Why do people have rose tinted views of British Rail?

[Journeyman]

7% fare rise - imagine the squealing now!!

That's nothing. There was a 25% increase one year in the seventies.

 

[Bald Rick]

7% fare rise - imagine the squealing now!!

NSE fares rose by 37% above inflation in the 8 years it was in existence and the 2 years prior. Fares went up to choke off demand in the economic boom of the late 80s, and in the early 90s recession fares rose again to cover the revenue shortfall.

 

[delt1c]

I remember the choice of food being terrible, and the subject of much mirth from comedians!


“joined up network” - this keeps being mentioned without explaining what the benefits of this are.
Air travel is very much not a joined up network yet seems to be very popular and I don’t hear anyone suggesting we nationalise it.

Joined up means 1 network, you can travel from Cockfosters to Croydon by Bus, using several different operators but it is one network, 1 travelcard and controlled by TFL. No 2 operators are in competition to each other, they work together to provide the service. Try doing that on the National rail Network, you have to check to see which services and operators that your ticket is valid on.

 

[GoneSouth]

My rose tinted views stems from the fact that I could afford to travel to London on a train that departed before 10 am, I could catch a cross country train on a Monday-Thursday that meant I could afford to travel to Birmingham (remember Blue days and White days, much simpler than fare structures are today), I could catch a direct train on a Saturday in the summer to holiday destinations, there were special trains run for sporting events, the IC125 was a fantastic train, much more comfortable to travel in than what is now replacing it, often when travelling long distance connections would be held for a few minutes to help you get to your destination by train and not taxi. Plus other reasons

I’m not saying everything was wonderful, the DMUs I remember travelling on were filthy and looked drab and unwelcoming in those BR colours, timetables were irregular and seemingly linked random places for no apparent reason, i encountered many station staff who were clueless at customer services and were just rude, statins were terribly unwelcoming and had suffered lack of maintenance / investment for years plus many more faults.

i think the ideology of a fully integrated system designed to be flexible enough to meet passenger demands and deliver it comfortably and with affordable access to the end user is still what we should be aiming for. BR didn’t quite make it but that was through lack of investment and a very rapid change in lifestyle as people discovered affordable cars for the first time.
Let’s be honest here and admit that we throw more public money at a semi privately operated railway than we did back in the dreary seventies which is partly why they have been such a success.

I honestly think we could still make a 21st century BR work, especially now we’ve decided the franchising model isn’t the way to go. We still pay for it so let’s make it work how e we need it to work.

 

[Meerkat]

I regularly travelled on XC, and although the HSTs were decent the reliability was terrible.

 

[gordonthemoron]

Some recollections about working for BR in the 80s, not regarding the travelling public experience:

1. Having to take a week off work when they repainted Stooperdale Offices with the cheapest emulsion paint available and I couldn't stop sneezing
2. Bomb damage still noticeable in Kings Cross Western Offices, part of the roof was missing
3. John Peyton House, Nottingham using a portacabin in a derelict building as an off site tape store. Somebody broke in and tried flogging the tape cassetes as VHS areound Meadows pubs
4. The number of train spotters working in Rail House, Crewe
5. The management canteen in Western Tower, Reading with waiter service
6. Screwing Cap Gemini Sogeti on the ICL->IBM conversion project for the Payroll System
7. A friend of mine losing one of the CAPRI system's main files during an overnight callout, I think CAPRI was a ticketing system
8. BR Pension Fund's Fine Art Collection

 

[WesternLancer]

I remember the choice of food being terrible, and the subject of much mirth from comedians!


“joined up network” - this keeps being mentioned without explaining what the benefits of this are.
Air travel is very much not a joined up network yet seems to be very popular and I don’t hear anyone suggesting we nationalise it.

And of course now, or pre covid anyway - for much of the time there is no food to choose from at all. So not a choice, just nowt.
By the 80s the BR sandwiches etc were no different than supermarket type offerings - and back in the 70s I don't recall anyones fast food type sandwich counter offer being that impressive unless you were in a traditional tea room type place and paid accordingly.

