YouGov poll suggests most want British Rail back.

[DT611]

Fine, I get that - what I didn't, and still don't, get is the significance that he is the richest man in Hong Kong. So what ? - good luck to him.

If the money went to someone else then it would just make them richer. What's the relevance ?

Unless I've misunderstood, this just seems like the usual moan from people who begrudge others who are more successful than themselves.

him being the richest man in Hong Kong was mentioned as a piece of useless information. that is all.

 

[jon0844]

I only said that because I couldn't remember his name off the top of my head. It's Li Ka-Shing by the way. Wow, I never expected anyone to get so offended by it.

I don't see a problem with it, by the way.

 

[GrimsbyPacer]

No thank you to the return of BR ,miserable staff ,dirty stations,rolling stock dirty inside and out the norm,and lastly the trade unions in charge .We have moved on and the future is the privatised railway regardless of were the owners live.Come and have a look at Chiltern its brilliant clean trains ,clean stations,staff who have pride in their railway its the future.When our lines were run by BR we had crap rolling stock and stations and a bunch of staff who could not care a less about the passenger.It depends on which way you vote in May that decides wether or not you want BR back.

Yeah, no misery exists on currently packed outdated trains with record fares!
If anything BR was better but had bad press.
My local station is not maintained and Grimsby Docks is filthy. My train is old BR 153 although clean. The 170s that run in 4-car sets from Grimsby Town are to be knicked by Chiltern forcing a change of trains at Doncaster from May on two currently direct services.
I don't see a future which will improve rail travel under private owernship in places like Furness, South Humberside, Teesside, South Yorkshire, Devon, Mid Wales etc etc.

The taxpayer has to pay alot of the costs and investment anyway.
Wouldn't it be logical to be running the services with so much government involvement?
Wouldn't it be fairer if everyone had the same company?
Wouldn't it stop the DFT saying they don't buy trains, then buy trains elsewhere?
Wouldn't it force MPs to consider rail services more or lose their jobs?

 

[fowler9]

What is the score with people hating BR having an obsession with cleanliness. Some kind of OCD? I'm baffled by how they think everything is cleaner now. It just seems mad to me. Pooh, BR, everything was dirty. I can think of criticisms of the nationalised network but being dirty wasn't that high up the list. The EMT train I got to Lime Street tonight made me think not much has changed especially when I saw the trays full of wee, turds and bog roll between the rails when I got off. That is aside from the state of the bog on the train.

 

[cjmillsnun]

No thank you to the return of BR ,miserable staff ,dirty stations,rolling stock dirty inside and out the norm,and lastly the trade unions in charge .We have moved on and the future is the privatised railway regardless of were the owners live.Come and have a look at Chiltern its brilliant clean trains ,clean stations,staff who have pride in their railway its the future.When our lines were run by BR we had crap rolling stock and stations and a bunch of staff who could not care a less about the passenger.It depends on which way you vote in May that decides wether or not you want BR back.

Hmmmm, and they're not now?

Also I seem to recall clean trains on BR. They did much to smarten their image up under sectorisation (particularly NSE and InterCity), the staff again I always found as helpful as they are today.

BR wasn't perfect, far from it, but if you want the absolute worst that a railway has been run in living memory, I give you Connex (or Virgin before they got Voyagers and Pendolinos).

Managers who quite literally could not care less, either about their passengers or staff, white trains that rarely (if ever) saw a train wash, certainly never cleaned inside, and a service that barely ran some days.

I don't blame the frontline staff at all for this. Many of them will've worked for Connex and BR before that. Managers saw a cash cow and milked it.

Chiltern is lovely, however they have been given a free hand to develop their franchise. Something no other franchised TOC has. Chiltern is the exception not the rule. All the other franchises have to submit to the whim of the DfT. What you have in effect is a very much more expensive to run service that has more government control than BR ever did.

