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Why do people have rose tinted views of British Rail?

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rdlover777

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I often wonder that & I worked for them for 13 years.
i get even more confused about the rose tinted views when people my age (22) or younger say they want BR back.... Like, they weren't even born when BR was split up
 

Journeyman

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i get even more confused about the rose tinted views when people my age (22) or younger say they want BR back.... Like, they weren't even born when BR was split up

In many ways, BR were absolutely dreadful, and if anything went wrong, you'd be absolutely screwed. I don't get it either, and I'm old enough to remember its last twenty years of existence.
 

radamfi

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Even if you aren't old enough to remember BR, there are many national train companies outside Britain, so people might have appreciated a more integrated railway on their travels or when they've lived abroad. The privatised railway got a lot more public money than what BR got. If BR had continued, they may have not introduced ludicrously high peak long distance fares that only the extreme rich can afford.
 

Meerkat

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In many ways, BR were absolutely dreadful, and if anything went wrong, you'd be absolutely screwed. I don't get it either, and I'm old enough to remember its last twenty years of existence.
I mainly remember BR for strikes, dirt, poor customer service, unreliability, lack of colour, and bad catering.

Even if you aren't old enough to remember BR, there are many national train companies outside Britain, so people might have appreciated a more integrated railway on their travels or when they've lived abroad. The privatised railway got a lot more public money than what BR got.
I don’t remember SNCF or Italian railways with much positivity either!
 

radamfi

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I don’t remember SNCF or Italian railways with much positivity either!

There are other train companies other than those. Bizarrely, people promoting rail privatisation in the 90s seized on the fact that Switzerland had numerous train companies to prove that fragmentation is best, yet in reality the Swiss rail network was and is the epitome of integration, and SBB runs the vast majority of the network.
 

hexagon789

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I certainly don't believe BR was better, nor do I believe we would necessarily have cheaper fares in real terms if privitisation hadn't occurred. I do appreciate much of the innovation and development they managed on shoestring budgets however, even if some of it wasn't quite perfect.

I don't believe BR would be inherently better than we have now.
 

Journeyman

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Thing is, the rail network has, for most practical purposes, remained pretty integrated, so I don't really get why it's an issue. Despite dire warnings in the early days, you can still buy tickets between any station on the network and any other, and you can still (mostly) use those tickets on any operator's trains, with limitations generally no worse than those found in the later days of BR. Timetables include all operators, and there's a high degree of transparency and impartiality. I don't feel like the network is excessively fragmented at all. A national rail system still exists.
 

xcooler123

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Whilst I can't comment on BR days as I was barely 1 when they were privatised, it appears that people liked the concept of an integrated railway with one identity (which there is certainly benefits to) but don't necessarily detach it from the reality of what it was like. From discussions with colleagues in the industry, there is a reasonably clear split between frontline/blue collar jobs (who predominantly speak positively of BR) and managers/passengers (who predominantly speak negatively of BR) during its existence.
 

simonw

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People generally have a rosy view of the past. The bad things fade in the memory and the better things are exagerated.
 

Dr Hoo

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I know that 'The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.' But even allowing for that, during the 23 years I worked for them I saw some absolutely horrendous things - on safety, (in)efficiency, passenger service, petty rivalries, etc. - (as well as a lot of cases where good things were achieved quite quickly and quite cheaply by well-empowered quite junior staff).

But what really surprises me is that many of the supposed worst aspects of the post-privatisation era - DOO, ever more complicated fare structures, massive price hikes, staff cuts, ORCATS and delay attribution to name just a few - come straight out of the BR playbook.
 

yorksrob

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I had many an enjoyable journey on BR.

Yes trains were sometimes dirty/late/overcrowded/on strike etc, but in my experience, no more than now.

NSE in particular made a nice job of doing up their trains and stations.

