frodshamfella
Established Member
What I did remember was the inter-city savers, you just had to travel at the allowed times which was great.
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Why do people have rose tinted views of British Rail?
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What I did remember was the inter-city savers, you just had to travel at the allowed times which was great.
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davetheguard
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I remember being told at work when passengers felt they didn't get what they wanted: you wait till you're privatised!
Later it became: you wait till you're nationalised!
At the end of the day, we have a railway system whose structure is determined by the politicians & civil service, it either works; or not. We have fares' levels, timetables, and, to some extent, train quality determined by the politicians & civil service too. The same members of "team useless" decide if we are going to electrify existing lines, and if we are going to re-open or build new railways.
It doesn't really matter who owns it; what matters is: is it adequately funded, & does the structure allow it to be well-run? The answer throughout my lifetime to those two questions has generally been: NO (to one, or sometimes both).
upasalmon
On Moderation
The bus and rail industry have suffered from the baloney of free market zealots who knew nothing of both industries. They wanted competing operators using the same track, forgetting that trains can't overtake each other. There was other nonsense like a "posh train for the boss and a cheap/cheerful train for the typist". The only Tory who knew about railways and opposed splitting BR was the late Robert Adley, but sadly his wisdom was ignored. The Prime Minister John Major wanted to bring back the LNER, LMS, SR and GWR (no doubt those alive in 1923 wanted to bring back the pre Big Four era) .
The good thing about BR was no parasitic shareholders who are costing the taxpayers more than BR ever did.
Railways should be a PUBLIC SERVICE even if it loses money.
The good thing about BR was no parasitic shareholders who are costing the taxpayers more than BR ever did.
Railways should be a PUBLIC SERVICE even if it loses money.
There are two documentaries I came across some time ago that might be of interest to many here who've not seen them before. Both concern the state of the railways in Britain as BR's final days approached - and while I fear they may only lead to greater incredulity at how positively BR is viewed by some people, they also I feel provide a certain insight into how privatisation might not have been much of an improvement.
Trouble on the Line, from Channel 4's Equinoxe series in 1990:
Old, Dirty, & Late, from BBC Inside Story in 1993:
(there is also one more from the Equinoxe series in 1988 called Running to Time that looks at the ECML electrification and the development of InterCity 225 that could be considered extra credit for the committed, as it additionally touches on the development of high-speed rail in Britain compared to the likes of France and Germany)
Trouble on the Line, from Channel 4's Equinoxe series in 1990:
Old, Dirty, & Late, from BBC Inside Story in 1993:
(there is also one more from the Equinoxe series in 1988 called Running to Time that looks at the ECML electrification and the development of InterCity 225 that could be considered extra credit for the committed, as it additionally touches on the development of high-speed rail in Britain compared to the likes of France and Germany)
AlbertBeale
Established Member
In what way were other European railway operators "competitors"? They all used to co-operate perfectly well in terms of interavailability of through ticketing, buying tickets or making reservations for countries in one part of Europe while in another part of Europe, and so on. But then they were all run as public services.
You are quite right, not the right word. I meant "competitors" in terms of what people could compare BR with (as today people compare TOCs with ICE/TGV/Shinkansen....).
tbtc
Veteran Member
Most of this would have happened anyway (or had already happened) - the specialisation of staff as the railway grew - it makes more sense to keep staff fixed on certain routes/ traction, rather than a messy "jack of all trades" - maybe pre DMU/EMUs there were some staff who would drive the same locomotive on both freight and passenger services but that wasn't going to last - the move to large classes of DMUs/ EMUs/ freight locos was happening years ago under BR too - as the railway grew, the need to have staff trained on every type of unit/loco (and maintain huge route knowledge) became a bit of a luxury.
Was there ever any serious proposal for the kind of things you're suggesting, or is this another straw man argument?
I remember the "cheap and cheerful train for the secretaries" quote from the time but thought that this was just the musings of a backbencher rather than actual Government policy.
