Would HS1/HS2 have happened under British Rail?

[deltic]

BR might have done it, but it wouldn't be such a shambles. After all, at least some of BR's money would come from tickets and not just government handouts like NR. Last Saturday (23rd December), the only express service that wasn't delayed or failed was a short formed (5-coach) HST to Aberdeen, calling at Stevenage, Peterborough, Grantham, Newark and Doncaster before pulling into York! Usually, it's a straight run.

HS1 route as designed by BR would probably have never happened - there were huge protests against the proposed route and in the end at great risk to themselves Arup designed an alternative route which is the one that got built. Even then there was a lot of pressure for the service to terminate at Stratford to save the huge cost of getting into central London in the same was as some suggest HS2 should terminate at Old Oak Common

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

If there had been no nationalisation and railways were kept in the private sector then most of the network would have closed down, far more than went under Beeching

It's a part of British railway history that seems unknown to most people today. The financial situation of the railways after the First World War was sufficiently parlous that nationalisation would have been appropriate in 1919. However our polticians were still finding their way out of the Victorian era when it came to appreciating economic realities: the "old" way was mostly of laissez-faire and let the market decide. So we ended up with what was really a token solution in the Grouping of 1923 which to all intents and purposes guaranteed that another major upheaval (ie WW2) would inevitably lead to nationalisation since the Big Four were effectively broke.

The age of streamlined steam locomotives and token higher speed services leads many to describe the 1930s as the Golden Age of our railways; in reality that Golden Age was during the Edwardian era when the network was at its maximum extent and road-based competition was minimal.

 

[LLivery]

I think it would've been inevitable. Like with the failure to speed up the ECML to 140mph, I think the WCML would've gone the same way unless they followed the German model of upgrade; even then, capacity would've still been a problem. Whilst there may have been sceptical people within the organisation, BR would've seen the continental network developing further and eventually realised HS2 would need to be constructed, probably with better names than HS1 & 2. Probably would've seen a TGV style station at Brackley to keep South Northants happy.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The age of streamlined steam locomotives and token higher speed services leads many to describe the 1930s as the Golden Age of our railways; in reality that Golden Age was during the Edwardian era when the network was at its maximum extent and road-based competition was minimal.

I completely agree with you.
The LMS never finished the merging of its constituent parts, although the Southern did much better and invested in electrification (sadly, the wrong sort!).
The enlarged GWR just ploughed on regardless.
All these structural issues were left for BR to sort out after 1948, and it took 15 years for them even to start the restructuring.
We will also soon have been in the privatisation era longer than the "Big Four" (of which 6 years were wartime).

 

[grumpyoldman01]

All these structural issues were left for BR to sort out after 1948, and it took 15 years for them even to start the restructuring.
.

In a way, you can argue that nationalisation made things worse; each region had so much autonomy that, effectively, four private sector companies were replaced by six state-owned ones. And the organisation was so "deep" that it was really a miracle that anything got done!

As you say, it wasn't until Beeching came along that matters started to be "sorted"; looking back, it seems incredible that centralised organisations such as M&EE, procurement, workshops, and ships weren't amalgamated much earlier.

 

[aylesbury]

Sadly no money available after the war and well into the seventies and roads were taking precedence over rail ,BR had the technical staff but sadly not used by government.If they had built the line it would have used the entire budget for twenty years things were very different then and high speed was considered not really necessary.

 

[gordonthemoron]

Quite. Take the fast express services off the WCML and use the capacity to introduce better services to places like Tamworth, Nuneaton, Northampton etc.

+ Milton Keynes

 

[exile]

Sadly no money available after the war and well into the seventies and roads were taking precedence over rail ,BR had the technical staff but sadly not used by government.If they had built the line it would have used the entire budget for twenty years things were very different then and high speed was considered not really necessary.

That's a bit ahistorical. Huge amounts of money were made available via the 1955 Modernisation Plan which delivered the WCML electrification but much of it was misspent on inadequately tested diesel traction and marshalling yards that quickly became white elephants.

 

[Warwick]

Politically speaking HS1 and HS2 are very different projects.

HS1 was all about connecting London with the LGV Nord and avoiding the nonsense of Eurostars trundling around on DC powered lines doing no more than 90mph. It's also seen the environmental benefit of significantly reducing the demand for flights between London and Brussels/Paris. It was always going to happen regardless of the ownership status of BR.

HS2 on the other hand is a purely national project and as such under BR would have been subject to the usual Treasury methods of scrutiny, essentially "there must be a cheaper way". Assuming the economy would still have developed in the same way then the looming WCML capacity crunch would still be an obvious problem in need of a solution but with BR still around I suspect it would have been put off rather longer. Privatisation has been around long enough that many here have known nothing else but one inescapable truth about BR was that the Treasury absolutely loathed putting serious money into what they saw as a dinosaur industry even though in efficiency terms it was streets ahead of most comparable organisations.

As for a BR HS livery who knows? The fact that BR had already concluded that the blue-for-everything image was an out of date concept suggests that it would have been open to more regular image updates, ie BR Inter-city livery would probably have changed again by now. So what would have been decided for HS trains is anybody's guess. Although looking at HS Rail in other countries mostly white liveries are rather popular...

"..white liveries are quite popular...".
Reflects the sun's heat ergo helps with the A/C load.

 

[HSTEd]

That's a bit ahistorical. Huge amounts of money were made available via the 1955 Modernisation Plan which delivered the WCML electrification but much of it was misspent on inadequately tested diesel traction and marshalling yards that quickly became white elephants.

In BR's defence - the marshalling yards only became white elephants because the Government changed the law and made them redundant.
Had the law not changed, the marshalling yards would have been a very good investment

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

In BR's defence - the marshalling yards only became white elephants because the Government changed the law and made them redundant.
Had the law not changed, the marshalling yards would have been a very good investment

True enough. But the railways had been wanting the law change for an awful long time before it happened. As such the blame for that particular area of badly managed spending lies fair and square with the politicians of the day.

 

[Matt P]

IC250 never got off the ground and would have been small deviations of the WCML, not reopening the GC.

In all likelihood IC250 would have been small deviations primarily to iron out some of the more severe curves on the WCML. However the option of reopening the GCML was considered as an option early on. Cost, the difficulties of gaining approval (particularly in the political climate of the day) and a lack of major capacity issues let to it being discounted if I recall correctly. However it remained an option in theory.

How good an option it would have been if the rational for discounting it had changed (which over the past 30 years they have) I dont know. It would have actually have needed quite a fair bit of new build - the planned HS2 London to Calvert section would probably have been required as would a GCML to WCML spur, so the route would probably have been very similar to HS2 phase 1 in the end.