British Traction Forever

[richieb1971]

I made this video about 2+ years ago. It got quite a reception but due to the keywords never got circulated as well as it should.

This is not for me, but for the cause. If you support it, please share it.


Thank you.

https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=HRjOzf_7vYU

 

[contrex]

Followed the link. "No videos were found.". Is this the rail equivalent of UKIP? Send all the foreign locos back?

 

[jcc]

Think the link should be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRjOzf_7vYU

[youtube]HRjOzf_7vYU[/youtube]

 

[richieb1971]

Yes, thats it.

Thanks for correcting me. Was in edit mode when I copied the link.

 

[contrex]

What is "the cause"? Partying like it's 1961?

 

[anme]

That's the funniest thing I've seen for some time. Top satire!
"We invented every kind of bridge known to man". Very droll.

 

[richieb1971]

You guys are not very patriotic. Don't you want Britain to make locos again?

 

[anme]

You guys are not very patriotic. Don't you want Britain to make locos again?

If the UK makes some locos, it means someone else makes fewer, so for humanity it all balances out.

Can I recommend reading the Wikipedia article on bridges? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge

 

[rf_ioliver]

You guys are not very patriotic. Don't you want Britain to make locos again?

First of all, excellent videography, though I'd prefer the 'music' of the locomotives themselves than the added music.

Well the UK does have some train manufacturing left, but the expertise and capability to build a purely UK loco from scratch has long gone. Partly due to economics and partly due to political dogma I'm afraid - an irony lost on many DM readers

However, while we lost mass manufacturing capability in heavy industry, for example the steel industry, we've gained in specialist skills. Look at the automotive industry...Rover lost badly against the German and the Japanese manufacturers, but the UK still has a whole host of gems like Triumph bikes, Rolls Royce* and pretty much all of the F1 stables except Ferrari.

*both of which might be owned elsewhere as is typical but the skills are still in the UK.

Anyway, back to the video, really enjoyed watching it; you've captured the scenes really, really well!

t.

Ian

 

[richieb1971]

If the UK makes some locos, it means someone else makes fewer, so for humanity it all balances out.

Can I recommend reading the Wikipedia article on bridges? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge

You should try to side step my inaccuracies in favour of the overall picture. When I made this video (I only did the editing BTW) I felt something was wrong with our country selling off British locos to foreigners whilst we import foreign locos. I was in "passion" mode and I still am. I just can't believe that a UK rail forum is full of people who have literally no ambitions other than to quash those who do have some.



Thanks rf_ioliver..

 

[NSEFAN]

You guys are not very patriotic. Don't you want Britain to make locos again?

The world is more complicated than foreign vs British, though. Back in the days of BR's 1955 modernisation, there was a strong culture of "buy British", which saw British Railways spend enormous amounts of money on prototype diesels from British companies. Buying British however was not much good as there was no expertise behind the dieselisation to actually deliver a reliable product. Locomotives like the class 37 and DMUs like the class 101 are iconic, but this doesn't change the fact that the majority of those prototype diesels only lasted a few years before being scrapped.

Fast forward to today and there is a lot more international trade than there was 60 years ago. Siemens, Alstom, Bombardier and Hitachi are all multinational companies involved in the UK rail industry, as well as other sectors. Even though their headquarters may not be in Britain or the rolling stock they make may be physically assembled elsewhere, these companies do employ people in Britain to help design and maintain trains. A lack of "Made in Britain" stickers shouldn't detract from the excellent engineering skills that we have in this country.

 

[richieb1971]

Yes, but it wouldn't hurt to invest something in Brush just to get a new loco off the ground. If they could build them in 1990 they can build them now. We may not have the sort of production tools around anymore to make a 100 or so but I still think its in the best interests of the nation to have a "building" capability.

 

[NSEFAN]

How much of the construction would have to be done here for the train to qualify as as British? Bombardier is paraded as being a British company, and whilst it does assembly of trains in Derby the parts are made elsewhere. Should the on-board computers be British too, with software written by British people? Should the electronics be entirely made in Britain? Even the packaged ICs? Should the silicon come from sand sourced from British beaches?

I am being very flippant here but I am trying to show that it is more complicated than it looks. Any company you invest in will ultimately be looking for the cheapest way to make the product, and this will inevitably lead to parts and labour being sourced from around the world. Siemens may be German and Hitachi may be Japanese but neither is going to source everything from their respective countries because it doesn't make financial sense to do so. You could very well pour a load of money into Brush but this should only be done if there is going to be a good return on that investment, and I don't think temporary jobs in building a fleet of locos specialized for the UK will cut it I'm afraid.

That's not to say we should be negative about it. I think that we are good at producing highly educated engineers in this country and we export this ability all over the world. To me that is something to be proud of, rather than concerning ourselves over which side of the pond that the screws on the latest train were fastened.

 

[richieb1971]

But jobs man, jobs. We need to eat our own cooking, not everyone elses.

If we made locos here, we could theoretically export them new rather than export them used.

If Hitachi can build trains here, why can't UK companies?

 

[ainsworth74]

So are we trying to run a business or a jobs program?

 

[Ash Bridge]

But jobs man, jobs. We need to eat our own cooking, not everyone elses.

If we made locos here, we could theoretically export them new rather than export them used.

If Hitachi can build trains here, why can't UK companies?

