Nationalisation and The British Government

[JKF]

Infrastructure projects were very efficient - ECML electrification was a fraction of the costs in real terms as more recent electrification (although it doesn’t do so well in high winds).

I think one thing absent is the innovation - Derby was a world-leading research centre, we were ahead of much of the continent on high speed trains, but never kept up, never built the new lines to unlock this technology fully.

 

[6Gman]

If that's the case, why did they privatise it?

Ideology.

 

[Topological]

For efficient read cheap?

Derby was a great research centre, but inevitably the quality did reduce over time based upon political ideology.

There is also a big difference between comitting to future subisidies compared to having to find the capital outlay as a government.

 

[yorksrob]

Inter City 125 was mainly rolled out in the previous decade. As for the "DEMU's with buffet cars and compartment carriages" I seem to have missed those. We only got the Sprinters as a result of the PTEs' reluctance to have the over-expensive class 210 foisted on them by BR

The InterCity product was honed over the 1980's.

The sprinters and super-sprinters were decent enough trains, still excellent work horses. Although I was obviously spoilt, growing up in NSE land.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Dec 2023 ==

Ideology.

Got it in one.

 

[Fazaar1889]

Derby was a great research centre.

This was always something really interesting for me because Britain prides itself on "British Engineering" but the government stopped doing a lot of its engineering research, including with Rolls Royce. Now, I'm a Biochemistry student so I don't know much about engineering, so where did that talent go?

 

[Ken H]

If that's the case, why did they privatise it?

because bringing it up to an acceptable standard would have cleaned out the treasury. putting it on a private sector credit card meant it didnt appear on the governments balance sheet under 'borrowing'. Government borrowing is inflationary, but private sector borrowing isnt (the argument went)

 

[SargeNpton]

@SargeNpton @Railsigns if we were to nationalise it tomorrow, would it take 30 years again to get it to BR golden age standards like it did from 1948-82 or do you think it would happen far more quickly?

The rail industry has spent the last 25+ years being very parochial. The first thing it would need to do is to re-learn how to work as a single body again, before it could even start to think about how the different passenger services and functions should be grouped.

Most of the people who know how to run the railway in that way have long since gone, as has the industry's management training programmes that ensured that that knowledge was passed down the generations.

 

[Meerkat]

A nationalised body would ideally be arms reach and would not have significant input from the government.

You can’t have a body spending this much taxpayer cash without political control by those elected by the taxpayers.

The ability to move rolling stock around the network where it was needed

That’s great unless you are at the end of the cascade and keep getting inappropriate old stock dumped on your line.

Where staff could drive all applicable services

Is that practicable these days, maintaining currency and training?

Privatisation has fragmented the railway in a massive way, and nationalisation could reverse this

That’s nice if it raises it all to the best, rather than drag the good bits down. At the very least you don’t want one BR, you want more than one for benchmarking and big isn’t always better - it is often also monolithic with huge inertia.

As for allegations of privatisation being purely ideology….nationalising it in the first place was ideology.

How many of the problems attributed to privatisation have actually been due to decisions made by the nationalised bits (ie NR) or the DfT/politicians (ie IET spec, micromanaging timetables, focussing on marginal constituencies or the ridiculous obsession with reversing Beeching)

 

[A0]

Infrastructure projects were very efficient - ECML electrification was a fraction of the costs in real terms as more recent electrification (although it doesn’t do so well in high winds).

Though it is worth pointing out construction costs generally are much higher than they were 30 years ago - safety standards among other things have contributed to this.

It always amuses me that posters around here simultaneously want the lower costs of the 1980s alongside the higher safety standards of today......

 

[A0]

if we were to nationalise it tomorrow, would it take 30 years again to get it to BR golden age standards like it did from 1948-82 or do you think it would happen far more quickly?

BR "golden age" standards from 1948 - 1982 - now that's got to be the best laugh I've had all year.

That would be the "golden age" when passenger numbers collapsed ? When the railway's were regarded as a national joke, when your train was cancelled with a moment's notice, when services were sparse, when the trains were dirty and down at heel and some of the stations even more so.

 

[Thirteen]

I don't think Nationalisation is the magic bullet for the railways. It's a rose tinted view that British Rail was always amazing when the reality was very different.

Even if GBR happens, I doubt we'll see rolling stock become identical across the board simply because different lines have different needs.

 

[deltic]

The railways were never really privatised - they were subject to many controls on fares, levels of service, and to some extent terms and conditions of employment. There was little opportunity for genuine competition or innovation. TOCs were initially incentivised to grow the business but contracts were to short term to allow real long term planning. The main winners from privatisation have been train drivers who have seen large real increases in pay and top managers who get paid far more than they would have done in BR.