Also a lot of that lovely stock you have. It was almost new at privatisation. Not crap rolling stock under BR, but total route modernisation. A concept introduced by a BR Manager, where the whole route, track, signals, rolling stock and staff, were all renewed and retrained at the same time.

 

[hassaanhc]

No thank you to the return of BR ,miserable staff ,dirty stations,rolling stock dirty inside and out the norm,and lastly the trade unions in charge .We have moved on and the future is the privatised railway regardless of were the owners live.Come and have a look at Chiltern its brilliant clean trains ,clean stations,staff who have pride in their railway its the future.When our lines were run by BR we had crap rolling stock and stations and a bunch of staff who could not care a less about the passenger.It depends on which way you vote in May that decides wether or not you want BR back.

It was actually British Rail (under the Network SouthEast sector) who created the basis for something to be proud of on the Chiltern lines.
For the first half of the 1980s, there was a serious proposal to close the lines from Marylebone to both South Ruislip and Harrow-on-the-Hill, as well as north of Princes Risborough, turning Marylebone Station into a coach station in the process, along with the diversion of the remaining services to Paddington. At the time the line was very run-down with low speed limits and infrequent services.
The reprieve was given in 1986, and work started from 1988 to overhaul the line. Replacement of the signalling, refurbishment or rebuilding of stations, increasing speed limits to 75mph, opening a new depot, and the introduction of the Class 165 "Turbo" units you use today, with the whole project finishing in 1992. More frequent services came with it, usage expanded rapidly, and plans to increase speed limits further and introduce regular services to Birmingham, which were completed after privatisation.

(Oops, "cjmillsnun" has beaten me slightly to posting it!)

 

[Olaf]

I've bitten my tongue for so long, but I apologise to the moderation team, but there's only so much that someone can take and I'm now going to say what I think of Olaf's ideology.

Your more blue than a porn movie. With some of the wibble that you have spouted it just proves to me & loads of others that you have little moral fortitude. You are the sort that would (given the chance) would sell your kids, your parents & everyone's soul to the devil for a few quid in your pocket.

You don't care about anyone except yourself. From reading your posts it doesn't matter as long as it doesn't cost YOU anything. That to me stinks, a typical selfish, self-centred & egotistical attitude which is typical of today's society and the 80's Thatcherite/Major generation.

With your attitude I would recommend that you emigrate to the USA, where your attitude to others & money is rife and more welcome.

That is coming from someone who expects others to pay his way in the world; and that is is all that socialism has become, that plus mindless dogma.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Reduced, yes, but still about four times as much as what BR managed with. I don't see that as a cause for celebration.

A lot more is now being done than BR was ever able to achieve; it struggled with one major project at a time, though NR is still dogged by internal resistance to improve its performance.

 

[yorksrob]

A lot more is now being done than BR was ever able to achieve; it struggled with one major project at a time, though NR is still dogged by internal resistance to improve its performance.

That still depends on what the government at any given time is prepared to sanction. For example, at the height of privatisation about ten years ago, there was very little going on around electrification compared to the last decade of BR.

I would genuinely be interested to see a comparison between the number and scope of projects completed under Railtrack (for this is the only time recently when the railway could be said to have been fully privatised) and a similar period of time under the BR sectors. Whilst the private railway did achieve some notable successes (having commuted through Leeds during their remodeling of the station, I should know) I remember living through some fairly hefty improvements undertaken by the nationalised railway as well.

 

[DT611]

A lot more is now being done than BR was ever able to achieve;

yeah, because a lot more funding is now been given. BR would have achieved a lot more then now had the same funding been availible.

it struggled with one major project at a time, though NR is still dogged by internal resistance to improve its performance.

of course BR probably struggled a bit. funding was small, and because of that, projects had to be chosen between, and possibly some penny pinching in some cases was the only option to make sure projects could be delivered within the funding. all that, rather then they being given the proper funding which would have allowed them to get on and improve and carry out all necessary projects.