from home, most of the time.

Yet passenger numbers have either recovered, or are on the verge of it ! My commuter trains still seem pretty busy as well.

One of the other potential threats is Government’s not satisfactorily replacing fuel duty with pay per km/mile. Because without those who generate electricity at home through solar panels or who are on very cheap overnight rates can charge for virtually nothing making the cost of driving essentially free once the car has been purchased.

 

[778]

I would go for the end of WW2 being the lowest point. A lot of infrastructure had been destroyed in bombing raids (locos, station buildings etc) and lots of railwaymen killed in the war (both on the railways and in action). The big 4 had no money left and nationaliation was the only option. I know the 50s to the early 80s was not a good time for the railway but at least some good things happened (electrification, HSTs etc), unlike the 3 year period from the end of WW2 until formation of BR.

Regardless of the completion of the Euston-Birmingham-Manchester-Liverpool electrification in 1966 and the extension of the Southern Region's electrification in Kent and to Bournemouth global passenger numbers continued to decline over the next 15 years from just over 800 million in 1966/7 to just over 600 million in 1981/2.

Passenger numbers were always going to drop because it became affordable for working class people to own a car during that time and they did not need to rely on the railway anymore. The big increases in passenger numbers coincided with the UKs population growing from the early 90s onwards, so even though the railways have improved since 1982, passenger numbers would still have increased anyway to some extent.

Surely the question should be: "Which year was the lowest ebb of UK railways so far"?

Or perhaps I'm just feeling pessimistic for the future at the moment

If and when reform win the next election, there will be every reason to feel pessimistic for the future of the railways.

 

[Falcon1200]

I'd go for autumn 2000 when the aftermath of Hatfield plus severe flooding made the service pretty much disintegrate

As a railwayman and passenger, I would certainly agree! The reliability and usability of the railway was utterly destroyed.

As an enthusiast however I would say, I think, 1972; The start of my railway interest coinciding with the slow demise of the diesel hydraulics. I only ever saw one Warship working, and the only Class 22s I saw were on the scrap line at Swindon Works.

 

[yorksrob]

One of the other potential threats is Government’s not satisfactorily replacing fuel duty with pay per km/mile. Because without those who generate electricity at home through solar panels or who are on very cheap overnight rates can charge for virtually nothing making the cost of driving essentially free once the car has been purchased.

Yes, that's something Government definitely needs to pull its finger out on. Where's the logic in someone paying over the odds to use an electric train, for example, if an electric motorist can effectively travel for free.

 

[Magdalia]

I would go for the end of WW2 being the lowest point. A lot of infrastructure had been destroyed in bombing raids (locos, station buildings etc) and lots of railwaymen killed in the war (both on the railways and in action).

I'd go for autumn 2000 when the aftermath of Hatfield plus severe flooding made the service pretty much disintegrate, and the defects of privatisation were becoming obvious. In all the other possible nadir years the railway did at least continue to serve the public.

In hindsight, 2020 was a temporary blip for the railways as it seems likely the railways will exceed pre Covid passenger numbers.

What is common with all of these is that they were temporary shocks, from which there would be some sort of recovery, even if it was incomplete.

There seems to be a considerable correlation between “the railway was at a low ebb” and “the country was at a low ebb”.

Once the railway becomes dependent on state financial support that gets difficult to avoid.

I can criticize Cameron for MANY things but he kept throwing huge sums of public money on heavy rail (and Greater Manchester), even whilst swinging cuts affected most public services

An exception is the austerity years after the 2008 financial crash, when the country was doing badly but the railway wasn't.

Also agreed - 1981 was a freezing cold winter also , - 13 some nights in East Anglia causing even Freightliner trains berthed for short periods to become frozen to the rails. (neccesiating desperate measures to get them moving) - grim - like 1947 I suppose.

Thanks for the reminder about how grim the 1981/82 winter was. Coincidentally yesterday I was reminiscing about this with a friend who was on the last Deltic railtour on 2 January 1982. Rail travel that winter really was an ordeal.

From the perspective of London Underground, definitely 1982. Annual ridership dipped below 500m for the first time as the infrastructure became increasingly decrepit. Shortly thereafter we had Red Ken in charge and he launched the Fares Fair initiative that effectively halved ticket prices.

And thanks for this reminder too. I was living in London at the time, and Fares Fair being brought down in the courts added to the gloom.

BR got as far as preparing redundancy notices for drivers and came very close to issuing them - that is how serious it got. Payments to key suppliers were also delayed in order to ease the cash flow.

Even within 1982, that stands out as the lowest ebb.