By all means criticise the failures of privatisation (and there have been many, I'm not ideologically wedded to either extreme), but you don't have to take silly quotations from obscure MPs twenty five years ago to find things to blame privatisation for.
The increased costs of the railways (since privatisation) are mainly due to the fact that a lot of things that the railway pays for have gone up significantly higher than CPI/RPI (constriction costs, rail staff wages, final salary pensions, fuel) and the significantly higher safety requirements nowadays (as well as other bells/whistles like the compensation paid out now that the railway treats its customers better than in the 1980s) - these costs would have happened under any "nationalised" system (but the same are true in other industries too - e.g. it seems to cost more money and take more time to convert the "hard shoulder" of a motorway to a four lane than it did to build the motorway in the first place)
I suppose one difference is that a BR free of Government interference would have saved a few quid by closing many lightly loaded lines by now - e.g. if they closed the Woodhead line in the 1980s and then moved on to trying to close the Settle & Carlisle then you can bet that they'd have scrapped hundreds of miles of rural routes in the past twenty five years to reduce costs (however, the privatised railway was stuck with minimum service requirements and not free to make the cuts that BR would have done)
The money taken by "shareholders" wouldn't pay for one annual staff pay rise and would be swallowed up by other increasing costs before you noticed.
The railway is controlled by the Government, the infrastructure is all owned by the Government, the timetables are agreed with the Government, the franchises are decided by the Government, the fare increases are set by the Government, any re-openings/closures are decided by the Government... it looks like a public service to me!
Ashley Hill
Established Member
I don't follow this specialisation,pre1988 guards and drivers were a jack of all trades. You could be on a nuclear flask one day and a Pullman the next. That was the sort of variation that kept the job interesting . It's that variety what ex BR staff miss and the knowledge to carry out such tasks without supervision. Now I'm confined to pushing a few buttons,gripping some tickets and smiling at passengers.
Dr Hoo
Established Member
Possibly at very small depots like Stranraer. Long before 1988 larger depots tended to have links and various other devices to divide work into more discrete chunks. It wasn't very sensible to have a guard turn up in grubby overalls from yesterday's job at a colliery and then use him to cover a turn on the South Wales Pullman for example. On the Southern there were 'EMU' (only) depots as distinct from Mixed Traction/MT depots for many years.
Ashley Hill
Established Member
Prior to 1988 guards were guards and covered all manner of work. We as you say had links (still do) and you started in the bottom one doing frieght and local passenger work and as you moved up the links the work improved. However you kept your route knowledge as you went up even though some work was link specific so it was possible to be spare and be given a local trip job. Obviously there were depots that had only frieght work and probably did turn up in an oily dustcoat but at MT depots you knew before you booked off what you were on the next day and dressed accordingly.
And to be realistic, a privatised railway free of government interference would probably have moved to close some lines.
SWTCommuter
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For the record, it was Roger Freeman, the Transport Minister responsible for steering the Railways Bill through the Commons in the run up to privatisation.
Some Political Gaffes For Your Delectation
www.iaindale.com
Roger Freeman, Baron Freeman - Wikipedia
WesternLancer
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Yes, and this is very important to note - Ministers often have little grasp of the topic they are dealing with, so use ideology to help them steer their view - because you can apply ideology to nearly all things. Ideology is not always bad of itself, but it's generally not practically focused. But these sorts of things then do steer the way civil servants - who also are often not specialists - form policy and then legislation for minsters to agree.For the record, it was Roger Freeman, the Transport Minister responsible for steering the Railways Bill through the Commons in the run up to privatisation.
Some Political Gaffes For Your Delectation
Roger Freeman, Baron Freeman - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
It will have been exactly Freeman's view that resulted in ideas like a single national railtrack but lost of different operators and the dream of open access.
Pretty much all of which have now failed (or have been exposed to have failed to the wider world - they had failed some time ago really - at the time other branches of govt decided to squeeze the profit margins of operators such that it started too become less profitable for them t o bother with it any more).
eoff
Member
So, what do I remember about BR...
