British Rail?

[Greenback]

That's just political spin.

Of course it is. To try and say that BR built up a disregard for safety that led to Hatfield is disngenuous in the extreme.

 

[Old Timer]

Just stick to the BR was destroyed by evil stupid Tories with an axe to grind line and you will be ok!

You know it really would be nice if you took off the Rose Tinted spectacles and made the time to do your own research rather than spouting tired, inaccurate and long refuted Leftist lies and disingenuity :roll:

Or perhaps the facts would just spoil your own Political prejudice ?

Your comment has added nothing positive to the discussion and serves no other purpose than to make you look silly in the public forum.

 

[Hydro]

You know it really would be nice if you took off the Rose Tinted spectacles and made the time to do your own research rather than spouting tired, inaccurate and long refuted Leftist lies and disingenuity :roll:

Or perhaps the facts would just spoil your own Political prejudice ?

Your comment has added nothing positive to the discussion and serves no other purpose than to make you look silly in the public forum.

I read it as DR saying tongue in cheek that sticking to the "common" view of railway privatisation would be a safe bet regardless of other arguments. I didn't read that as a serious political viewpoint.

Or was it? Place bets now!

 

[yorksrob]

Of course it is. To try and say that BR built up a disregard for safety that led to Hatfield is disngenuous in the extreme.

indeed. It seems to be a very 'brave' (or rather, foolish) assertion for the minister to make, particularly when the various accident reports are in the public domain.

 

[dggar]

Of course it is. To try and say that BR built up a disregard for safety that led to Hatfield is disngenuous in the extreme.

Don't forget to mention the wonder that was Railtrack.

 

[Greenback]

Don't forget to mention the wonder that was Railtrack.

I try to avoid thinking about Railtrack whenever possible!

 

[Old Timer]

Of course it is. To try and say that BR built up a disregard for safety that led to Hatfield is disngenuous in the extreme.

I think what maybe in mind is phrases like "maintenace holidays" and other Big Brother (Orwell's version) type speak.

What BR was moving towards in respect of track maintenance was a controlled life extension to the assets so as to achieve a form of "just in time" renewal.

For example the Cambrian line had its maintenance schedules altered so that planned renewals were deferred and replacement of equipment was related to actual usage rather than a bigger plan. In the case of the Cambrian, the lack of loco hauled high axle weight trains allowed the track to remain in situ for longer without renewal and allowed the wear of the rails to be extended.

Naturally this was done without an increase in risk, and was simply a good measure - after all why relay track that still has a longer life left in it simply because there was a common Standard that asumes freight traffic ?

Unfortunately Political bias yet again became involved with a lot of disingenuous statements and factually incorrect and inaccurate statements being made by the Trades Unions and others for Political purposes and for different agendas, rather than from the point of the benefit of the Railway.

I suspect this is what has given rise to this viewpoint, which was totally wrong in fact, but then again veracity has never bothered those who peddle lies and disingenuity in furtherance of their twisted Political aims.

 

[Greenback]

veracity has never bothered those who peddle lies and disingenuity in furtherance of their twisted Political aims.

Are you including Mr Hammond in that?

 

[9K43]

From the staff point of view, I would make the following observations;
1-first, the only good thing to come out of the whole privatisation debacle was a vast improvement in rates of pay, brought about as different companies competed for the services of a limited pool of skilled staff, while being uninterested in training new staff, eg apprenticeships.
2-Safety; more passengers killed in the first ten years of privatisation on ex Western Region metals than in 50 years of BR(W).
3-Use of untrained staff by Railtrack sub-contractors leading to staff casualties.
Diminished safety culture in maintenance depots as companies cut back on staff numbers and training.
4-Replacement of experienced rail managers with untrained staff leading to potentially dangerous errors of judgement.
5-Re-interpretation of the rule book to suit business requirements.
6-Loss of conditions; while the original transfers to private companies observed the required transfer of terms and conditions, each subsequent change invariably led to dilution or loss of benefits.
7-Passenger care took second billing to avoiding delay attribution fines on late running services. Connections with services of another TOC? Forget it!
8-Most of us were loyal servants of BR, I don't see much in the way of loyalties nowadays.

I agree totally with the above
My pay went up from £8.500 with all the overtime I could get to £16500 for a 40 hour week.
Thats about all that was good about getting Yankee bosses. The holiday fell apart when we got a someone from Canada, the whole job went kaput.
While I am at it, How do you get one privatised train in front of another on a 10mile length of track, with no passing loops?