 

[tbtc]

What does this mean?

The Elizabeth Line makes up something like over 10% of journeys (?) - and that was pretty much an 'overnight' boost (compared to some lines where it takes a few years to grow demand), even though it obviously wasn't built 'overnight'

The fact that it opened after COVID (rather than before) meant that some people optimistically say that 'passenger numbers have already bounced back to the pre-COVID numbers', whereas the reality is that the numbers look good because of lots of short distance journeys in London (whereas several long established lines haven't bounced back, and many of the passengers we've lost are the lucrative First Class/ dependable Season Ticket market)

One of the other potential threats is Government’s not satisfactorily replacing fuel duty with pay per km/mile. Because without those who generate electricity at home through solar panels or who are on very cheap overnight rates can charge for virtually nothing making the cost of driving essentially free once the car has been purchased.

If the argument for heavy rail is that it's environmentally efficient (and we need to save the planet etc etc) then isn't it A Good Thing that many car drivers are now using domestic solar panels to fuel their vehicles overnight?

Where's the logic in someone paying over the odds to use an electric train, for example, if an electric motorist can effectively travel for free.

Apologies if I'm starting the obvious here, but a train passenger needs a driver, a guard, signaling staff, cleaners etc etc - many of which are well paid professions - the car driver is doing that work themselves (and the upkeep of most roads is much cheaper/simpler than railway lines)

Are you saying that travel on electric trains should be 'free', and the staffing costs should be paid for by some kind of a magic money tree?

What is common with all of these is that they were temporary shocks, from which there would be some sort of recovery, even if it was incomplete

Agreed

There was always an expectation that war/ Hatfield/ COVID etc would be resolved and there would be some kind of bounce back

There doesn't seem to have been that kind of 'light at the end of the tunnel' in the late seventies/ early eighties, the growth in car ownership/ motorways etc cutting into the demand for heavy rail, the malaise of Industrial Relations, the decline of urban areas... Some people probably expected railways to end up as redundant as canals, yesterday's technology

Once the railway becomes dependent on state financial support that gets difficult to avoid

This is the problem

People seem to want state control of the railways, but without it being affected by government budgets etc

 

[yorksrob]

Apologies if I'm starting the obvious here, but a train passenger needs a driver, a guard, signaling staff, cleaners etc etc - many of which are well paid professions - the car driver is doing that work themselves (and the upkeep of most roads is much cheaper/simpler than railway lines)

Are you saying that travel on electric trains should be 'free', and the staffing costs should be paid for by some kind of a magic money tree?

Of course not. But motoring has costs as well, and it shouldn't be "free" if it goes all electric (obviously there's vehicle tax, but this in no way makes up for a loss in road fuel tax).

 

[anothertyke]

I would go with 1975.

1982, the Serpell Report, and 2000, the implosion after Hatfield, were moments of jeopardy, that's for sure. But the era of Richard Marsh as BRB Chairman was an era of drift, managed decline, a very uncertain future for the railway associated with economic crisis. Once Peter Parker came on the scene, there was a renewed sense of purpose, the HSTs arrived, he who cannot be mentioned did the advertising campaign and the supertanker began to turn.

 

[nw1]

I think we've had this conversation before but it sounds like I "dodged a bullet" in 1982, starting to (school) commute on the railways in September of that year. I believe the big crisis was earlier in the year, with frequent cancellations and even talk of permanent closure? I remember earlier in 1982 my dad (who used them to get to London) constantly ranting about the railways, anyhow...

Never really had any major problems with school commuting from 1982 to 1989, I have to admit - though I think there was a phase, perhaps 1984, where there were a few strikes. I do remember a period when I needed to go to and from school by car occasionally though can't remember the exact reason.

Also, never during this period did I have a perception that the railways were out-of-date or being run-down - though as I've said it probably helped that I lived in the southeast, and when I travelled elsewhere in the country, it was always by InterCity. Aside from the Mid-Cheshire line on two occasions (1984 and 1988), I never used what would become Regional Railways at any time during the 80s. My peak usage of RR and its privatised successors was unambiguously in the 90s, in the Sprinter/Pacer era (though still with some 101s hanging on).

In the early/mid 80s the railway didn't feel "brand new", with the blue-and-grey branding well-established - but I probably didn't expect it to. A lot of signage and infrastructure on the roads at the time also dated from the 60s and early 70s.

