I don’t think that the conspiracy theory stuff helps anything here, nor does digging up Marples or trying to pretend that Tories are some kind of “bogeyman”
But it felt inevitable that putting the railway in Government control would mean paralysis and penny pinching, just like every other decade when the government controlled the railway.
It’s not a “Red” or “Blue” thing, it’s just the natural result of Nationalisation. Need to accept this.
Possibly because the railways don't help themselves?
To an outsider, the railways seem to be both a bottomless money-pit and a perpetual source of bad news stories.
Agreed, I can see why outsiders will think that railways are a bottomless pit, Network Rail seems to have had no incentive to control costs, hence racking up billions of debt, it seems to cost millions of pounds just to move a signal or extend a platform, nothing is “cheap”
Things “functioned” in the boom era when TOCs were increasing passenger numbers each year and could afford above-inflation pay rises, increasing staff numbers, new trains etc. So it’s hard to adapt to a government controlled “new normal”