Some recollections about working for BR in the 80s, not regarding the travelling public experience:

1. Having to take a week off work when they repainted Stooperdale Offices with the cheapest emulsion paint available and I couldn't stop sneezing
2. Bomb damage still noticeable in Kings Cross Western Offices, part of the roof was missing
3. John Peyton House, Nottingham using a portacabin in a derelict building as an off site tape store. Somebody broke in and tried flogging the tape cassetes as VHS areound Meadows pubs
4. The number of train spotters working in Rail House, Crewe
5. The management canteen in Western Tower, Reading with waiter service
6. Screwing Cap Gemini Sogeti on the ICL->IBM conversion project for the Payroll System
7. A friend of mine losing one of the CAPRI system's main files during an overnight callout, I think CAPRI was a ticketing system
8. BR Pension Fund's Fine Art Collection

Was this a varied selection of points or meant to illustrate things being poor in all such cases (genuine question?)

Ref the art: wasn't the fine art collection bought as art values were rising at the time faster than other forms of asset available to the fund to buy? I doubt Pension fund managers were that bothered about looking at it!
Pension funds invest in all sorts of things that they think might protect the value of the pension investments and which can be sold at the appropriate time to generate a higher sum in due course. The more diversification the better I suspect.

Ref the bomb damaged buildings - I guess the stark contrast was Railtrack - who went on a building renovation spree - with some very nice results - but didn't bother to invest in the railway track. So instead of bomb damaged staff offices at Kings Cross you ended up with Broken rails on the ECML.

 

[Journeyman]

I don't really get all the comments on how BR was better at being a "joined up network", because it was never run as one - local management always existed in some shape or form, and working practices varied considerably for much of BR's existence, whether that was at regional or sector level.

For many years, loads of services took strange routes and terminated in seemingly random places because it had been decided many moons before that crossing regional boundaries Would Be Bad. In many cases, those boundaries had Victorian origins.

 

[yorksrob]

I don't really get all the comments on how BR was better at being a "joined up network", because it was never run as one - local management always existed in some shape or form, and working practices varied considerably for much of BR's existence, whether that was at regional or sector level.

For many years, loads of services took strange routes and terminated in seemingly random places because it had been decided many moons before that crossing regional boundaries Would Be Bad. In many cases, those boundaries had Victorian origins.

I certainly think there's something to be said for a consistent product in terms of sectors.

For example, it's good to know roughly what to expect in terms of comfort, buffet facilities, first class offering, pricing structure, special offers if you're getting an InterCity service to Plymouth, Birmingham or Edinburgh for example.

 

[Journeyman]

I certainly think there's something to be said for a consistent product in terms of sectors.

For example, it's good to know roughly what to expect in terms of comfort, buffet facilities, first class offering, pricing structure, special offers if you're getting an InterCity service to Plymouth, Birmingham or Edinburgh for example.

Oh, I agree there. The loss of the InterCity brand was something that was allowed to happen by default, and was a major mistake. The IC letters at the top of a column in a timetable did give you a good idea of what to expect, and it now feels like bit of a lottery. It's worth bearing in mind that it took BR a long time to reach that level of consistency in the first place, though.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

I think theres a number of reasons. I was born at the start of privatisation, but gained a rose-tinted view of BR from my father. I think that whilst BR had its poor points, it was a more "interesting" railway; locomotives, coaches, "older" trains that seemed to have more charm than their 90s/00s replacements. Yes, BR may have been awful in many ways, but I think watching trains at Birmingham New Street was more interesting in 1970/80 and 90 than 2020.

Secondly, British people do have a rose-tinted view of the 1945-1979 state capitalism economic model. I think it goes back to the comfort of the big state during the Second World War and the reassurance the state was there to provide in the economic mess after the war. I think that explains part of the hatred towards Thatcher, as she dismantled that system (although you could argue it actually collapsed during Ted Heath's government).