 

[telstarbox]

The Elizabeth Line makes up something like over 10% of journeys (?) - and that was pretty much an 'overnight' boost (compared to some lines where it takes a few years to grow demand), even though it obviously wasn't built 'overnight'

The fact that it opened after COVID (rather than before) meant that some people optimistically say that 'passenger numbers have already bounced back to the pre-COVID numbers', whereas the reality is that the numbers look good because of lots of short distance journeys in London (whereas several long established lines haven't bounced back, and many of the passengers we've lost are the lucrative First Class/ dependable Season Ticket market)



If the argument for heavy rail is that it's environmentally efficient (and we need to save the planet etc etc) then isn't it A Good Thing that many car drivers are now using domestic solar panels to fuel their vehicles overnight?



Apologies if I'm starting the obvious here, but a train passenger needs a driver, a guard, signaling staff, cleaners etc etc - many of which are well paid professions - the car driver is doing that work themselves (and the upkeep of most roads is much cheaper/simpler than railway lines)

Are you saying that travel on electric trains should be 'free', and the staffing costs should be paid for by some kind of a magic money tree?



Agreed

There was always an expectation that war/ Hatfield/ COVID etc would be resolved and there would be some kind of bounce back

There doesn't seem to have been that kind of 'light at the end of the tunnel' in the late seventies/ early eighties, the growth in car ownership/ motorways etc cutting into the demand for heavy rail, the malaise of Industrial Relations, the decline of urban areas... Some people probably expected railways to end up as redundant as canals, yesterday's technology



This is the problem

People seem to want state control of the railways, but without it being affected by government budgets etc

True although some of the Elizabeth line growth would have materialised before COVID as there was lots of 2010s development around Southall, Acton, Stratford and other places along the west and east 'halves' of the route. Once the full route opened some trips transferred from the Underground to NR passenger statistics.

 

[Wuggie Norple]

I would say 1969/70 was the nadir, certainly in terms of line closures, with the loss of such lines as:

Great Central main line
Waverley route
Grimsby to Firsby
Hunstanton
Ilfracombe
Fife and Kinross direct
Peterhead

 

[Djgr]

I would say 1969/70 was the nadir, certainly in terms of line closures, with the loss of such lines as:

Great Central main line
Waverley route
Grimsby to Firsby
Hunstanton
Ilfracombe
Fife and Kinross direct
Peterhead

Some of these closures were real jawdropping shockers.

 

[Farnborough]

All I can say is: Nostalgia isn't what it used to be...

 

[yorksrob]

Some of these closures were real jawdropping shockers.

Also Uckfield - Lewes, Lowestoft - Yarmouth South Town, Winchester - Alton.

Ashford - Hastings threatened at that time as well.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Mulling over things - I still think 1981 / 82 was incredibly serious in terms of weather , structural and planned strikes which wrecked commercial Freightliner services (the bit I was then involved with) - on non strike days we moved as little as one container on some trains on some days - (though if one begged , one could find some non urgent empty PO containers to shift) - even the absolute flagship Coatbridge service found no traffic - as export containers were shipped from Grangemouth to Felixstowe or Antwerp - the valuable Manchester , Leeds etc traffics went to the welcoming arms of road haulers. It took a long time to get traffic back , sometimes at lower rates ! Grim times.

 

[Djgr]

I'd go for autumn 2000 when the aftermath of Hatfield plus severe flooding made the service pretty much disintegrate, and the defects of privatisation were becoming obvious. In all the other possible nadir years the railway did at least continue to serve the public.

I think this was the moment when the Emperor's new clothes nature of privatisation was fully revealed, with the crushing realisation that we were stuck with this nonsense for ever.

 

[Uncle Buck]

The Elizabeth Line makes up something like over 10% of journeys (?) - and that was pretty much an 'overnight' boost (compared to some lines where it takes a few years to grow demand), even though it obviously wasn't built 'overnight'

The fact that it opened after COVID (rather than before) meant that some people optimistically say that 'passenger numbers have already bounced back to the pre-COVID numbers', whereas the reality is that the numbers look good because of lots of short distance journeys in London (whereas several long established lines haven't bounced back, and many of the passengers we've lost are the lucrative First Class/ dependable Season Ticket market)

Right so you are saying that while numbers have recovered this is due to the Elizabeth Line and without that they would have fallen ie that the rest of the network is in a worse position than before covid? I would agree with that, but I still wouldn’t say it was the lowest ebb of those lines, except in a handful of cases- most importantly the northern WCML which feels like a basket case atm.

 

[thenorthern]

1983/4 I think was the lowest year for passenger numbers for more than a century is certainaly up there. The preceding 1970s were not good years for the railways as although few stations were closed during this era, compared to the 1960s, service levels were cut back meaning the stations which remained open often had less trains stopping there.