This was the thinking on the high street with bus privatisation from some of the elected tory MP's.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Remember Bransons comments on his drivers would do better than BR by going faster.....

BR knew its costs allright - unlike todays railways - it was £28 per sleeper on regional railways bullhead track - often using old chairs on new hardwood sleepers - Area management knew their revenue and costs allright.

 

[Old Timer]

......BR knew its costs allright - unlike todays railways - it was £28 per sleeper on regional railways bullhead track - often using old chairs on new hardwood sleepers - Area management knew their revenue and costs allright.

Oh I dont know so much, I can tell youn exactly what it would cost to replace a sleeper to the same description.

You may not like the price, but most of it is generated by uneccessary and bureaucratic safety procedures and back covering processes.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Network Rail would just relay the whole line with concrete sleepers and deep ballast - especially if on an easy to do stretch to meet their plain line renewals targets (regardless of actual need)

The amount of money wasted is criminal - Stockport remodelling , the fitting of the wrong equipment at Ledburn (causing 18 weekends of all lines blocked) etc etc.

 

[CosherB]

BR is far enough in history now for a lot of rose-tinted cr@p to be spouted about it. I grew up with BR and witnessed the privatisation of the railways in my 50s. Here's few of my observations:

1) First, the biggest point: BR was always at the mercy of the Treasury for investment (or 'subsidy' as it's called for rail, as opposed to road). There was never any real investment so the network just got more and more run down. It was in a death spiral, with lines being closed, or singled, junctions and signalling taken out, and life-expired stock pushed into extra use, all to 'cut the cloth to fit'. Heck, BR even misrepresented the repair costs of Ribblehead Viaduct to try to get the Settle Carlisle closed! It could not carry on like that for much longer; hence privatisation, which allowed far more investment to flow into rail.

And it's no good saying 'think what BR could have done with that money'. There was no way in a trillion years BR would ever have got 'that money' out of the treasury. That's politics, and the way the world works. Trust me on that. Or look at the pre and post privatisation evidence!

2) Privatisation was a godsend to the railways, but was rushed and could have been done better. However, it's a heck of a lot better than what we had in BR days. New rolling stock, refurbished lines, lines re-doubled (or even, in Trent Valley, quadroupled). As a result passenger numbers soared and are now many time those of BR levels. And after the early disasters of Railtrack, safety today has never been bettered. Inter City was the jewel in BR's crown, but look how poorly the WCML IC services compared to today's services, with 3 trains an hour [stn]MAN[/stn] to [stn]EUS[/stn] in sub 2 hours and mostly very reliable. Improvements elsewhere have been even more marked!

3) As has been said, BR was increadibly inward-looking and lacked customer focus (a common trait in nationalised industries). For any transport system to compete that has to change. And it has - but not yet enough. But it is getting there (to quote a tired and ill conceived BR ad of the 70s).

If you want a serious answer to your question, take off the rose-tinted socialist specs and look at what happened in reality.

 

[DarloRich]

You know it really would be nice if you took off the Rose Tinted spectacles and made the time to do your own research rather than spouting tired, inaccurate and long refuted Leftist lies and disingenuity :roll:

Or perhaps the facts would just spoil your own Political prejudice ?

Your comment has added nothing positive to the discussion and serves no other purpose than to make you look silly in the public forum.

its called a joke! i thought it was so outlandishly stupid that it would be clear that i was taking the p*ss - however reading it back i did miss the smiley off the end so i do look a bit stupid!

 

[Old Timer]

Network Rail would just relay the whole line with concrete sleepers and deep ballast - especially if on an easy to do stretch to meet their plain line renewals targets (regardless of actual need)

The amount of money wasted is criminal - Stockport remodelling , the fitting of the wrong equipment at Ledburn (causing 18 weekends of all lines blocked) etc etc.

Oh yes, I totally agree with you.

Network Rail is a deeply inefficient and sick organisation, mostly staffed by clock watchers who will go at their time even if it would take 5 minute slonger to sign off a method statement or plan.

The staff with Projects generally seem to consist to a large degree of misfits, incompetents, the lazy, those lacking initiative and decisiveness, prevaricators, and those who just want an easy life.

Most of the Infrastructure renewals staff I know who have gone into Network Rail soon leave again because they find such attitudes alien.