 

[Meerkat]

Ref the art: wasn't the fine art collection bought as art values were rising at the time faster than other forms of asset available to the fund to buy? I doubt Pension fund managers were that bothered about looking at it!
Pension funds invest in all sorts of things that they think might protect the value of the pension investments and which can be sold at the appropriate time to generate a higher sum in due course. The more diversification the better I suspect.

Would it have got in there from the various private companies collections before nationalisation (don’t know whether transfers in kind from employers have ever been allowed??)
Slightly different I know but post-demutualisation one life company’s with profits fund included the antique furniture and art in The head office (and some fishing rights!)

I certainly think there's something to be said for a consistent product in terms of sectors.

For example, it's good to know roughly what to expect in terms of comfort, buffet facilities, first class offering, pricing structure, special offers if you're getting an InterCity service to Plymouth, Birmingham or Edinburgh for example.

DfT could easily have done that in franchise specs if they thought it was important.

 

[AlbertBeale]

From what I've seen in the forum a few things stand out about how BR was positively viewed - they seem relatively superficial things but I can understand the nostalgia.

- Stock flexibility and the ability to have x, y or z unit or carriage unexpectedly turn up on your service
- Comfiness of seats in old stock
- Alignment of seats to windows
- Locos + carriages in favour of units
- Parcel vans and space for bikes
- Relief services

My memories of BR (outside of NSE which was an entirely different set of experiences) involved waiting on cold platforms waiting for a dirty multiple unit to show up which may or may not have working heating..if it showed up at all. Occasionally there'd be a shiny HST to get somewhere quickly but the period where I'd really appreciate ageing stock and locos was a relatively short one in my early to mid teens.

Things like comfortable seats, windows you can see out of, luggage/bike space, and so on, are nothing to do with nostalgia ... they're basic functionality - maybe they relate to whether an organisation is run as a public service or for profit maximisation.

Why do so many people take exception to this? Honestly, why is it a problem?

Because it's literally and linguistically false, and because it displays a profit motive rather than a public service motive.

 

[Journeyman]

Things like comfortable seats, windows you can see out of, luggage/bike space, and so on, are nothing to do with nostalgia ... they're basic functionality - maybe they relate to whether an organisation is run as a public service or for profit maximisation.

But BR designed the PEP EMUs, which have the worst seats and worst window alignment of any trains ever!

Not that it mattered, given that the windows were usually encrusted with dirt anyway...

 

[Meerkat]

Things like comfortable seats, windows you can see out of, luggage/bike space, and so on, are nothing to do with nostalgia ... they're basic functionality - maybe they relate to whether an organisation is run as a public service or for profit maximisation.

To be pedantic they are not basic functionalities of a system whose basic functionality is transporting you from A-Z. I don’t see any reason a nationalised system is any more likely to have them - possibly less likely as the Treasury see one big budget and cut it.

 

[Journeyman]

Because it's literally and linguistically false, and because it displays a profit motive rather than a public service motive.

What absolute nonsense. BR always had to meet very demanding financial targets anyway.

 

[nlogax]

maybe they relate to whether an organisation is run as a public service or for profit maximisation.

These two things aren't mutually exclusive and let's not forget BR always had financial pressures of their own. Moving from BR into a privately run railway was always going to result in shedding certain 'luxuries' and anachronisms in order to reduce costs and improve capacity / efficiency.

It's not as if BR even provided those luxuries at the time in any consistent way. There's some real fog of nostalgia (or fug of tobacco smoke?) in some of the more pro-BR posts I've seen here in the past.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Although I am too young to remember BR, what I do like is the idea of a national rail operator with an in-house engineering department that designs, builds and repairs its own rolling stock, keeping things consistent and joined-up. I'm not saying there's no place for private companies on our railways and I know that the DfT still specifies a great deal but I think that's part of the problem - the people specifying the trains aren't the people using or operating the trains. Therefore we end up with the horrific seats on IETs because the DfT went for the cheap option.

