Bring back british rail!

[Zoe]

I speak as I find. Privatisation brought focus on staff training in customer service skills, and recruitment of staff who are customer oriented. It was particularly striking on WCML when Virgin took over.

What evidence do you have that there would not have been a change under BR?

 

[steamybrian]

OK -I admit I am a retired BR employee who left when employed by Railtrack but I was disgusted to see the teamwork and organisation built up over the years just breaking up in front of me. It is summed in the film "The Navigators" which illustrates this superbly.
Yes in the last years of BR some trains and stations were run down but only by the Government policies of running them down due to starving of them investment ready for privatisation . There were many major investment schemes of the late 1980s and early 1990s where modernisation did occur. Here in Kent we had Eurostar and HS1 which were completed just before BR died.
In BR days we all worked together and if one department had extra work then we helped each other which you cannot do today because it is all different companies. If a train failed then we got the nearest available spare loco or stock to help but today it is case of everyone looking after their own equipment.
A ticket between A and B was valid on any train. Now if you buy a ticket from one company then it is only valid on that companies train (there some inter-availability exceptions).
Behind the scenes there are teams of accountants working out how much to pay Network Rail for using the track or to another company for using their stock or manpower. This did not happen in BR because it was all the same company.
The staff in BR were experienced railwaymen but today at local stations many staff are on short term contracts with little experience. Two of my friends are employed at stations in London (with many others) by a contractor to man stations.
Finally I do casual work as a consultant for a railway contractor who hires and fires staff. This would never have happened under BR. Yes I know I am one of the old guard but would you employ someone with 33 years railway experience or 3 months. Heritage Railways are a fine example of integration as per the old days of BR of everyone working together.

 

[87015]

I didn't say 'all'. But I regularly suffered unreliable 87s on Mk3s on a WCML that was forever having infrastructure failures! Virgin brought in fast and reliable Pendelinos and as part of the deal got WCML infrastructure greatly improved.

Interesting quote. When Virgin came in they changed the WCML AC electric maintenance regime, within three months 87 availability had dropped by 33%. Red/Grey hired in loco workings were far far more common for Virgin than they ever were under Intercity.

 

[Zoe]

A ticket between A and B was valid on any train.

If it was an Apex ticket it would only have been valid on one train.

 

[RichW1]

So you've seen the speedometer then?

The speedometer's on the trains! I had one on my phone too and that gave me the same readings. Even with tolerances you can't mistake 110 or 115mph for 125!!

 

[Zoe]

The speedometer's on the trains!

I believe what you see is linked to GPS and not the actual speedometer in the cab.

 

[CosherB]

What evidence do you have that there would not have been a change under BR?

About 50 years of experience of BR! If it was going to change, it had plenty of time so to do - and it didn't. Post privatisation, the change was almost an overnight transformation!

I can't imagine any evidence stronger than that!

 

[Minilad]

The speedometer's on the trains! I had one on my phone too and that gave me the same readings. Even with tolerances you can't mistake 110 or 115mph for 125!!

Well i have never seen a speedo on a HST other than in a cab.
And phone speedos are far from accurate in my experience.

 

[Zoe]

About 50 years of experience of BR! If it was going to change, it had plenty of time so to do - and it didn't. Post privatisation, the change was almost an overnight transformation!

I can't imagine any evidence stronger than that!

Times change, BR had recently been restructured to run as business units before privatization. Staff could have become more customer friendly without privatization.

 

[AlterEgo]

A ticket between A and B was valid on any train. Now if you buy a ticket from one company then it is only valid on that companies train (there some inter-availability exceptions).

No, the vast majority of tickets people buy are inter-available.

 

[RichW1]

Still can't explain a 10-15mph differential on most of the journey's. You can see it/feel it too. We've all done enough journeys to see the difference between 110 and 125mph. It's marked and so would my journey time be if drivers weren't told to never go at full speed or whatever it is they're told not to do. Let's say GPS is wronf and the TV's in the seats on the train are wrong...it wouldn't explain such a large differential...GPS isn't that innacurate!...Though I'll bet a 30 year old speedo might be!

