Had British rail not been privatised. Would driver only operated extended trains elsewhere on the network.

[warwickshire]

1.Just looking at further information from the past on this subject had British rail not been privatised.
2.And also during the period 1992 to 1994 when it ran out off money due to privatisation pending 1994.
Would had it not been due to the top two causes above mentioned would driver only passenger operations extended elsewhere.
Ie fully all over south eastern on networkers ie Ashford dover margate.
Ie onto clacton on the great eastern
And especially 323 suburban Manchester and Birmingham areas? Or any other area?.
Any information or thoughts on this is welcome.

 

[JonathanH]

Every NSE introduction of new trains (other than 317s then 321s on the line from Euston and on the South Western division) came with DOO during the late 1980s and early 1990s but even there, decisions were made on certain lines not to implement DOO. It seems likely most of NSE would have followed.

 

[6Gman]

1.Just looking at further information from the past on this subject had British rail not been privatised.
2.And also during the period 1992 to 1994 when it ran out off money due to privatisation pending 1994.
Would had it not been due to the top two causes above mentioned would driver only passenger operations extended elsewhere.
Ie fully all over south eastern on networkers ie Ashford dover margate.
Ie onto clacton on the great eastern
And especially 323 suburban Manchester and Birmingham areas? Or any other area?.
Any information or thoughts on this is welcome.

Your question is not entirely clear but if you're asking:

1. Would DOO have been expanded had BR not been privatised?
2. Would the Manchester and Birmingham suburban services have been DOO?

I would suggest the answers would have been:

1. Yes.
2. Probably not, given some of the stations served (how would a passenger from Chelford obtain a ticket?).

 

[LowLevel]

The Regional Railways story by Gordon Pettit suggests that DOO was considered very briefly for the West Midlands suburban area but the idea never even made it off the drawing board when West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive declared they'd withdraw funding for any services operated without a guard. Consequently there was also no motivation for Chiltern Railways to look at running DOO North of Banbury when their services extended to there.

Might it have extended elsewhere? Very possibly.

Would it have been universal? I very much doubt it.

 

[Sm5]

Yes but station staffing levels wouldnt have risen to the levels we have today.

 

[warwickshire]

Your question is not entirely clear but if you're asking:

1. Would DOO have been expanded had BR not been privatised?
2. Would the Manchester and Birmingham suburban services have been DOO?

I would suggest the answers would have been:

1. Yes.
2. Probably not, given some of the stations served (how would a passenger from Chelford obtain a ticket?).

Yes that's the question.

 

[Watershed]

2. Probably not, given some of the stations served (how would a passenger from Chelford obtain a ticket?).

No differently to someone on any of the other minor stations on e.g. the Kings Lynn line, I would have thought.

 

[6Gman]

No differently to someone on any of the other minor stations on e.g. the Kings Lynn line, I would have thought.

And how is that?

(Genuine question; I'm not familiar with such operations.)

 

[delt1c]

And how is that?

(Genuine question; I'm not familiar with such operations.)

from a machine that would be installed

 

[Falcon1200]

1. Would DOO have been expanded had BR not been privatised?
2. Would the Manchester and Birmingham suburban services have been DOO?

I would suggest the answers would have been:

1. Yes.
2. Probably not, given some of the stations served (how would a passenger from Chelford obtain a ticket?).

Responding to 2, why not ? Much of Glasgow's suburban network is DOO, including many stations unstaffed for part or all of the day.

 

[JonathanH]

DOO doesn't have to mean only one member of staff on the train. Quite possible to have ticket examiners aboard.

Twyford to Henley / Reading to Bedwyn is DOO but also partly pay train lines. A ticket examiner is aboard many services.

 

[Gareth]

I don't see how there's any reliable way of knowing what would have happened over the last quarter of a century or so. Yes, British Rail had, in large parts, been pretty run down by the government and that policy may have continued or it may not.

To many, this question seems to be one of personal conviction and on what your position is on the nationalisation question today. If you're pro, then British Railways would've done everything better over the last two and a half decades. If you're against, it'd have been terrible.

 

[alf]

BR even extended full DOO to first generation DMUs with slam doors.
That is how Slough Windsor was operated for years before the sliding door turbos were introduced on the branch.

 

[david1212]

My view is that the treasury would have pressured BR to increase DOO as far as possible to reduce the overall subsidy to the railway.
How that would have played out with the unions able to call national rather than local / franchise area strikes is debatable.

 

[AY1975]

BR even extended full DOO to first generation DMUs with slam doors.
That is how Slough Windsor was operated for years before the sliding door turbos were introduced on the branch.

I never knew that - you learn something new every day!

Obviously Modernisation Plan era DMUs and EMUs weren't designed or equipped for DOO but I suppose they could get away with it on a fully self-contained branch line with no intermediate stations.

Did the Windsor branch DMUs need any modifications to enable them to operate DOO? If not, I presume they simply had to make sure that a member of station staff was available to dispatch the train at both ends of the line (which there probably was in those days).

 

[Falcon1200]

Obviously Modernisation Plan era DMUs and EMUs weren't designed or equipped for DOO but I suppose they could get away with it on a fully self-contained branch line with no intermediate stations.

Classes 303 and 314 (the latter not Modernisation Plan of course) were not designed for DOO, but in their cases were modified and operated as such for many years. One of the changes necessary was cab secure radio between Drivers and Signallers, did this apply to the Windsor branch ?

 

[LowLevel]

I never knew that - you learn something new every day!

Obviously Modernisation Plan era DMUs and EMUs weren't designed or equipped for DOO but I suppose they could get away with it on a fully self-contained branch line with no intermediate stations.

Did the Windsor branch DMUs need any modifications to enable them to operate DOO? If not, I presume they simply had to make sure that a member of station staff was available to dispatch the train at both ends of the line (which there probably was in those days).

It had emergency stop signals fitted on the line that could be operated.

I seem to recall it didn't last very long.