No European railway, nationalised or not, designs and builds its own rolling stock in-house any more.
This part of the industry has been globalised for decades, and is now in the hands of the private sector majors (Siemens, Alstom, Hitachi, CRRC).
It's the same with signalling, with much the same players.
BR could never have kept up with global technology development in all the disciplines that were part of the steam era - APT was the last attempt.
BR also ended up with a non-standard network which, despite much progress, continues to plague today's railway.
HS1 and HS2 are straight out of the French high speed technology playbook - they left us behind.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

No European railway, nationalised or not, designs and builds its own rolling stock in-house any more.
This part of the industry has been globalised for decades, and is now in the hands of the private sector majors (Siemens, Alstom, Hitachi, CRRC).
It's the same with signalling, with much the same players.
BR could never have kept up with global technology development in all the disciplines that were part of the steam era - APT was the last attempt.
BR also ended up with a non-standard network which, despite much progress, continues to plague today's railway.
HS1 and HS2 are straight out of the French high speed technology playbook - they left us behind.

One could question the wisdom of this though. The loss of the British train building industry benefits no one-particulary the residents of York and Birmingham. It's insance the amount of money that has been sent to Siemens to build UK rolling stock when the investment and wealth creation could have stayed in places that have been crying out for it for decades.

I would also argue against France leaving us behind in terms of high-speed railway. Britain, arguably, outpaced France by miles in terms of our ability to upgrade existing track for high speeds-look at the 125. Sure the WCRM was a fiasco, caused by privatisation, and we will never know how IC250 would have turned out, but Britain's railways coped without high-speed rail quite well until the need arose 15 years ago or so.

 

[Mag_seven]

APT was the last attempt.

Indeed, and look how successful that was!

 

[341o2]

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be...

True, its a thing of the past

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

One could question the wisdom of this though. The loss of the British train building industry benefits no one-particulary the residents of York and Birmingham. It's insance the amount of money that has been sent to Siemens to build UK rolling stock when the investment and wealth creation could have stayed in places that have been crying out for it for decades.

With gaps of up to 3 years between ordering new trains, there was no way a non-exporting UK-based rolling stock company could have survived independently.
Even then, components were bought in from GEC and ABB.
GEC then pooled its railway interest with Alsthom and eventually sold out to them.
BREL/ABB is still here in Bombardier form, but it buys in even more from Europe.
The UK stock market was/is uninterested in investing in low-margin utilities/commodities, and railway equipment is part of that.
That's why so much of our manufacturing capacity was sold abroad - the City finds foreign oil, gold mining and banking much more attractive.

 

[leytongabriel]

The inflexibility of BR is something that sticks with me. But Network SouthEast saw some real improvements in the region, not least the concept of a network around London rather that a series of separate bits.

 

[WesternLancer]

Would it have got in there from the various private companies collections before nationalisation (don’t know whether transfers in kind from employers have ever been allowed??)
Slightly different I know but post-demutualisation one life company’s with profits fund included the antique furniture and art in The head office (and some fishing rights!)

No - it was a pension investment plan (the pre 1948 companies may have owned art in head offices etc but if they did it was nothing to do with this AFAIK - mind you the original of their poster art might well have been worth saving for investment purposes!)

seems like it was quite a wise investment at the time and performed respectably:
see

Fine art of art investing

www.ipe.com

“The British Rail Pension Fund put in £40m (e58.5m) into 2,400 museum quality works of art in the early 1970s as an inflation hedge,” recalls Peter Temple. At that time, the UK was experiencing labour unrest, power cuts and high inflation.
“It sold out gradually, the last items being sold in 2003, and is generally reckoned to have made four percentage points per annum above inflation over the period,” Temple adds. “It stopped putting money in actively when inflation-linked gilts were introduced in the early 1980s

British Pension Fund's Bet On Art Pays Off Respectably - WSJ

www.wsj.com

from 1996
LONDON -- The chips fell Thursday on the biggest bet ever on art as an investment, as British Rail's huge pension fund sold the last major artworks in its $62 million collection.
The wide-ranging collection, compiled by the pension fund between 1974 and 1980 as a hedge against the then-raging United Kingdom inflation rate, sold in a series of blockbuster auctions that concluded Thursday at Sotheby's Holdings Inc. on New Bond Street.