- I could get on and off the train without waiting for someone to press a button
- BR holidays (I went to York on one, super value)
- Easy to ask for and get a paid taxi home if an evening service was cancelled.
- On a few occasions when my local North Berwick line evening peak train was cancelled the ECML KX service would make an extra stop at my station.
- (Not sure if this was the right era). A good meal service on the KX to EDB trains which meant you could go for last sitting of what was a reasonable but not cheap meal (fine if on expenses) and spend the final part of the journey in the restaurant car instead of your 2nd class seat.
I especially agree with your first point !
coppercapped
Established Member
In answer to all those who go over the issues of privatisation yet again...For the record, it was Roger Freeman, the Transport Minister responsible for steering the Railways Bill through the Commons in the run up to privatisation.
Some Political Gaffes For Your Delectation
Roger Freeman, Baron Freeman - Wikipedia
The background is that BR had been losing traffic practically since its formation in 1948. It had last covered all its costs in 1952 and by 1955 no longer covered even its direct operating costs. Since then it had been in receipt of a subsidy and by the time active steps were made to privatise it it had been in receipt of subsidies for 35 years.
The issue was how best to manage decline as economically as possible and it was recognised from the beginning that continuing subsidy would be needed. As taxpayers' money was to be routed to private companies the method selected had to be as clear as possible.
At different times five models for privatisation were put forward by different groups: the Cabinet Office, the DfT, the Treasury and some outside parties. Very briefly these were:
- BR plc
- Regional - essentially re-creating the ‘Big 4’ (but could have been up to 12)
- Sectorisation - essentially 'Regional Railways plc', 'Cargo Ltd.' and so on
- Track Authority - with train operating companies organised either geographically, by service type or 'on-track' competition bidding for paths or a regular basis
- A hybrid of these models.
There were all sorts of arguments within the working groups on how to handle the necessary on-going subsidy.
The ‘BR plc’ approach was ruled out because, unlike the privatisation of BAA and telecoms and similar, BR was not profitable. Selling shares to the small investor on the basis that any dividends were reliant on the level of subsidy received from the Government would not have worked.
In the same way any ideas of a ‘trade sale’ of 'BR plc' as whole or of its constituent sectors individually were abandoned as no company would take on the risks.
It became clear that bidding for paths on a monthly or bi-monthly basis was not applicable because of the inter-related nature of railway operations. So the concept of 'on-track' competition was dropped as well.
It was decided the best way to handle the subsidy issue was for potential train operators to bid for a group of services - a clear figure was available for each area and any cross-subsidy between profitable and loss-making services was up to the individual operators to manage. This avoided the DfT having to identify costs and revenues on an individual service basis and the bases for the individual TOCs already existed within BR's passenger sectors.
There was never any intention of breaking the network benefits of a national ticketing system - it would have been a commercial, financial, legal and operational nightmare with no clear benefits to anyone.
If anyone wants more detail of the events and discussions leading up to the Railways Act 1993, I can recommend the book “All Change. British Railway Privatisation” edited by Freeman and Shaw and published by McGraw-Hill in 2000.
CBlue
Member
Pretty sure slam doors would have vanished regardless, even if BR existed today!
Merle Haggard
Established Member
Where public transport differs from other industries is that the workers (booking clerks, platform and gateline staff, conductors &c) in it can be easily viewed by the general public, enabling them to make judgemental remarks not always with relevant facts available.
I was a booking clerk in the 1960s (having decided that computer programming for a bank, whilst well paid, was mind-numbingly boring and un-fulfilling). The station I worked at had recently been re-built, and the booking office was the size of a garden shed, glazed all round above waist height, in the middle of the concourse. On a busy Saturday morning shift I would sell well over 1,000 tickets (the town then had a population of about 120,000) and also deal with telephone enquiries, and strike a balance on tickets vs cash sold at the end of my shift - but with the window still open. Shifts were straight through 8 hours, no such thing as a PNB.