Note there are some good people within Proejcts but unfortunately these people stand out like a shining light in the middle of a pitch black desert.

 

[HYPODERMIC]

1) First, the biggest point: BR was always at the mercy of the Treasury for investment (or 'subsidy' as it's called for rail, as opposed to road). There was never any real investment so the network just got more and more run down. It was in a death spiral, with lines being closed, or singled, junctions and signalling taken out, and life-expired stock pushed into extra use, all to 'cut the cloth to fit'. Heck, BR even misrepresented the repair costs of Ribblehead Viaduct to try to get the Settle Carlisle closed! It could not carry on like that for much longer; hence privatisation, which allowed far more investment to flow into rail.

Massive waste, though... simply massive waste. I accept your point, but it cuts both ways - we've got a system that locks money into the system, sure, but locks in an even greater number of inefficiencies, too.

And it's no good saying 'think what BR could have done with that money'. There was no way in a trillion years BR would ever have got 'that money' out of the treasury. That's politics, and the way the world works. Trust me on that. Or look at the pre and post privatisation evidence!

Yep, that's the cold hard reality alright - but I still have no doubt in my mind that British Rail was a better system for running a railway. Crippled and at the mercy of democracy, yes, but I'll continue to defend the principle of it - judging solely by how much it was, on how little it had.

2) Privatisation was a godsend to the railways, but was rushed and could have been done better. However, it's a heck of a lot better than what we had in BR days. New rolling stock, refurbished lines, lines re-doubled (or even, in Trent Valley, quadroupled). As a result passenger numbers soared and are now many time those of BR levels. And after the early disasters of Railtrack, safety today has never been bettered. Inter City was the jewel in BR's crown, but look how poorly the WCML IC services compared to today's services, with 3 trains an hour [stn]MAN[/stn] to [stn]EUS[/stn] in sub 2 hours and mostly very reliable. Improvements elsewhere have been even more marked!

This is where you begin to lose me. You've totally ignored BR's triumphs. Sectorisation. High Speed Train. Total Route Modernisation. You keep making out that BR was in a terminal decline - a "death spiral" - but I'd bet that some of the reversal in fortunes we saw in the mid/late-90s (in terms of passenger numbers, etc., and that you correlate with privatisation) were in fact due to a recovering economy, and BR's investment and restructuring finally bearing fruit - amongst other factors.

Or to put it another way, whatever the benefits of privatisation - and I don't dispute that there have been many - I can't accept that they were solely or even largely responsible for restoring the railway's fortunes so quickly, and so inexplicably, considering that the first few years of privatisation were probably worse than BR!

But it is getting there (to quote a tired and ill conceived BR ad of the 70s).

Of all your complaints, this one bugs me the most; it's only an off-hand comment, but it's just so frustrating to read.

One moment we want honesty, clarity, and humility from our railway communications, and then the next we're having a bash at "we're getting there", which I've always liked for combining a decent pun with an honest message. Frankly, I'd rather have a bit more of "we're getting there"-type humility from our railway companies right now, instead of the unbecoming spectacle of blame and self-absolution that we are so often subjected to.

You make many valid points, and I more or less agree that privatisation has been a beneficial evil (forced investment, at the cost of massive inefficiency, confusion, and complexity) but I'll never harbour any great love for it; how I only wish Major had got his way with his Big Four plan.

 

[shinkansen1966]

Over the last 15 years, we've had new rolling stock and upgrades (eg WCML). The money from this has come from two sources: higher fares and more money from the taxpayer.

And look what we have lost

• Network Card benefit eroded
• Restaurant and buffet cars replaces with roving trolleys
• A national long distance railway product: INTERCITY
• Off peak tickets available on a fewer trains
• A unified commuter service for the home counties: Network South East

 

[Old Timer]

Looking back from the perspective of age and with the benefit of experience, BR was a mixed bag.

Until the 1980s we were not particularly good at identify waste, and because of the probelms with the Trades Unions we had some extremely poor restrictions on what we could and couldn't do. Principally this was because Ministers of all Political persuasions did not want Strikes on the Railway during their generally short time in the job, thus there was no appetite to support the BRB in trying to bring about change.

The Railway like all other Nationalised Industries was seen as a tool of Government fiscal policy so that when times were tight the Government would cut back on "investment". The results of this could be seen at various UK Car Companies but especially at British Leyland which never had the money to do proper R&D and even if it did receive some money was hampered by the likes of Red Robbo and his fellow travellers in the Union who ultimately brought about the demise of the UK car manufacturing industry.

