Phoenix
Established Member
Well it's seem at least a tiny bit more likely that BR could come back but probably not but in this day and age if BR came back would you be happy about it or not ????
only if they decided to keep the hst in sirvice
Personally i can see the whole rail network being opperated by 1 or 2 TOC's within 30 years.
Surely that should be 1 as NXEC have far more IC225s and EMT have more Meridians?
If not, back to the big 4
only if they decided to keep the hst in sirvice
well there are no class 43s spare, which shows how darn popular they are so what would they use otherwise?
Even huyabusa (whatever the name) has been sold to EMT and is due to be converted to a VP185 engine.
No it's not. The Valenta engine has a really low mileage, so they're not going to bother.
21st Century BR? Well, they can barely fund Hospitals (I've heard stories that patients have found a suitible donor heart, but there is not enough money to perform the op!) and Schools as it is. And military spending is ludicrous. Then, look at the last attempt to nationalise. It ended with Dr. Beeching and now we're only just starting to reopen some of his closed branch lines.
Would a nationalised railway be able to cope with the financial burdens? There is quite simply no chance.
Great post! I fully agree, especially the fail safe draw hook and screw link coupling.What i really miss about now and the BR days is joined up thinking that they had in the rolling stock department and the apparent short-sightedness of the aquisition of Rolling Stock nowadays - it really bugs me and gets my goat!. I would love a return to BR myself but i'd accept just a little more standardisation of the rolling stock which could be dictated by the Government and ROSCO's at the contract acceptance stage.
Under BR most stock could couple up to each other within its own region etc (i.e. look at the post 1951 stock of the SR, buckeye couplers, 27 way jumpers - nearly everything working in multipull with each other and if worst came to worst all you did was drop the buckeye and couple a loco up to the exposed hook) there was no need for a rescue unit or loco to carry an adaptor and pretty much anything could haul anything else.
Nowadays its a 3 hour wait on a total failure while you find a thunderbird - the inevitable hastle to install the adaptor which sometimes just don't work, when years ago it would have been as simple to request the unit/loco behind to couple up and push the offending item of stock out of the way. Its not hard for the Government to ask for some form of uniformaty to the rolling stock fleet - especially as they have much tighter reigns over the stock aquisition nowaday.
Karl
No offense intended towards you me123 but the problem when mentioning beeching is that it's a two sided argument because if beeching were around today there would be a lot less mucking about like there is today.
And a few features of today railway could do with rationalization such as the amount of locos we have sitting around doing nothing I would imagine that unless they had some solid work to do they would be sold off straight away.
Also I truly think the man could make sense of the farse which is the game of cascading today of second generation units (the things change homes like NOMADS)
I don't know about anyone else, but if I was working for X TOC and got told it was all getting nationalised, I'd be annoyed. As if all the hard work in getting the TOC to be one of the best in the country counted for nothing.
0150 Fishguard Harbour to London Paddington
Bit optimistic! Isn't a Valenta given an overhaul every 18 months usually?not for at least a decade, surely? And Phoenix, it was not sold to EMT. It is still owed by the same owner.