All of this was done in full view of passengers, who sometimes stood at the rear, seemingly watching me through the glass. The opportunity was taken to express opinions about my priorities; making observations about time spent on the phone, or, when seeing me filling in the account book. Hmm, 1377 minus 1292, that's 85 tickets at £1/7/9d equals £---, try doing that in your head (no calculator) with someone hammering on the window and the phone ringing, and someone looking through the window to see what you're writing.
I sometimes wondered what were the working practices of the people ready to jump to conclusions about mine; but, for most, their work was carried out without their customers benefitting from the ability to view their working practices and conduct.
But things never change; even on here, in the current regime, negative comments are made about the diligence of conductors, booking clerks and gateline staff, based apparently on casual observation.
In response to an allegation up thread; Certainly, I had no time to read a newspaper - not that I had the wish to; I have never smoked, but most of the male passengers did, sometimes blowing smoke through the small aperture in the glass; and lager was a drink for ladies, served in an ornate half pint glass. However, I would make a wild guess that workers in other industries may have done some of the foregoing, safe in the knowledge that their customers could never know.
I was a booking clerk in the 1960s (having decided that computer programming for a bank, whilst well paid, was mind-numbingly boring and un-fulfilling). The station I worked at had recently been re-built, and the booking office was the size of a garden shed, glazed all round above waist height, in the middle of the concourse. On a busy Saturday morning shift I would sell well over 1,000 tickets (the town then had a population of about 120,000) and also deal with telephone enquiries, and strike a balance on tickets vs cash sold at the end of my shift - but with the window still open. Shifts were straight through 8 hours, no such thing as a PNB.
All of this was done in full view of passengers, who sometimes stood at the rear, seemingly watching me through the glass. The opportunity was taken to express opinions about my priorities; making observations about time spent on the phone, or, when seeing me filling in the account book. Hmm, 1377 minus 1292, that's 85 tickets at £1/7/9d equals £---, try doing that in your head (no calculator) with someone hammering on the window and the phone ringing, and someone looking through the window to see what you're writing.
I sometimes wondered what were the working practices of the people ready to jump to conclusions about mine; but, for most, their work was carried out without their customers benefitting from the ability to view their working practices and conduct.
But things never change; even on here, in the current regime, negative comments are made about the diligence of conductors, booking clerks and gateline staff, based apparently on casual observation.
In response to an allegation up thread; Certainly, I had no time to read a newspaper - not that I had the wish to; I have never smoked, but most of the male passengers did, sometimes blowing smoke through the small aperture in the glass; and lager was a drink for ladies, served in an ornate half pint glass. However, I would make a wild guess that workers in other industries may have done some of the foregoing, safe in the knowledge that their customers could never know.
There's definitely an age / culture shift with this sort of thing. Those of the younger generations (under say 35) have broadly grown up with privatisation and the increasing demands on the network and are generally of a more left-leaning staff and increasingly poorer. They therefore ideologically prefer nationalisation (so a BR-esque plan) and see the price inflation on the railway as excessive and pricing them out of a good many would like to take (being more environmentally aware and socially mobile).
This and hearing snippets of what BR did and looking at 'comparisons' (I use this lightly as we know European systems aren't perfect) in the EU means there's a lot of view that nationalisation is the be all and end all. I've mentioned this before it may well be a perfectly good idea if well executed but a significant amount of average passenger concerns (reliabilty/performance & cost) might not change one iota under nationalisation. Some feel a BR approach will be a silver bullet to all the railways' problems.
Edit: Regarding fares, even if nationalised and the boom of the late 90s as people became commuters happened, whos to say the DfT/Treasury wouldn't have moved the costs of running the railway to the farepayer v the taxpayer like they have done post-privatisation?