Most Successful Art Fund Trailed Inflation

Ivan Lindsay gives an excellent history lesson on art as an investment on Spear’s Wealth Management. He tells succinctly the famous story of the British Rail Pension Fund and puts it in conte…

www.artmarketmonitor.com

the only pension fund which has made a serious foray into the art market and published figures was the British Rail Pension Fund, which invested around £40 million in art, or around 3 per cent of its holdings, from 1974 via Sotheby’s, which gave free advice as long as the acquisitions and sales went through it. The fund acquired a collection of 2,400 pieces,

 

[Vespa]

My experience of BR.
The good:
Integrated national service one ticket covers most route under one company branding.

It got better toward the end with sectorisation and a more customer focussed attitude then privatisation happened, a missed opportunity.

The bad.
Take it or leave it attitude knowing they won't be sacked as they'll strike at the drop of a hat paralysing an entire network.
(At least with privatisation other train companies will fill the gap)

Good luck getting compensation or refund for a bad service or missed train or even no train ! The entire process is deliberately obscured designed to wear you down so you'll give up in the end.(bad move as they'll just buy a car instead vowing never to return to BR)

 

[WesternLancer]

I think theres a number of reasons. I was born at the start of privatisation, but gained a rose-tinted view of BR from my father. I think that whilst BR had its poor points, it was a more "interesting" railway; locomotives, coaches, "older" trains that seemed to have more charm than their 90s/00s replacements. Yes, BR may have been awful in many ways, but I think watching trains at Birmingham New Street was more interesting in 1970/80 and 90 than 2020.

Secondly, British people do have a rose-tinted view of the 1945-1979 state capitalism economic model. I think it goes back to the comfort of the big state during the Second World War and the reassurance the state was there to provide in the economic mess after the war. I think that explains part of the hatred towards Thatcher, as she dismantled that system (although you could argue it actually collapsed during Ted Heath's government).

Thought provoking post.

This is an interesting take and raises wider issues than just for this thread. I think ref your dad's view, an enthusiast in the 1940s and 50s would have said the same sorts of things about the pre grouping companies in terms of variety and interest - and found the BR standard fleet of steam locos, for example, very dull and boring.

As to the wider question, of course Thatcher was indeed 'hated' but obv not by a majority of people really, since she got elected 3 times (tho I admit to having been in the minority at the time).

I'm not sure that many people old enough to have lived and engaged with it by the 1970s had too rose tinted a view at the time, just as by 1951 people felt there was too much state control and did not re-elect labour (although their vote was higher, but this isn't the place to discuss the UK voting system). I think people were pretty resigned to the state run industries by the 70s at least but a good chunk of people didn't like the idea of them being sold off on the cheap as it were, but there wasn't much love for them. But their faults were plain to see in many areas*.

It's just that the privatised operators are worse! And public transport is not profitable so you can never create a truly competition led privatised success as you depend on subsidy - which mean you depend on the taxpayer, which means you depend on the taxpayers representatives - which are politicians.

*Edit - or not plain to see - I was chatting to a really good mate last year who worked for BT in the 70s and 80s. If they got a call out to a line fault in a junction box on a Sunday they would go out and fix it of course, on overtime. He claimed not uncommon practice to 'accidentally' knock a few other wires out on other lines at the jct box during the repair stimulating more call outs for line faults and more overtime for mates back at the depot...

But then private sector are not angels either (see Fleet Street 'Spanish practices' for example).