Thing is, the rail network has, for most practical purposes, remained pretty integrated, so I don't really get why it's an issue. Despite dire warnings in the early days, you can still buy tickets between any station on the network and any other, and you can still (mostly) use those tickets on any operator's trains, with limitations generally no worse than those found in the later days of BR. Timetables include all operators, and there's a high degree of transparency and impartiality. I don't feel like the network is excessively fragmented at all. A national rail system still exists.

Is that despite of, or because of the dire warnings. I remember the controversy during the run up to privatisation including a proposal that you would only be able to buy through tickets between companies at major stations. The outcry soon saw that off.
 

pdeaves

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it appears that people liked the concept of an integrated railway with one identity
But... but... sectors are often cited as good things. Even BR had more than one identity!

People generally have a rosy view of the past. The bad things fade in the memory and the better things are exagerated.
True. Everything in the past is automatically better than today. That's why nostalgia is such big business. Was life in the 1940s really so good? Probably not, but 'war weekends' seem to be very popular.
 

Journeyman

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Is that despite of, or because of the dire warnings. I remember the controversy during the run up to privatisation including a proposal that you would only be able to buy through tickets between companies at major stations. The outcry soon saw that off.

I don't think there was ever a serious intention to remove network benefits. I think it was used as a scare tactic by opponents of privatisation. It never created any significant issues, as BR apportioned ticketing revenue to sub-sectors anyway, and that system has survived with remarkably little modification.
 

Whistler40145

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British Rail had it's positives and negatives versus privatisation

Under a nationalised railway system at times of busy services their was always relief services to take the strain of the already full main services.

Under privatisation, if your train is full to bursting, it's a case of attempting to get the next available service or at times, giving up on your journey.
 

yorksrob

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I don't think there was ever a serious intention to remove network benefits. I think it was used as a scare tactic by opponents of privatisation.

It was reported on the BBC news at the time. Then there were all the graphics and diagrams of potential ways in which the railway might be split up.
 

Journeyman

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British Rail had it's positives and negatives versus privatisation

Under a nationalised railway system at times of busy services their was always relief services to take the strain of the already full main services.

Under privatisation, if your train is full to bursting, it's a case of attempting to get the next available service or at times, giving up on your journey.

Always? Relief services went long before BR did. They were an endangered species after Beeching worked out how much rolling stock spent about 90% of its time sitting in depots.

It was reported on the BBC news at the time. Then there were all the graphics and diagrams of potential ways in which the railway might be split up.

That doesn't make it true, though. It may have been thought about, but that was long before it actually happened. Once in place, TOCs were obliged to offer impartial nationwide ticketing and information.
 

yorksrob

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That doesn't make it true, though. It may have been thought about, but that was long before it actually happened. Once in place, TOCs were obliged to offer impartial nationwide ticketing and information.

It's true that it was considered. There was a lot of discussion around what form privatisation would take before the final version was settled on.
 

Journeyman

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It's true that it was considered. There was a lot of discussion around what form privatisation would take before the final version was settled on.

Yes, but by the time plans for privatisation were finalised, there was no realistic chance of it happening. People still spread scare stories about it, though. I was a booking clerk on what became SWT from 94 to 96, and it was never even suggested that ticket retailing should be cut back.
 

Dr Hoo

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British Rail had it's positives and negatives versus privatisation

Under a nationalised railway system at times of busy services their was always relief services to take the strain of the already full main services.

Under privatisation, if your train is full to bursting, it's a case of attempting to get the next available service or at times, giving up on your journey.
In (say) 1962 the last KIng's Cross-Edinburgh service of the day was the 1600 'Talisman'. So if that was oversubscribed a relief might well be necessary.

In 2020 (pre-COVID) there were later trains at 1630, 1700, 1730, 1800, 1830, 1900 and 1930 (FO). Not quite the same need for reliefs even before things like far more readily available seat reservations.

In my time with BR I only recall one relief, back in the 1970s on the way to Glasgow. For some reason it was booked via Kilmarnock rather than following the parent train down the WCML from Carlisle. We then spent half an hour in Lugton loop awaiting a path forward (which the driver and secondman put to good use as they picked blackberries).
 

yorksrob

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Yes, but by the time plans for privatisation were finalised, there was no realistic chance of it happening.

