Springs Branch
Established Member
With some spare time recently, I've been reading a bit of "alternative history" fiction - e.g. Len Deighton's book SS-GB, set in a Britain after the Nazis had invaded and successfully taken control in the 1940s.
This prompted thoughts about possible alternative railway histories.
For example, suppose the outcome of the 1984-85 Miners' Strike had been different.
Say the government & NCB caved in and Scargill and the strikers won.
Despite the win, presumably deep coal mining in the UK would have continued its long-term downward trend. But with a much slower rate of colliery closures and a less steep drop-off in employment than actually occurred in the 1980s and 90s.
And decarbonising imperatives related to climate change would have come into play at a similar pace that they have in the "real world".
So by the 2020s we would probably have ended up in a similar position regarding haulage of coal by rail.
What are some of the differences that would have been seen in railfreight and the general BR landscapes in the decades following a successful miners' strike? - say from 1985 to 2010.
For example, some possible effects on BR's coal business:-
And more general knock-on effects:-
This prompted thoughts about possible alternative railway histories.
For example, suppose the outcome of the 1984-85 Miners' Strike had been different.
Say the government & NCB caved in and Scargill and the strikers won.
Despite the win, presumably deep coal mining in the UK would have continued its long-term downward trend. But with a much slower rate of colliery closures and a less steep drop-off in employment than actually occurred in the 1980s and 90s.
And decarbonising imperatives related to climate change would have come into play at a similar pace that they have in the "real world".
So by the 2020s we would probably have ended up in a similar position regarding haulage of coal by rail.
What are some of the differences that would have been seen in railfreight and the general BR landscapes in the decades following a successful miners' strike? - say from 1985 to 2010.
For example, some possible effects on BR's coal business:-
- Many collieries and the branch lines serving them would stay open for years longer than they actually did.
- There would have been minimal bulk coal imports transshipped through ports like Liverpool and Hunterston.
- Many traditional MGR flows would have been retained for years longer (e.g. from Yorkshire to Fiddlers Ferry).
- The Settle & Carlisle line would not have become busy shifting imported coal from Scotland to the English power stations.
- Pit-head loading infrastructure and axle load limits on colliery lines maybe meant MGR trains of 32t HAA wagons lasted longer, with fewer opportunities to introduce high-capacity bogie hoppers.
And more general knock-on effects:-
- With the Conservative government's agenda "derailed" by a major union victory, a reduced appetite for comprehensive railway privatisation in the next decade.
- Assuming a Conservative government continued in office (and Kinnock did not become PM), would there still have been some sort of rail Privatisation-Lite? (e.g. profitable BR sectors like InterCity still sold off, but no Railtrack plc or ROSCOs?)
- Even without any privatisation initiatives from Westminster, would subsequent EU Directives eventually nudge towards open-access provisions on BR?.
- No ubiquitous fleet of Class 66 (at least not the imported EMD variety), in favour of ongoing development & construction of new "British" freight locomotives.