is there any going back?

[Metroland]

Principal limitations for UK Railfreight are short trains, relatively low axle loads and small loading gauge. A lot of that could be improved on key routes with modest investment. UK Railfreight want to be shifting 20% in the next few years. In some countries, 40-50% or more is not uncommon, such as the US, Australia, Canada and high proportions in transit countries like Switzerland.

As a rule trans-European railfreight is limited by the wealth of signalling systems and working practices across the continent, which slows down flows enormously with the frequent changes of crews. Even in the UK, average freight train speeds are 23mph with frequent looping. Maybe a change in regulation policy?

But who knows, with ETCS and various enhancements what can be achieved, in the states 42% of freight is on trains and 37% on water, with trucks taking the minority.

Whilst a lot of heavy industry has gone, nevertheless, much more freight is shifted overall (in all modes) greater distances.

 

[HSTfan!!!]

Personally I'd prefer things under BR which I can only just remember, but from what my memory serves things (although pay was poor) seemed better run under BR. This of course is my personal opinion

 

[djw1981]

mail is back on for some routes - London - Glasgow, via Warrington.

 

[A0wen]

Nationalised, then the staff will sell you the cheapest ticket just to get at the Government.

Yeah, but they'd forget to tell you about the limitations of that 'cheapest' ticket if you phoned and asked so you'd only find out when you turned up to buy the ticket.

i.e from Welwyn GC to Leicester - oh yeah you have to go via Peterborough not London........
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To answer the question I hope not.

BR (admittedly with Goverment assistance on some occasions) was responsible for some of the worst decision making ever to befall the rail network in Britain.

Take a look at the immediate post-war period, no doubt the Standard 5s and 9Fs were good locos - but some of them were scrapped when they were barely run in - esp the 9Fs.

How about the practices used when they wanted to close lines i.e Great Central Mainline or the Waverley route i.e under report usage, run services at inflexible times. Before any smart-alec tries blaming Beeching, do your homework - the GC mainline WAS NOT proposed for closure by Beeching, it was proposed that it become a secondary line.

And the waste of the Woodhead route - electrified in the 1950s (having been planned by the LNER pre war) only to lose it's passenger services just over a decade later.

The list of follies by British Rail just goes on and on. The biggest problem was BR was never interested in developing or growing it's business, which is really shown up by some of the private companies - look at Chiltern Railways as an example. A route largely neglected by BR throughout it's tenure, is now growing services and passenger numbers at a tremendous rate. The Midland Mainline is another example where MML took a gamble recasting the timetable to improve journey times. OK the Turbostars weren't up to the job, esp as passenger numbers grew, but the Meridians have proved fairly successful.

 

[Nym]

It needs more privatisation IMO, lets have competing inferstructure too and have paths being bid for on seperate inferstructures, so theres competition between routes, such as London - Manchester MML+Woodhead, WCML Via Stoke, WCML Via Crewe/Stafford, WCML Via BNS, WCML Via Warrington, ECML via Huddersfeild, if these where all seperatly owned then there could be cometions for linespeed and route clearence, so then Virgin Manchester - London comes in and chooses the best route, say the MML/Woodhead owners clear to full Euro Gauge with Tilt to 200mph, the're gonna pick that route over the WCML 125 (110) aren't they?