We had the awful promotion through seniority which resulted in poor and incompetent people being promoted way above their capabilities. The move to promotion by suitability was continuously refused by the Trades Unions, and hence we had Guards who would not leave the brake van and check tickets, and station staff who were surly and lacked "customer" (and mostly social) skills.

We had Trades Union backed inefficiencies such as relief signalman being sent from stations at opposite ends of the line (passing each other so to speak) to cover signalboxes which resulted in both of them being paid extremely handsomely when this was both wrong and inefficient. Had they been rostered to their most efficient extent we would have considerably reduced the costs of keeping lines open.

We had train crews who would only work a train if we paid them 12 hours overtime even if they were only going over their booked time by a few minutes.

WE had some very bad leaders and managers although in fairness trying to take on some of the practices I have mentioned would have been career suicide because there was a complete lack of support right up to Ministerial and Cabinet level.

So whilst there were many things to commend BR about, we must not lose sight of the many bad areas which could really only have been resolved by Privatisation.

 

[shinkansen1966]

My biggest single gripe with the current arrangements for running our railways is that multiple private companies are largely responsible for structuring, enforcing and collecting fares. With the public sector responsible for cost over runs.

And we can't even have a standard format for identifying first class carriages. It would be helpful if you using several different companies in one long trip.

 

[CosherB]

Hypodermic - I agree that technically BR could be superb. HST is still a great train (wasn't it developed by the same guy, working under Riddles, who mainly developed the superb 9F steam loco and re-built Bulleid's pacifics into superb locos?) and APT (at least the electric version) could have been a world leader.. But why wasn't it? Why did we end up buying it back from the Italians in perhaps an inferior form (at least from the passenger environment point of view - go to Crewe and sit in one!) a couple of decades later?

It's that old BR bugbear - no money to develop it from the Treasury.

Only a privatised railway can cure that sort of 'get to the back of the queue with your begging bowl' attitude from the Treasury by bypassing that short-sighted government body.

OK, it wouldn't have saved APT if APT had been a current project (just look at the demise of our train building capability), but it illustrates the attitude the nationalised railway had to battle with.

 

[Old Timer]

My biggest single gripe with the current arrangements for running our railways is that multiple private companies are largely responsible for structuring, enforcing and collecting fares. With the public sector responsible for cost over runs.

And we can't even have a standard format for identifying first class carriages. It would be helpful if you using several different companies in one long trip.

Well the "Golden Age" of the Railways occurred when they were under private ownership so that does rather makes your argument less sound.

 

[Sadsmileyface]

Of course it is. To try and say that BR built up a disregard for safety that led to Hatfield is disngenuous in the extreme.

To be fair, back then, a hip-flask was part of the uniform.

 

[yorksrob]

Hypodermic - I agree that technically BR could be superb. HST is still a great train (wasn't it developed by the same guy, working under Riddles, who mainly developed the superb 9F steam loco and re-built Bulleid's pacifics into superb locos?) and APT (at least the electric version) could have been a world leader.. But why wasn't it? Why did we end up buying it back from the Italians in perhaps an inferior form (at least from the passenger environment point of view - go to Crewe and sit in one!) a couple of decades later? It's that old BR bugbear - no money to develop it from the Treasury. Only a privatised railway can cure that sort of 'get to the back of the queue with your begging bowl' attitude from the Treasury by bypassing that short-sighted government body. OK, it wouldn't have saved APT if APT had been a current project (just look at the demise of our train building capability), but it illustrates the attitude the nationalised railway had to battle with.

it seems rather pointless to decry having to sell apt technology to the italians when the current set up couldn't even come up with such a design in the first place.

 

[shinkansen1966]

Well the "Golden Age" of the Railways occurred when they were under private ownership so that does rather makes your argument less sound.

May be so.

The shift from state ownership to the current arrangements have lead to a loss of some network wide benefits for passengers.

And the taxpayers still picks up the tab when things going financially wrong.

 

[Metrailway]

And the taxpayers still picks up the tab when things going financially wrong.

Governments generally push for the privatisation of a loss making company to reduce the burden on the Government finances. The Treasury pushed for the railways to be privatised into several companies, instead of a few companies, so to get the maximum amount of money for the Government.

