BR/Intercity General discussion

[The Signalman]

Whist the Intercity Swallow colours looked good I thought the class 91's in their orginal Swallow livery look superb in it & a lot better than the drab & bland GNER schem that followed it.

I suppose we'll have to wait for one to be preserved to see a '91 in Swallow again but it'll be worth the wait.

 

[driver9000]

For me personally BR wins hands down they are part of my childhood spent watching and travelling by train. We had proper trains comprised of proper coaches hauled by proper locos. I could sit in a comfy MK2e coach with a guaranteed window seat and a table in a train with a decent amount of coaches, I struggle to think of a time when I travelled on an InterCity train that was overcrowded, some provincial services were overcrowded though....

Under BR/InterCity you could get from one end of the country to the other by ONE train mostly, trains ran later into the night and earlier in the morning generally travel options were greater and it wasnt until XC was ripped apart in 2007 that the longest services were axed. Things werent perfect under BR but I think it was a far better system to what we have now.

 

[tbtc]

Whist the Intercity Swallow colours looked good I thought the class 91's in their orginal Swallow livery look superb in it & a lot better than the drab & bland GNER schem that followed it.

I suppose we'll have to wait for one to be preserved to see a '91 in Swallow again but it'll be worth the wait.

I preferred the initial "Intercity" livery to the "Executive" one that followed it

 

[37401]

I agree with the above the intercity swallow livery looked great and for me did to passenger services what Load Haul and MAINLINE did for freight

 

[Railjet]

Theres no doubt in my mind that the railways in the UK were at there best when it was Nationalised my best journeys were with Intercity, i was wondering what is everyones favorite thing about the days of BR/Intericity,NSE,Regional?

Being able to get Cheap Day Returns to virtually anywhere you could comfortably get there to and back within a day, e.g. Birmingham - Plymouth.

 

[furryfeet]

Central trains were infamous for abolishing CDR's - giving overnight prices rises of 170% !
AXC have not bothered to reinstate them ( surprise surprise ) since the govt did not specify that these fares had to be reinstated for the new franchise.

Perhaps when franchises are let in future the govt will force the TOC's to provide affordable walk on fares - for both 2nd and 1st class.

 

[merlodlliw]

Perhaps when franchises are let in future the govt will force the TOC's to provide affordable walk on fares - for both 2nd and 1st class.[/QUOTE]

As is now the situation with W/S I am pleased to say.so thats one.

Also furryfeet got the info on the other thread for you,W/S also.

 

[Mojo]

Perhaps when franchises are let in future the govt will force the TOC's to provide affordable walk on fares - for both 2nd and 1st class.

I doubt it. The reason the TOCs aren't providing affordable walk-on fares is because of DafT and the penny-pinching imposed by the treasuary.

 

[43021HST]

I was born in oct 1994 so I wasnt around (annoyingly) but according to different people Intercity was quite good.

 

[87015]

I doubt it. The reason the TOCs aren't providing affordable walk-on fares is because of DafT and the penny-pinching imposed by the treasuary.

So if the Dft weren't involved they would really be trying to provide a quality affordable service and not make as much money as possible would they? Okay then...All the walk-on fare axes that came in 1997/98 time were obviously all the fault of the DFT as well were they?

 

[JoeH]

Theres no doubt in my mind that the railways in the UK were at there best when it was Nationalised my best journeys were with Intercity, i was wondering what is everyones favorite thing about the days of BR/Intericity,NSE,Regional?

Didn't you complain in another thread that you were kicked off of a station for "being 16"? With that in mind how can you possibly remember the BR days?

 

[37401]

Didn't you complain in another thread that you were kicked off of a station for "being 16"? With that in mind how can you possibly remember the BR days?

BR went out in 97 (well 94-97) so i do remember it.
and i enjoyed it

you wouldnt happen to be Tigerclawfan off youtube would you!
if so you`ve been giving a few of us quite a bit of lip and your commenting on things you dont know about as your from the US and have prob never stepped foot in the UK

if your not then ignore the above

 

[JoeH]

BR went out in 97 (well 94-97) so i do remember it.
and i enjoyed it

you wouldnt happen to be Tigerclawfan off youtube would you!
if so you`ve been giving a few of us quite a bit of lip and your commenting on things you dont know about as your from the US and have prob never stepped foot in the UK

if your not then ignore the above

People over romanticise the past and tend to forget about the negative things, children more so. I wouldn’t even trust my own memory of BR and I am a decade older than you.

I’ve just seen your Youtube profile and it doesn’t surprise me that you are attracting negative attention there but this is neither the time nor place to discuss that.

 

[tbtc]

People over romanticise the past and tend to forget about the negative things, children more so. I wouldn’t even trust my own memory of BR and I am a decade older than you

Very true.

I'd like to pretend that there were "good old days", but every generation had it's problems. Sadly, it's easy to look back with rose tinted spectacles, and to pretend that today's railway is so much worse than in the past.

To give another example, the adults who lived through Punk, race riots and the Miners Strike 25/30/35 years ago are now complaining that society has broken down in the last few years...

Hindsight is a wonderful thing

 

[whoshotjimmi]

People over romanticise the past and tend to forget about the negative things, children more so.

A good point (if rather sweeping) made. It is important to note that with each passing year, there is an improvement of some variety. The railways have never stood still for very long. They were initially built so that businessmen could transport their wares and have evolved from that to taking the higher classes in extreme comfort to their holidays by the sea to the people moving mass it is today.

The reason I said the statement was rather sweeping is this. Whilst the railway situation is undoubtedly much improved under privatisation through (generally) newer trains; better reliability; higher frequency etc, there are some things that BR did well that would be of great value now. One of these was Intercity and the HST. From the business plan to the train to the service on board, Intercity was the cream of what the railway could achieve. To my mind, however, this focus on Intercity came at a cost to the provincial sector. Yes, there was a large investment in the Pacer and Sprinter family, and many of these are still going strong (who knows what it would be like now without them), they were often absolutely filthy and in poor states of repair - I remember West Yorkshire Pacers being particularly bad. Privatisiation has given many of these units a new lease of life. BR days also gave passengers better opportunities for through journeys as well as providing enthusiasts with a much more varied railway.

But would I swap the Privatised world we live in today for BR? No.

There is simply too much right currently that was wrong under BR to allow a return to old ways.

Part of moving forward and modernising so that the railways remain efficient and effective in times of high demand and competition is that things like BR, the Big Four etc become history. The history of the railway is something that should be looked back at with great fondness as it produced many great things - but we should also remember that the railway of today and tomorrow will have been shaped by the lessons learnt from the mistakes of the past.

 

[mathmo]

I was very young when BR was still in existence, so I can't say I remember it well at all. What I do remember, however, is the time around privatisation, give or take a year (in which I doubt much changed).

My two distinct memories of those days are negative though: one, literally cramming into the vestibule of an HST at Reading to get to London (we had to walk several carriages on the train to find a vestibule with any standing room - and this was on a CDR so can't have been particularly early in the morning), and twice (outward and return) missing our connection at New Street because the incoming service was substantially late and the connection had lots of slack so left on time. Those were not good days.

 

[37401]

acctually its just that one person im getting negative attention off and he mistook me for someone else