I really do sympathise with what you are saying, but our track record for building rolling stock/locomotives for export since the 1950s/60s has never been on such a large or successful scale compared to other manufacturers here in Europe or across the Atlantic. Whereas I agree we can build as good or even better products than the competition, we would struggle to offer it at the right price. The Class 60s were a good example, I remember reading at the time that when EWS were ordering the 66s they could have purchased nearly two for the price of one 60! Also just to add, when the class 60s/92s were built by Brush in the late 80s & early 90s they had already lost the capability to construct the locomotive bodyshells onsite, this work was contracted to company elsewhere, Procor was the name I think?

 

[richieb1971]

I really do sympathise with what you are saying, but our track record for building rolling stock/locomotives for export since the 1950s/60s has never been on such a large or successful scale compared to other manufacturers here in Europe or across the Atlantic. Whereas I agree we can build as good or even better products than the competition, we would struggle to offer it at the right price. The Class 60s were a good example, I remember reading at the time that when EWS were ordering the 66s they could have purchased nearly two for the price of one 60! Also just to add, when the class 60s/92s were built by Brush in the late 80s & early 90s they had already lost the capability to construct the locomotive bodyshells onsite, this work was contracted to company elsewhere, Procor was the name I think?

Yes, happy to have sympathizers. It at least means you have a bit of Red, white and blue in you. Somewhere in Britain is a man or woman who has an idea on how to make a better loco than the ones we have today.. But their dream will never be realized.

Its about time someone made a hybrid coupled loco. Where cab 1 is on the diesel end and cab 2 is on the electric end. This way you can enjoy the best of both worlds without having exclusive diesel or electric.

As the video states, it would be built to SPECIFICATION! Not to cost. Cost is a very weak excuse to buy something unless your comparing apples to apples.

 

[contrex]

Its about time someone made a hybrid coupled loco. Where cab 1 is on the diesel end and cab 2 is on the electric end. This way you can enjoy the best of both worlds without having exclusive diesel or electric.

Wouldn't you be "enjoying" the worst of "both worlds"? That is, when the ungainly contraption was under the wires, it would be wasting electricity dragging a Diesel engine and generator around, and when it was away from the wires, wasting Diesel fuel dragging a transformer and associated gubbins around? And I'm puzzled about the two "ends". Is it supposed to be driven from one end when running on Diesel and the other end when running on electric power? What happens when you want to go in the other direction? Haven't you described an electro-Diesel like a Class 73? Or a hybrid loco like the Bombardier ALP-45DP?

 

[fowler9]

Never thought I'd see a Dubstep British Nationalist railway video. Many thanks.

 

[455driver]

As the video states, it would be built to SPECIFICATION! Not to cost. Cost is a very weak excuse to buy something unless your comparing apples to apples.

Why would anyone buy a (British built) loco which would be to near enough the same spec as a Foreign loco which would cost half the price?

The railways a re a business now with hard nosed accountants in charge.

I am patriotic but I am also a realist, successive governments destroyed the British train building companies with their on off on again view of train orders, unless there is a cultural change and we can have a sensible and continuous program of train orders no company will entertain the start up costs.

 

[richieb1971]

Why would anyone buy a (British built) loco which would be to near enough the same spec as a Foreign loco which would cost half the price?

The railways a re a business now with hard nosed accountants in charge.

I am patriotic but I am also a realist, successive governments destroyed the British train building companies with their on off on again view of train orders, unless there is a cultural change and we can have a sensible and continuous program of train orders no company will entertain the start up costs.

All you are saying is that we lack a commitment to such a program.

Couldn't we hire the facilities to build our own loco's? Does anyone from Britain actually oversee the construction process?

I see the railways industry of Britain depicting us as a rather weak nation. We have no drive, no ambition, no initiative.. We out price ourselves, we charge ourselves too much to build anything, we are totally noncompetitive in just about everything we do. The APT showed that we have no belief when other countries ran with our idea and made it a reality. Why are politics even involved?

When you think back 130 years ago we didn't care much about what others were doing, we just did what we wanted to do. The privatization of the railway system hasn't moved much away from government control. I Can't read anything on here without stumbling across a thread where train orders are controlled by government policies.

 

[NSEFAN]

When you think back 130 years ago we didn't care much about what others were doing, we just did what we wanted to do.

130 years ago it wouldn't have been economic to ship new trains from Japan to England, but if it would have been cheaper then all those pioneers of the railway would have done just that. A lot has changed since then, and we are no longer limited to our own in-house products. That's globalisation for you, which affects all areas of life and not just train building.

The privatization of the railway system hasn't moved much away from government control. I Can't read anything on here without stumbling across a thread where train orders are controlled by government policies.

The state pays an enormous amount of money to the railways to keep them running. As long as this is happening then there will always be politics. A laissez-faire approach was taken in the early days of privatisation but it quickly became clear that some kind of strategic long-term planning is needed because of the monopolistic nature of the railways. That is why our rail industry has its arm twisted by the DfT, and why nothing can happen without their say so.

 

[455driver]

Couldn't we hire the facilities to build our own loco's? Does anyone from Britain actually oversee the construction process?

Go on then, you do it!
Lets see how much money you make or lose.

 

[ainsworth74]

Go on then, you do it!
Lets see how much money you make or lose.

Well that's what I'm thinking. If this is such a great idea put together a business plan and go out and get some investors and set up a business along these lines!