squizzler
Established Member
Before privatisation occurred, British Rail was venerated by all as a public service and enjoyed the same emotional attachment in the minds of the British public as the NHS does today
I've heard about this. Where is this lift shaft please?
In the spirit of the OP's Grand Central comment, I'd suggest the Thatcher quote that "A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure" << there's no evidence that she said this but it gets trotted out pretty often as proof that she hated public transport - and the more it gets quoted, the more people repeat it as truth (it may fit with our opinion of what she might have thought but she treated the railway reasonably well - one of the few bits of the State that she left alone in comparison to other industries - not that I'm defending everything she did).
That depends if you just read the headline of a Vivarail press release, a quick internet search without taking a real interest in an article itself certainly suggests they are claiming it's a new train.
You make a very good point. One caveat however: many people who are interested in railways also blame Dr. Beeching for every closure. This forum frequently provides example of that!Concerning the bolded gentleman: very many ordinary folk with no big railway / transport interest, appear to take it for granted that -- and talk as though -- he were responsible for absolutely all passenger railway closures in Great Britain, pretty well "from 1855 to 2015". i have a theory -- mentioned before on these Forums -- that the name has so lodged in the nation's collective mind, because he sounds so extremely right for his role. "Doctor" -- a would-be healer, whether genius or deranged charlatan / butcher; and "Beeching" -- can be read as a coined word meaning "removing dead wood": whether that was being validly done, or whether it was a tragic mistake.
Stoke-on-Trent?
Reims. Saw it last year. Walked on the third rail, survived.
Concerning the Great Central, my understanding is the London Extension was built to help provide through running to the continent through a Channel Tunnel. Is this true and could it be the reason for the built to a Continental Gauge myth if it is?
Virgin still run Cross-Country.
You mean the 'Virgin Voyagers'!That one seems incredibly persistent, and will probably last as long as the Voyagers!
How about this one just witnessed, that the doors will open just for you if you press the button enough times, despite said button being unlit; what do you think the rest of us on the cold platform at quarter to six are waiting for, frostbite?
How about the myth that persists amongst rail enthusiasts that the rail industry is uniquely incompetent to have suffered delays on the introduction of new rolling stock or cost over-runs in upgrading the infrastructure.
By comparison, the motor business' technical mastery and "can-do" attitude means that we will, in a year or two, be used to being driven around by driverless electric cars. Airlines are so much better managed than TOC's that it is practically unheard of for one to ever have gone bust. And highway construction works are so successful that traffic jams in the area magically disappear overnight, the local environment is greatly improved, and the bypassed high street fills to bursting with a vibrant economy of independent local shops. Highway works are done well within time and budget, not that they needed to be of course because the BCR is an order of magnitude higher than any rail project and it would still have been good value at several times the cost.
Oddly enough, I was talking to someone about this quote yesterday (after she was complaining about unsavoury types on her bus). While it's almost certainly apocryphal and there's no proof she said it, I think it's persistent and accepted as truth because it does sound like the sort of thing she'd say, and because so many people hate her.
As time goes on, my feelings are decidedly mixed. She did some terrible things, but she was a beacon of competence compared to the current shower in charge.
Good points.
I'm the kind of left-of-centre person who's coming round to the idea of an effective right-of-centre leader (e.g. Merkell) rather than a well-meaning-but-useless left leaning leader (e.g. and Ed Milliband). I hate the current crop of MPs for making Thatcher look less-bad. Weird times.
Also "the Borders railway significantly beat passenger forecasts" (which I've seen mentioned many times on here). Not really. It did well for the first six months (or so), then settled down to the expected passenger numbers. The proposals got the numbers right, they just expected it to take a year to get up to a certain number of passengers rather than a swifter change. In the long term the effect of this faster switch to using the railway (but getting the numbers correct after twelve months) is fairly insignificant, but it made for a lot of positive headlines in the early months.
The cynic in me wonders whether part of the initial good-looking passenger numbers were the boost of all the media focus/ the steam services/ the wrongly priced £1 tickets to various places in Scotland (e.g. a nominal price of a quid was put in the fares database so it was cheaper to buy a return from Tweedbank to East Kilbride than from Edinburgh to Glasgow, so people in the know would buy tickets starting from Tweedbank, hence the passenger numbers on the branch looking artificially better for a few months).
Maybe it was all genuine passengers and nobody took advantage of the £1 fares (!), but the end result is the same - passenger numbers now seem to be broadly in line with where they are expected to be - maybe the forecasts will be tweaked slightly to show that people nowadays are quicker to adapt to new stations/ services/ lines, but the battle was never going to be won or lost in the first six months - people should be careful using the Borders example as justification for why their pet project should go ahead.
Speaking of Borders rail, and this is more of an enthusiasts' myth:
Tweedbank to Carlisle reopening will happen and is needed. Once it does, trains will be packed.
Mr Millibean, btw, would I think have made a better prime minister than he did an opposition leader, a sort of New Labour version of John Major, but it says a lot about this country, none of it good, that a. inability to eat a bacon sarnie elegantly is considered a more heinous offence than leavig a pub without all your children b. that this sort of media-driven twaddle is considered more important than someone's policies, and ability to implement them competently.
Train timetablers can make any service work, regardless of complexity, if only they tried a bit harder.