This and hearing snippets of what BR did and looking at 'comparisons' (I use this lightly as we know European systems aren't perfect) in the EU means there's a lot of view that nationalisation is the be all and end all. I've mentioned this before it may well be a perfectly good idea if well executed but a significant amount of average passenger concerns (reliabilty/performance & cost) might not change one iota under nationalisation. Some feel a BR approach will be a silver bullet to all the railways' problems.
Edit: Regarding fares, even if nationalised and the boom of the late 90s as people became commuters happened, whos to say the DfT/Treasury wouldn't have moved the costs of running the railway to the farepayer v the taxpayer like they have done post-privatisation?
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It’s a nailed on certainty. Indeed, had Br continued as was, with complete control over its fares, I suggest that fare rises would have been, on average, higher. Also there would have been very little fare competition between routes - eg London - Birmingham. BR would have maximised yield for the industry, and not for the individual components as happens now.
It’s not just passenger fares either. Probably the biggest beneficiaries of rail privatisation have been those who use freight services, where prices for bulk trains have fallen considerably. Historically BR priced them to be competitive with the competition, ie road (or maritime for some flows). In some cases this was at a considerable profit. Now, with the various FOCs competing, for the very profitable flows (typically bulk goods - aggregate, biomass, oil etc) the FOCs compete with each other, and profit much reduced. Good for the end consumers, but a loss of income to the greater railway.
Exactly my point. People complain about something that, no doubt, would have happened anyway. But BR was gone by then so we can look back and think "if only" without being rooted in economic reality. And the proliferation of season tickets so people can sit there being "I play £5000 a year for the pleasure of this service". In very few other areas of life do people break down the cost of their individual service and multiple it by 365!.
The railway in the last 20 years has become perhaps less "glamorous". I for one think that complaining about things like droplights and "breathing in the diesel" is nostalgia that would be phased out by 21st century either way. It has pivoted to focus heavily much more on commuters who have also provided a large amount of fares. And the DfT / Treasury know this is there to milk especially in London & SE. People say they have "no other option" but commuting by the railway. Only they do - just that every other option (driving & parking in C. London, a slow coach etc.) is actually worse and they are taking the best option - even if its not great. The railway is as much a victim of demographic factors as it is anything else, hence the heavy investment on improving the commuter options in past 10 years (e.g. Thameslink programme, IETs)
Spot on. With TOCs now under central control, you can expect less competition between them on fares and services. I would be astonished if WMT / LNWR don’t ease up on their competing fares to the W Mids and Crewe Etc.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
"Give it to Richard Branson" was a common saying, and to be fair, with a few exceptions, VTWC was one of the better private TOCs.
You also got "Give it to the Germans", which went rather less well.
True it definitely works both ways. Which is why when the conversation comes up with friends I often say "well 90% of things would stay the same, especially in the short-term". Like now most have hardly noticed (except the schedule reductions caused by Covid) the current ERMA agreements.
I must admit, I don't recall hearing those, but that's likely down to the circles in which I moved at the time !Indeed. It would take a step change beyond ownership to implement any major change to service provision.
chorleyjeff
Member
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I agree but try telling the medical profession. The airlines learned the lesson the hard way and let's hope the railways have done the same.
delt1c
Established Member
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I don't think it is rose tinted glasses; it was the era we were brought up in and the perceived security of the one operator we had.
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I couldn't, our locals were all class 306.
I can't say that I noticed how dirty the trains were as a layer of cigarette ash was normal in most places in those days.
I certainly recall Branson being vocal in documentaries about wanting to take on part of the railway - I also remember overhearing some 'normal' passengers at Bristol Parkway in November 1996 saying how glad they were that he had been awarded one of the franchises (ie CrossCountry). Little did they know about the short trains coming their way (although to be fair the short train decision came later).
One other comment I remember was on a trip from Reading to Exeter in January 1995 when someone suggested that the railway needed a 'Jack Walker' type figure to come in, almost as a boyhood dream, and take on the railway in the same way that he had taken Blackburn from a small football club to winner of the Premiership.
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