However, the burden on the taxpayer nowadays is far greater than ever before during the BR days. So if you worked in HM Treasury, you would probably say that privatisation of the railways has failed.

 

[CosherB]

it seems rather pointless to decry having to sell apt technology to the italians when the current set up couldn't even come up with such a design in the first place.

Precisely my point - I opened the post saying BR could be superb, technically. The successor to the BR technical teams are the train manufacturers, not the privatised railway (TOCs lease trains from ROSCOs who buy them from the likes of Bombardier).

So the privatised railway isn't in the train design and build business, so it's rather pointless to say (and I assume you are referring to the privatised railway) that "the current set up couldn't even come up with such a design in the first place".

 

[Toots]

Three words....Train delay attribution,this is the monster spawned by privatization that perpetuates a money go round that would be needless in a state run entity.Another real problem has been the short termism whereby real investment is deterred by short term franchises and the task faced by said franchises not only getting their money back,but also making a profit.
Freight has been a real loser simply because flexibility was lost by seperating the various types of traffic and the reluctance of certain companies to carry certain flows whilst cherry picking others.

 

[Buttsy]

So whilst there were many things to commend BR about, we must not lose sight of the many bad areas which could really only have been resolved by Privatisation.

Surely that was the point of what happened in the 80s? The unions were smashed by Thatcher (don't get me wrong, the unions needed controlling, but not smashing), efficiencies were brought in by management and there was much more of a commercial outlook. In my view, the BR of the late 80s was the 'Golden Age' of BR; run efficiently, at low cost with room for innovation.

Both Bob Reids did a great job in moving the railways from the 30s into the 60s. Had things been allowed to continue, BR may now have been in the 90s, rather than back in the 1890s with all the competing companies blaming each other for delays etc.

I'd be interested to know what bad areas of late 80s/early 90s BR could only be cured by Privatisation?

 

[yorksrob]

Precisely my point - I opened the post saying BR could be superb, technically. The successor to the BR technical teams are the train manufacturers, not the privatised railway (TOCs lease trains from ROSCOs who buy them from the likes of Bombardier).

So the privatised railway isn't in the train design and build business, so it's rather pointless to say (and I assume you are referring to the privatised railway) that "the current set up couldn't even come up with such a design in the first place".

I'm sorry but that sounds like poppycock to me.

Exactly what do we gain from not having BR's technical teams designing trains to our specific requirements.

We have off the peg trains that are more expensive to bed in. We have the ridiculous spectacle of Government Departments trying to specify what we need from the next generation of Inter-City trains, something which BR would have already been working on. We have an anaemic train building industry which will leave us more and more at the mercy of foreign manufacturers and their capacity constraints. And thats just the rolling stock.

We still have the situation where in spite of all of that "forced investment" Network SouthEast's rolling electrification has ground to a halt, never to be seen again. Inter-City electrification, which in the eighties/early nineties managed the ECML, Norwich and the Bed-Pan route has all but stopped (apart from Crewe-Stoke lol), Thameslink 2000 - well the clue's in the title. Even re-opening an in-situ railway (something BR managed on a number of occasions) has become so expensive they had to now dig them up to build Guided busways.

Even the commonly held perception that we have had loads more new trains then we otherwise would have had has been shown up to be a mis-conception by a previous poster on here, who has pointed out that even now the averege age of rolling stock is only about 2 - 3 years younger than in the last years of BR.

I'm afraid the whole privatisation fiasco appears to me to have been little more than a waste of time and money for the railway.

 

[blakey1152]

Over the last 15 years, we've had new rolling stock and upgrades (eg WCML). The money from this has come from two sources: higher fares and more money from the taxpayer.

And look what we have lost

• Network Card benefit eroded
• Restaurant and buffet cars replaces with roving trolleys
• A national long distance railway product: INTERCITY
• Off peak tickets available on a fewer trains
• A unified commuter service for the home counties: Network South East

One of the best benefits of the Network card was the First Class upgrade supplement. At one point I made a few Cheap Day Return trips from Abbey Wood to Dover and would always pay the £3 supplement to travel first class.

The only confusion with the upgrade was that some of the ticket clerks would give you two supplement tickets (at a cost of £6) one of the outward and one for the return journey and others said the £3 supplement covered the journey both ways on a Cheap Day Return - Never did find out which was correct but never had any issues with just the one £3 supplement on either inbound or outbound journeys.

Its definately one benefit that I'd wish they'd bring back!
Chris