 

[Aictos]

IMHO, under privatisation I would have created areas similar to the former BR Regions with one operator in each area running local services & a separate operator running InterCity services.

I would simplify ticketing so that all operators have to use one standard type of advance ticket & better co-operation between TOCs.


---
I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=53.808947,-3.015077

I would just follow the Transport Scotland model and have the former BR liveries brought back with a simple decal on the doors which for trains operating on the Great Northern route would be in NSE livery and have "Operated by First" on the doors.

Job done, no need for fancy paintjobs at all and when a different operator takes over such as Go-Via, just replace First with Go-Via.

They already do this with the London buses successfully and with the railway in Scotland so should use it for the rest of the railway.

Ticketing does have to be more simple, you're quite right in stating that but what really needs to end is the delay blame culture - yes performance matters but there are others ways of improving performance without having to operate a delay blame culture.

Also Customer Information needs to be better, I boarded a East Coast train this week at 12:38 with the guard apologising for the 10 minute delay which was due to signalling problems in the Grantham area - got to my destination and were the announcements stating EC delays were due to the signalling problems? Nope, not at all even 3 to 4 hours after the guard explained it on my incoming train, did any announcements were broadcast advising of this were made on the station.

Passengers deserve better, as soon as any information is known then it should be disseminated to all.

 

[CosherB]

OK -I admit I am a retired BR employee who left when employed by Railtrack but I was disgusted to see the teamwork and organisation built up over the years just breaking up in front of me. It is summed in the film "The Navigators" which illustrates this superbly.

I agree that Railtrack was very bad news for the railway. The way they discontinued the knowledge base in the infrastructure was scandalous. But that alone does not make privatisation a bad thing.

Yes in the last years of BR some trains and stations were run down but only by the Government policies of running them down due to starving of them investment ready for privatisation .

The run-down was not a preperation for anything; it was a result of rail underfunding by all colours of government. It got to the stage where the railway was about to fail big time through underfunding. Shovelling the funds directly into BR was politically unacceptable to voters, so the politicians privatised rail instead. That not only ensured the funding, but introduced better business practices and a more customer-focussed organisation.

 

[Minilad]

Still can't explain a 10-15mph differential on most of the journey's. You can see it/feel it too. We've all done enough journeys to see the difference between 110 and 125mph. It's marked and so would my journey time be if drivers weren't told to never go at full speed or whatever it is they're told not to do. Let's say GPS is wronf and the TV's in the seats on the train are wrong...it wouldn't explain such a large differential...GPS isn't that innacurate!...Though I'll bet a 30 year old speedo might be!

Sorry but this is just rubbish

 

[CosherB]

Times change, BR had recently been restructured to run as business units before privatization. Staff could have become more customer friendly without privatization.

Lots of things 'could' have happened. Thing is, in business one has to MAKE them happen (it's called effective management), and BR wasn't doing that. The TOCs did!

 

[Zoe]

Lots of things 'could' have happened. Thing is, in business one has to MAKE them happen (it's called effective management), and BR wasn't doing that. The TOCs did!

That doesn't prove that there wouldn't have been a change had the railways not been privatized. Don't forget as I said above that just before privatization BR was restructured to run as businesses.

 

[I like Class 153]

Yeah bring back British Rail

 

[Aictos]

Times change, BR had recently been restructured to run as business units before privatization. Staff could have become more customer friendly without privatization.

Wasn't there a drive by BR for their staff to be more friendly towards passengers with their "I can Help" campaign?

Yep, sure was:

[youtube]vLA7Q-pPQhQ[/youtube]

 

[yorksrob]

I didn't say 'all'. But I regularly suffered unreliable 87s on Mk3s on a WCML that was forever having infrastructure failures! Virgin brought in fast and reliable Pendelinos and as part of the deal got WCML infrastructure greatly improved. The bottom line is we now have largely new trains compared to BR days, far better reliability, better safety despite higher speeds and more trains, and bright stations like Manchester Piccadilly.