Going back to the nationalised industries, a key issue is they all needed major investment, but the state did not want to do that (see PSBR / IRM rules etc etc) because politicians prefer to spend money on things that voters actually like - eg pensions, health services, schools etc - things private investors don't want to invest in - so if you take out the emotion on it the strategy to get investment into these industries was to get private sector investment in.

Even industrial butchers like Ian MacGregor didn't want to just close down industries like coal and steel - he I am sure, genuinely believed they could and should be profitable, but the medicine to achieve that was brutal. It was not his fault that he did not forsee the end of the cold war and the collapse of the iron curtain and with that plentiful supplies of cheap 'ex communist' coal and steel from the east and china etc. After all in his era these were the people we were being prepared to go to war against, not buy cheap coal, steel (or computers) from!

 

[Sprinter107]

I wouldnt want to see British Rail make a return particularly, but it wasn't all bad. There were less trains on my local route, but cancellations were few and far between, they were generally reliable trains.
Some stations have a worse service under privatisation, and some better. As for the state of the trains, I dont think British Rail's trains were any worse than the state of some present day operators. The East Midlands 222s ive travelled on have been absolutely filthy, and Connex were an absolute disgrace with the condition of many of their trains . We also have run down and uninviting stations on todays network. That isn't unique to British Rail.

 

[Journeyman]

My experience of BR.
The good:
Integrated national service one ticket covers most route under one company branding.

But we still have that. Tickets have National Rail branding on them, and with a few clear exceptions, they're valid on whatever operators cover the routes concerned. Advances and other cheap tickets with limitations existed under BR as well.

 

[WesternLancer]

My experience of BR.
The good:
Integrated national service one ticket covers most route under one company branding.

It got better toward the end with sectorisation and a more customer focussed attitude then privatisation happened, a missed opportunity.

The bad.
Take it or leave it attitude knowing they won't be sacked as they'll strike at the drop of a hat paralysing an entire network.
(At least with privatisation other train companies will fill the gap)

Good luck getting compensation or refund for a bad service or missed train or even no train ! The entire process is deliberately obscured designed to wear you down so you'll give up in the end.(bad move as they'll just buy a car instead vowing never to return to BR)

wasn't the whole unified compensation scheme (to which todays delay repay has evolved from) introduced in its modern form by BR as part of John Major's Citizen's Charter initiative?

Yes looks like 1991 (so before the 92 Manifesto with BR privatization stated, tho it was no doubt an objective already)

Mr Major’s Commons Statement on the Citizen’s Charter – 22 July 1991 – The Rt. Hon. Sir John Major KG CH

www.johnmajorarchive.org.uk

The Government will expect both British Rail and London Underground to be more open about standards of performance and methods of redress. British Rail will improve its compensation arrangements. It has been asked, as a start, to develop a new scheme, starting with annual season ticket holders. For the first time, where service over the previous year has been poor, passengers will be entitled to discounts when their tickets are renewed.

Would be interesting to know what the BR compensation 'deal' was before then as I can't really recall. Since that quote says "improve" their must have been some!

 

[AlbertBeale]

I think theres a number of reasons. I was born at the start of privatisation, but gained a rose-tinted view of BR from my father. I think that whilst BR had its poor points, it was a more "interesting" railway; locomotives, coaches, "older" trains that seemed to have more charm than their 90s/00s replacements. Yes, BR may have been awful in many ways, but I think watching trains at Birmingham New Street was more interesting in 1970/80 and 90 than 2020.

Secondly, British people do have a rose-tinted view of the 1945-1979 state capitalism economic model. I think it goes back to the comfort of the big state during the Second World War and the reassurance the state was there to provide in the economic mess after the war. I think that explains part of the hatred towards Thatcher, as she dismantled that system (although you could argue it actually collapsed during Ted Heath's government).

I'm a bit puzzled by referring to a public service as "state capitalism". Is the NHS state capitalism?