The way the DfT is presently running the railway is a good indication as to how a future nationalised railway would operate - micro-managed by a London based group of individuals who have little real knowledge of the country or how the railway operates.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Ah yes the golden era 1982-1997. Rolling out the class 142's, class 92, Nightstar sleepers, singling Dore etc etc

Electrification of ECML, Norwich, Kings Lynn, Weymouth, Ayr, and more 3rd rail fill ins.

 

[JonathanH]

Electrification of ECML, Norwich, Kings Lynn, Weymouth, Ayr, and more 3rd rail fill ins.

Much of which was done to a standard that still leaves problems today - eg overhead wires that struggle in wind, single track sections that cause delay, limited traction current etc.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Much of which was done to a standard that still leaves problems today - eg overhead wires that struggle in wind, single track sections that cause delay, limited traction current etc.

Not in doubt but it got done.

 

[Railsigns]

Much of which was done to a standard that still leaves problems today - eg overhead wires that struggle in wind, single track sections that cause delay, limited traction current etc.

A symptom of underfunding, not of public ownership. Conflating the two is disingenuous and exposes the lack of any robust argument in favour of privatisation. The privatised railway is far more dependent on taxpayer funding than BR ever was.

 

[JKF]

The way the DfT is presently running the railway is a good indication as to how a future nationalised railway would operate - micro-managed by a London based group of individuals who have little real knowledge of the country or how the railway operates.

It could go that way, or it could go the way of TFL who seem to do a pretty good job of things (the fact the rest of country isn’t allowed the same e.g. quality bus contracts sticks in the throat a bit!).

Some of the government run franchises have been very good, e.g. the first time they had to run the ECML, when Virgin took it back over it went south and was much more expensive for the user (the cheapest fares, already increased by over 10%, just simply weren’t available, whereas the old £13 ones were easy to find).

 

[Hadders]

when Virgin took it back over it went south and was much more expensive for the user

When VTEC took over the East Coast franchise they had to pay a level premium back to the Treasury that was far higher than the sum that nationalised East Coast were paying back through their profits.

That’s ultimately why VTEC had to hand back the keys.

 

[Meerkat]

A symptom of underfunding, not of public ownership. Conflating the two is disingenuous and exposes the lack of any robust argument in favour of privatisation. The privatised railway is far more dependent on taxpayer funding than BR ever was.

It doesn’t have to go cap in hand and beg for capital from HMT for new trains as BR did.

 

[Pigeon]

A symptom of underfunding, not of public ownership. Conflating the two is disingenuous and exposes the lack of any robust argument in favour of privatisation. The privatised railway is far more dependent on taxpayer funding than BR ever was.

And we still have the same problem of penny-pinched projects on a pared-to-the-bone spec which if it doesn't kill the experiment at birth, still leaves it with crippled capacity that cannot be upgraded if the experiment succeeds without spending vastly more money than it would have cost to just do it properly in the first place.

 

[Fazaar1889]

BR "golden age" standards from 1948 - 1982 - now that's got to be the best laugh I've had all year.

That would be the "golden age" when passenger numbers collapsed ? When the railway's were regarded as a national joke, when your train was cancelled with a moment's notice, when services were sparse, when the trains were dirty and down at heel and some of the stations even more so.

I feel like you misunderstood, complete unerstandable tho, my grammar was horrendous. The "golden-age" began in 1982, nationalisation began in 1948, it took 34 years to get to the golden age from nationalisation. My question was therefore if it would likely take 30 years to do the same considering that there is a significant difference in the demand for rail.

Using the following image, the "golden age" of BR started the increase in passenger numbers of railways which is why I chose it 82-ish as that time point.

Rail transport in Great Britain - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Clarence Yard]

When VTEC took over the East Coast franchise they had to pay a level premium back to the Treasury that was far higher than the sum that nationalised East Coast were paying back through their profits.

That’s ultimately why VTEC had to hand back the keys.

That’s because VTEC didn’t have to pay for all the infrastructure costs that the BR “profits” paid for. Network Grant took care of those costs for VTEC.

VTEC failed because they got their revenue line badly wrong, unlike a couple of other bidders who were spot on with their predictions.

 

[A0]

I don't think Nationalisation is the magic bullet for the railways. It's a rose tinted view that British Rail was always amazing when the reality was very different.

Even if GBR happens, I doubt we'll see rolling stock become identical across the board simply because different lines have different needs.

Bit in bold - arguably that consolidation has happened naturally - units like the Desiros and Electrostars are seen across the country with variations as needed. Similarly the Hitachi 800 series are common across many areas.