Not after it was noted that it would become a "poll tax on wheels" if it did happen.

The unpopularity of the policy meant that the Government was forced to include some safeguards.
 

Bald Rick

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Under a nationalised railway system at times of busy services their was always relief services to take the strain of the already full main services.

I must have missed the relief trains to Surrey at Waterloo in 1988 on any given weekday evening.
 

Cowley

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I’ve always chuckled at the raging slap downs anyone daring to say that BR was any good receives on these kind of threads (and there’s been a lot of them over the years :lol:).
Putting the rose tinted glasses on for a second, there must have been some things that were done well back then but have been lost since privatisation? Maybe there were certain things done well in certain periods of time while other things in same period were almost certainly awful?
But I’ve met plenty of railway workers from those days that were proud of the work they did (there’s a fair few on here), and to just rip it to pieces and make the work they did seem null and void seems a bit unfair on them somehow...
 

Journeyman

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I’ve always chuckled at the raging slap downs anyone daring to say that BR was any good receives on these kind of threads (and there’s been a lot of them over the years :lol:).
Putting the rose tinted glasses on for a second, there must have been some things that were done well back then but have been lost since privatisation? Maybe there were certain things done well in certain periods of time while other things in same period were almost certainly awful?
But I’ve met plenty of railway workers from those days that were proud of the work they did (there’s a fair few on here), and to just rip it to pieces and make the work they did seem null and void seems a bit unfair on them somehow...

BR did get a lot of things right, and the managers worked miracles with meagre resources, and I won't criticise any of them for doing the best they could. Things improved under sectorisation and Organising for Quality, and it's criminal that those initiatives weren't allowed to mature and deliver further benefits.

However, much of BR's existence was a story of opportunities missed, failure to adapt to changing conditions, making expensive mistakes, and death by a thousand cuts. Trains and stations when I was a kid were in absolutely dreadful condition, services were far less frequent, and I remember plenty of damp, cold, miserable journeys knee-deep in litter, sitting in a haze of fag smoke, trying to see out of windows encrusted with dirt. I'm not saying BR wouldn't have ever sorted those things out, but the jump in quality in recent years has been extraordinary.
 

Bevan Price

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In my opinion, BR was far from perfect -- but even so, it was a lot better than the privatised "franchise era". In two spells of commuting, I never had to worry about cancelled trains due to staff shortages. Yes - trains were sometimes late, but rarely, if ever, was a train terminated short of its final destination. Yes - there were some grumpy / unhelpful staff, but nothing much has changed about that. Yes, some timetables were infrequent and seemed planned for operational convenience rather than for passenger convenience - but little has changed there, either. Most trains usually had enough seats, connections would often be held for a few minutes rather than depart without waiting for slightly delayed trains. Things started to get both better and worse in the 1980s - more frequent, but shorter trains (outside London). Although it was becoming increasingly complicated, the fare structure was vastly simpler than the current system, where each operator has its own rules and/or peak hour definitions, etc. BR had a more "integrated" feel, rather than the disjointed, fragmented mess.
 

Dr Hoo

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I’ve always chuckled at the raging slap downs anyone daring to say that BR was any good receives on these kind of threads (and there’s been a lot of them over the years :lol:).
Putting the rose tinted glasses on for a second, there must have been some things that were done well back then but have been lost since privatisation? Maybe there were certain things done well in certain periods of time while other things in same period were almost certainly awful?
But I’ve met plenty of railway workers from those days that were proud of the work they did (there’s a fair few on here), and to just rip it to pieces and make the work they did seem null and void seems a bit unfair on them somehow...
I think that it is possible to be proud of ones work (and that of many close colleagues) regardless of ownership, structure and so forth. Never let ideology get in the way of doing your best.

As a rather younger and more naive railwayman I received this pearl of wisdom from a very senior manager: "Just remember, young [Dr Hoo], some of the biggest b*st*rds are on your own side."
 
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