Well, you could say that about any part of the railway towards the end of its investment cycle. There's no doubt that a fairly comprehensive route modernisation would have been on the cards for the WCML pretty soon. It just so happens that Chiltern and South East London were before you in the queue at the beginning of the 1990's. On Northern, we're coming towards the end of the cycle at the moment, so (hopefully) we should see some investment in the next fifteen years.

Precisely my point. Under BR the money was NEVER going to be available from the Treasury to run a proper railway (it's not a vote winner like new roads are). It took privatisation to wring the money out of government.

But investment did take place during the BR era. Infact this was being increased in line with the increase in passengers during the late 1980's. I don't think we can assume that this wouldn't have continued without privatisation.

 

[RichW1]

Sorry but this is just rubbish

OK well I thought speedos were computer accurate by now so I'll agree the idea of a speedo is rubbish...but not the differential. A GPS will not be innacurate by as much as 15mph which a huge amount! Also over 100 miles there's several minutes added to a journey by not using the maximum speed of the train. If Great Western wants to take that attitude, they might as well just tell them all to not drive over 100 because there's plenty of padding and it saves fuel. What's the point? Might as well have a race to the bottom as the lower the speed, the less fuel used.

We had a time when we used MPH to shorten journey times....but no more. What angers me is that even if journey times were not cared about anymore (which they're really not in most cases), the least Great Western could do is not go even slower than the already low speeds here. Every mph counts when you only have 125mph top speed and every effort used to be taken to speed up journey times. Believe me, 5 minutes would be most welcome on such a slow journey from Bristol!

 

[CosherB]

Wasn't there a drive by BR for their staff to be more friendly towards passengers with their "I can Help" campaign?

Yep, sure was:

[youtube clip]

Tinkering around the edges. It needed the sort of root and branch revolution only a major change of culture can bring.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Well, you could say that about any part of the railway towards the end of its investment cycle. There's no doubt that a fairly comprehensive route modernisation would have been on the cards for the WCML pretty soon. It just so happens that Chiltern and South East London were before you in the queue at the beginning of the 1990's. On Northern, we're coming towards the end of the cycle at the moment, so (hopefully) we should see some investment in the next fifteen years.



But investment did take place during the BR era. Infact this was being increased in line with the increase in passengers during the late 1980's. I don't think we can assume that this wouldn't have continued without privatisation.

Again, tinkering. It needed major change to take us from the run-down BR railway to the much better railway we have today. No amount of wishful thinking can take the place of massivly bigger investment. And that massivly bigger investment came witn privatisation - it wasn't going to come without that!

 

[Schnellzug]

Times change, BR had recently been restructured to run as business units before privatization. Staff could have become more customer friendly without privatization.

Yes, and that brought with it the demise of the old unified British Rail that others have so nostalgically referred to. TBQH, I think sectorisation was the worst thing that happened since the Modernisation Plan.

 

[Zoe]

Yes, and that brought with it the demise of the old unified British Rail that others have so nostalgically referred to. TBQH, I think sectorisation was the worst thing that happened since the Modernisation Plan.

I agree with that as it was quite a shift from public service to business. However I think even with a public service you can still have customer friendly staff.

 

[Minilad]

I am still trying to get my head around the thought that the privatised railway is customer (passenger) friendly

 

[Schnellzug]

Still can't explain a 10-15mph differential on most of the journey's. You can see it/feel it too. We've all done enough journeys to see the difference between 110 and 125mph. It's marked and so would my journey time be if drivers weren't told to never go at full speed or whatever it is they're told not to do. Let's say GPS is wronf and the TV's in the seats on the train are wrong...it wouldn't explain such a large differential...GPS isn't that innacurate!...Though I'll bet a 30 year old speedo might be!