 

[SargeNpton]

Relevant to this thread are two articles in the January 2024 issue of Modern Railways.

If you have that magazine look at Railtalk on pages 6-7, and Pan Up (Now and Then) on page 45.

 

[RobShipway]

If that's the case, why did they privatise it?

The Government at the time in the 1999's felt that to improve the railways that it was better left to businesses that knew about transport and knew how to negotiate with train manufacturers/leasing companies on price of railway stock.

But also as the comments from @Arkeeos and @Railsigns.

If it was not for British Rail, certainly the engineering teams we would not have had the HST125 and in more recent years the class 390 Pendolino's, which came from designs done from the APT-E and APT-P trains with regards trains being able to tilt while going round curves. But since BR failed with the APT trains, it took an Italian company in the form of Fiat Ferroviaria, which later became Alstom Italy to further develop the tilting technology which led to the ETR450 tilting trains, which was nicknamed Pendolino.

 

[JKF]

If it was not for British Rail, certainly the engineering teams we would not have had the HST125 and in more recent years the class 390 Pendolino's, which came from designs done from the APT-E and APT-P trains with regards trains being able to tilt while going round curves. But since BR failed with the APT trains, it took an Italian company in the form of Fiat Ferroviaria, which later became Alstom Italy to further develop the tilting technology which led to the ETR450 tilting trains, which was nicknamed Pendolino.

Going slightly OT, The lineage from the APT is quite apparent in the Portuguese version of the Pendolino (Alfa Pendular) which has a squarer end reminiscent of the APT-P.



It's sad that the U.K. is no longer a world-leading centre for rail innovation, it seemed to disappear quickly with privatisation but no idea if that was a direct cause or something that was withering via funding cuts already.

 

[Fazaar1889]

Relevant to this thread are two articles in the January 2024 issue of Modern Railways.

If you have that magazine look at Railtalk on pages 6-7, and Pan Up (Now and Then) on page 45.

Going slightly OT, The lineage from the APT is quite apparent in the Portuguese version of the Pendolino (Alfa Pendular) which has a squarer end reminiscent of the APT-P.

View attachment 149692

It's sad that the U.K. is no longer a world-leading centre for rail innovation, it seemed to disappear quickly with privatisation but no idea if that was a direct cause or something that was withering via funding cuts already.

In gbr, will there be a UK development organisation or something?

 

[HullRailMan]

The irony of those that criticise the Major government for privatising because of ideology is that promoting nationalisation as a magic solution is just as ideological.

Too many people forget that our rail system was built by private money for profit and operated privately for the first 100+ years. State ownership was a period of service reductions and vast waste. With more irony, the ‘golden age’ of BR mentioned above was when it was restructured to operate like a business rather than a public service.

As with all public services/industries, what matters is how it’s run rather than who runs it.

 

[RobShipway]

The irony of those that criticise the Major government for privatising because of ideology is that promoting nationalisation as a magic solution is just as ideological.

Too many people forget that our rail system was built by private money for profit and operated privately for the first 100+ years. State ownership was a period of service reductions and vast waste. With more irony, the ‘golden age’ of BR mentioned above was when it was restructured to operate like a business rather than a public service.

As with all public services/industries, what matters is how it’s run rather than who runs it.

Whilst I agree with your comments that it is how services are run and that some of the time while under state ownership there was service reductions. However, you have had service reductions with the privatised TOC's, in some cases due to lack of staff training and staff being available, plus TOC's needing to cut costs. Which I will probably be corrected, was the same issues at time under BR when there was service reductions, was it not?

Maybe because things are developed more on computers, but I believe things are also tested elsewhere outside of the UK now, such that you do not have the test trains such as the APT-E or the HST test train anymore running on the UK rails as part of development plans for the next set of trains to be built. Yes, in more recent years you have had class 8xx trains out on test, but that is as Production trains, rather than a test train to test the technology out first, before it is provided in a train to be used with the public. maybe in 30 - 40 years time a class 8xx will be provided to the National Railway Museum?

 

[yorksrob]

The irony of those that criticise the Major government for privatising because of ideology is that promoting nationalisation as a magic solution is just as ideological.

It's not really an irony though.

The market Establishment seem to think they have carte blanche to propose and implement any old drivel so long as it meets their particular ideology.

They will do and say anything to preserve the status quo even when people ask questions about the value added by that status quo.

Nationalisation isn't a magic solution, but with some thought about structure and incentivisation, it could form a more effective way of running the railway. Where was the critical thought about management and incentives etc in Major's privatisation fiasco ?