There seems a contradiction on this thread between people who believe that a "standard" livery is necessary to ensure a good quality of service and people who's favourite period of BR is the 1980/1990s version where each sector had its own liveries.
Absolutely, there were a lot of doom-laden prophecies about in the run-up to privatisation, none of which have come to pass. We were being told to brace ourselves for Beeching Mark 2 and an inability to buy through tickets, and none of it happened. TOCs are now legally obliged to provide minimum standards of service, and it's almost impossible to cut trains or close lines and stations, which BR did frequently, whenever they were strapped for cash.
I think if this pandemic had happened forty years ago, you'd have seen an almost total shutdown of the network, with only parts of it fully reopening afterwards. That's not slagging off BR, that's simply being realistic.
I think you're right there - BR was free to cut services/ lines, so did so. Private operators are stuck with whatever minimum levels that the Government required at franchise time, so there's no scope.
I appreciated the integrated system - though I didn't realise there was any other option until privatisation ... and then I realised what had been lost. Other pluses years back included perfectly good hot food on trains (snacks as well as meals), and things like Red Star parcels, good-sized luggage vans for bikes, etc. And never being called a "customer".
A lot of this would have happened anyway (there are so many places selling sandwiches nowadays that there's very little market for selling food on trains (beyond the long distance routes where you can expect a number of passengers to be on them for three/four hours plus)... the "parcel" market has changed beyond recognition since BR... naive to think that a modern BR would be providing full buffets on most services or devoting an entire carriage of each train to luggage.
Personally I prefer being a "customer" to a "passenger". One suggests that I have rights and expectations, the other suggests that I am merely self-loading freight.
But the "integrated system" bit is the oddest one - you can still buy through tickets from one side of the country to the other - what's not integrated? The fact that different bits of the network have different liveries and brand names? That finished years ago, when brands like InterCity and ScotRail came along. Or was that acceptable but somehow things are different if it's *private* organisations with different liveries and brand names?
If you look back through my posts, you'll see that I was pointing out that the opprobrium caused by the more loony suggestions for privatisation influenced the Government to institute a more regulated form of privatisation. Our less dislocated form of privatisation was developed because of the opposition to privatisation, not in spite of it.
You want to believe that the Government chose a less radical version of privatisation because of protests? Fair enough, believe that if you want but where's your evidence? Was this "opprobrium" in the form of marching through London, signing petitions... or is it just that some enthusiasts wanted to complain about the worst possible version of privatisation (prior to it happening) and then want to claim credit for the fact that something which was never on the table never got into the statute books?
BR had its good and bad points as have private TOC's. However I am sure if goverment had put the effort and finance into correcting the problems I am sure it could have been fixed, however it was not to be. What BR had was a joined up Network. Maybe if goverment had gone for system like London buses where fares , service and vehicle requirements are set by TFL and a standard livery we have got a more joined up service.
Heavy rail fares and vehicle requirements *are* set/agreed by the Government though.
And BR didn't have one standard livery in my lifetime - as soon as they finished repainting the last of the green locos (so that everything would be blue) they started with new liveries on stock like APT. Were the "blue trains" of Glasgow a bad thing, since they didn't fit into one standard national livery?
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.
Maybe that's the difference between us - I'm old enough to remember two coach 158s on "Cross Country" services (e.g. Edinburgh/ Glasgow to Manchester), so there was never one consistent level of InterCity "offering" that I can remember.
From my memory, different routes had different levels of service, different food offerings, different degrees of "First Class" - maybe the "InterCity" trains hauled by 73s on the Gatwick Express had the same range of buffet/restaurant facilities as the Highland Chieftan, but I don't remember that.
Fares, however, are as much to do with government policy in setting then as they are with ownership.
Fares could be halved tomorrow provided the government didn't mind stumping up the difference.
Agreed -
nothing stopping a huge fare cut (subsidised by increased taxpayer support) - this is one flaw in the Corbyn plans for nationalisation - never an explanation about what a "nationalised" railway could achieve that the current privatised model couldn't.
For those with long memories, I wonder if the level of rose-tinting depends on how you used British Rail: I mostly travelled InterCity between Intercity-operated stations, and look back on most of those journeys with pleasure
I think that this is a great point - people might have grown up with a good memory of BR when their only rail experience was an annual train trip to the seaside through childhood... then they get old enough to need to commute for work and trains become an expensive everyday chore, rather than a rare pleasure.
I'm sure I'd get bored of an Alton Towers rollercoaster if I had to use it every day!
I look back fondly on BR because of the opportunity to hang out of a droplight window on loco hauled stock, which I have not enjoyed since an HST a few years ago.
Plus it was an organisation with some spare resource so stuff like the Pope's visit in the 80s could be catered for (albeit with extraordinary motive power), and everyday breakdowns could be rescued and relief trains organised and staffed.
I appreciate your honesty about the droplights - but there
are modern examples of stock utilisation - e.g. TPE doubling up services to the 2014 Commonwealth Games with the use of the 350/3s - EMT used to be good at putting HSTs on Skegness services in the summer and Lincoln services during the December "market" period plus 222s to Liverpool for the Grand National... but there are limits to how much stock you want to keep "spare" to only use on such rare occasions.
I'm not sure that there were anything like as many "relief" trains as people say that they remember though.