But you said that they often still have to wait time, didn't you? What they've done, certainly, is allow more time in the schedules, so it's not like it's the drivers aren't bothering that's the problem. If there is a problem, it's that extra allowance has been built into the schedules; that, and that the lines, getting nearer to London certainly, nearly everywhere are pretty much at maximum capacity, so you'd probably be hitting yellows all the time if you did belt along at full speed all the time. I'm pretty sure the drivers know exactly how to time things so that they can keep running under clear signals and keep to schedule. Not to mention that it saves fuel by not driving like jeremy Clarkson all the time.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Wasn't there a drive by BR for their staff to be more friendly towards passengers with their "I can Help" campaign?

Yep, sure was:

[youtube]vLA7Q-pPQhQ[/youtube]

"British Rail have come up with something called Customer Care". I like how they make it sound as if it's such a radical concept.

 

[CosherB]

I am still trying to get my head around the thought that the privatised railway is customer (passenger) friendly

Ha! I don't think anyone claimed that! Just that far more of its staff are than were in BR days!

Though it would be true to say that the privatised railway is more passenger friendly than was BR. Still a long way to go, though!

 

[Minilad]

But you said that they often still have to wait time, didn't you? What they've done, certainly, is allow more time in the schedules, so it's not like it's the drivers aren't bothering that's the problem. If there is a problem, it's that extra allowance has been built into the schedules; that, and that the lines, getting nearer to London certainly, nearly everywhere are pretty much at maximum capacity, so you'd probably be hitting yellows all the time if you did belt along at full speed all the time. I'm pretty sure the drivers know exactly how to time things so that they can keep running under clear signals and keep to schedule. Not to mention that it saves fuel by not driving like jeremy Clarkson all the time.

Pretty much sums it up. Comparing point to point times from 20 or 30 years ago is pretty irrelevant as there are far more trains around now. And don't forget a lot of the fastest times from years ago were often on limited stop trains and these days there tend to be more stops

 

[The Planner]

They are using the engineering allowances in the schedule to back off and save fuel by the sounds of it. They still keep to the timetable but aren't hitting linespeed, all that would happen if they did is that they arrive early, await time and move off again.

 

[phil8715]

I didn't say 'all'. But I regularly suffered unreliable 87s on Mk3s on a WCML that was forever having infrastructure failures! Virgin brought in fast and reliable Pendelinos and as part of the deal got WCML infrastructure greatly improved. The bottom line is we now have largely new trains compared to BR days, far better reliability, better safety despite higher speeds and more trains, and bright stations like Manchester Piccadilly.

Precisely my point. Under BR the money was NEVER going to be available from the Treasury to run a proper railway (it's not a vote winner like new roads are). It took privatisation to wring the money out of government.

Give me a class 87 and a set of mk3's any day of the week. The pendolino is the most uncomfortable train I've ever had the misfortune of travelling on.

I only reason why class 87's became unreliable was because Virgin Trains ran them into the ground.

I often wish that the government would re-nationalise the railways but I don't think it will ever happen. As its too fragmented.

I thought Labour when they took office in 1997 that was one of their main pledges in their manifesto.

It wouldn't have been so bad if they left it with the Pre privatisation having the Business Sectors ie IWCA intercity West Coast Main Line.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[Zoe]

I thought Labour when they took office in 1997 that was one of their main pledges in their manifesto.

No it wasn't:

The process of rail privatisation is now largely complete. It has made fortunes for a few, but has been a poor deal for the taxpayer. It has fragmented the network and now threatens services. Our task will be to improve the situation as we find it, not as we wish it to be. Our overriding goal must be to win more passengers and freight on to rail. The system must be run in the public interest with higher levels of investment and effective enforcement of train operators' service commitments. There must be convenient connections, through-ticketing and accurate travel information for the benefit of all passengers.

To achieve these aims, we will establish more effective and accountable regulation by the rail regulator; we will ensure that the public subsidy serves the public interest; and we will establish a new rail authority, combining functions currently carried out by the rail franchiser and the Department of Transport, to provide a clear, coherent and strategic programme for the development of the railways so that passenger expectations are met.