The late 1990s/early 2000s were a bad time for the railways with several serious accidents such as Southall, Ladbroke Grove, Hatfield, Potters Bar, Tebay and Grayrigg. All of which were entirely preventable and caused by negligence. The rail industry however has learnt from these mistakes and now serious accidents are a much rarer occurrence.

I don't think anyone has mentioned it but 1948 was a bad year for the railways. People forget that the main reasons they were nationalised in 1948 was simply because they were facing financial ruin and possible bankruptcy.

 

[edwin_m]

What is common with all of these is that they were temporary shocks, from which there would be some sort of recovery, even if it was incomplete.

With hindsight that's true of all "lowest ebbs".

 

[eldomtom2]

Right so you are saying that while numbers have recovered this is due to the Elizabeth Line and without that they would have fallen ie that the rest of the network is in a worse position than before covid? I would agree with that, but I still wouldn’t say it was the lowest ebb of those lines, except in a handful of cases- most importantly the northern WCML which feels like a basket case atm.

Well, it's not like the rest of the network is identical when it comes to current passenger numbers vs. pre-COVID numbers. Some TOCs like LNER and EMR have completely recovered and others like TfW have nearly completely recovered. It's the operators where a large proportion of passengers are 9-to-5 commuters where passenger numbers are still a fair chunk below pre-COVID numbers.

 

[Magdalia]

With hindsight that's true of all "lowest ebbs".

Temporary shocks are just blips, what matters is structural change. This discussion has tracked various stages of a huge structural change with the switch of passengers and freight from rail to road between the end of World War 2 and the lowest ebb (of which there can only be one) in 1982.

The discussion's examination of the decline in commuting and increase in working from home is another change that is structural not a temporary shock.

 

[edwin_m]

Temporary shocks are just blips, what matters is structural change. This discussion has tracked various stages of a huge structural change with the switch of passengers and freight from rail to road between the end of World War 2 and the lowest ebb (of which there can only be one) in 1982.

The discussion's examination of the decline in commuting and increase in working from home is another change that is structural not a temporary shock.

That's your definition of "lowest ebb". Others may differ, which might explain some of the different dates suggested. After all the term "ebb" literally means a falling tide, which is also temporary.

 

[Magdalia]

That's your definition of "lowest ebb". Others may differ, which might explain some of the different dates suggested. After all the term "ebb" literally means a falling tide, which is also temporary.

The key here is the definition of lowest, not the definition of ebb. Of all the ebbs, only one can be the lowest.

 

[edwin_m]

The key here is the definition of lowest, not the definition of ebb. Of all the ebbs, only one can be the lowest.

So are you suggesting the lowest or the least temporary?

If lowest, then 2000 would be a good candidate as it was the only time the service fell apart for several months.

 

[Cricketer8for9]

From the perspective of London Underground, definitely 1982. Annual ridership dipped below 500m for the first time as the infrastructure became increasingly decrepit. Shortly thereafter we had Red Ken in charge and he launched the Fares Fair initiative that effectively halved ticket prices. Although FF was short lived (successfully challenged in court by Bromley Council) the associated re-structuring of the fare system (zonal, travelcards, integration with main line ticketing etc) maintained the momentum and within 7 years demand had increased by two thirds to 815m, a level we frankly struggled with. Of course the improving economic situation contributed to this uplift and in recent years so has the JLE. Today's ridership is about 1.2 Bn, so nearly two and a half times greater than the low point.

Well said sir (or madam)!

 

[Magdalia]

If lowest, then 2000 would be a good candidate as it was the only time the service fell apart for several months.

Even after Hatfield the service did not fall apart for several months. I was commuting between the Fens and London at the time and I was still able to travel by train to and from work. The trains were slow and crowded but it was predictable and reliable.

 

[Djgr]

Even after Hatfield the service did not fall apart for several months. I was commuting between the Fens and London at the time and I was still able to travel by train to and from work. The trains were slow and crowded but it was predictable and reliable.

On the other hand, we abandoned our attempts to travel from Liverpool by train for our weekly meeting in London and started flying on the then new Easyjet sevice from Liverpool to Luton...for many months.

 

[Bald Rick]

Even within 1982, that stands out as the lowest ebb.

Indeed. I know someone who helped print the letters. It was certainly the lowest point for the railway in his mind.

The Elizabeth Line makes up something like over 10% of journeys (?)

roughly 20%. Although a proportion of those were already made pre-EL, mostly on the Liverpool St - Brentwood stretch.