If only......

[Madge Wildfire]

Reading an article in the Railway Magazine, concerning the arrival of D1500 at Finsbury Park towards the end of September 1962, it occurred to me that had the BTC just waited a few more years and not had their rush to build large quantities of untried Pilot Scheme locomotives, the taxpayer could have been saved millions of pounds.

It might have meant a railway dieselised with only a small number of classes such as 08, 20, 31, 37, 47 (plus 55s hopefully) but built in even larger quantities than they actually were. And the savings may have led to either more rapid electrification, or volume production of a locomotive based on Kestrel with sub-classes for both freight and passenger work.

Ok, so Kestrel could cope with more 16t mineral wagons than the sidings could hold, but by 1968/9 the mgr idea was well under way and also the locos could have been deployed on aggregates, oil, and steel traffic which would have meant no need for later classes 56 and 58, thus saving even more money.

 

[Rugd1022]

Ah yes, the many and varied 'what ifs...' of the Modernistation Plan of 1955 and beyond...

What if...

* The BTC had stuck to their original idea and tested all of the Pilot Scheme Diesels before placing orders for the useful / reliable types...?

* The WR had been allowed to continue with their Diesel Hydraulic programme, ordering twenty six more Westerns, which the Board had already selected possible names for...?

*The WR management had accepted Misha Black's original design for the D800 Warships, which looked more like the Westerns with peaked cab roofs...?

*The Deltics had been delivered in one of the original proposed liveries of torquoise blue and numbered in the D1000 series instead of the actual D9000 one...?

*The ECML had been electrified at the same time as the WCML, as oroginally proposed (but the money ran out before it could be sanctioned!)...?

*The 999 BR Standard steam locos being built had fulfilled their expected life span, being kept working until 1980...?

*The BTC and BRB had rejected some of Beeching's line closures, keeping open cross country routes such as Rugby - Peterborough, Oxford - Cambridge etc, which would be useful as freight only lines now (even if all of the intermediate stations had to close)...?

The list could almost be endless couldn't it! My mind is now melting slightly at the thought of a fleet of Kestrels.....:roll:

 

[sprinterguy]

Yep, it would have been eminently more sensible and would have saved a lot of money if British Railways had taken more time to properly develop the 1955 modernisation plan, rather than engaging in a mad dash to oust steam as soon as possible.

Of course, hindsight is a wonderful thing, but if they had also been able to foresee the decline of branch lines and pick-up freight (Which was already taking hold when the modernisation plan was instigated) then BR could have done away with the need for many of the smaller standard tank engines as well as the wide range of generally unsuccessful Type 1 diesels and instead have just introduced the first gen DMUs. In that way, a number of branch and secondary lines that were in fact closed could probably have been reprieved.

If BR had pressed on with the standard steam programme to its' completion and retained steam in service in gradually reducing numbers until the late seventies, then there would have been much more time to develop a more coherent strategy of dieselisation, consisting of fewer, larger classes in each of the Type 1, 2, 3 and 4 categories (As Rugd1022 suggests) instead of the myriad designs we actually got, and a development of "Kestrel" in place of the eventually ordered 56s and 58s.

 

[table38]

But we'd have ended up with this:

http://www.fictitiousliveries.co.uk/photo.php?S_WC_SWT.jpg
http://www.fictitiousliveries.co.uk/photo.php?52074_fgw2.jpg
http://www.fictitiousliveries.co.uk/photo.php?S_A4_2_gner.jpg

 

[Buttsy]

The GC route would have been saved as a freight route to Midlands, Sheffield & Manchester & fully electrified following WCML.
Class 20 would have disappeared sooner as they basically worked as a type 4 loco.
Steam would have gone in the 70s due to the clean air act.
Intrduction of unstaffed stations and pay trains would have occured in the early/mid 60s.

 

[LE Greys]

Besides, there's a real chance that some of what is now Midland passenger traffic (Liverpool-Norwich, Cross-Country, even Sheffield-London) would have ended up on the GCML. If so, then the threat to St Pancras at the end of the 1960s might have resulted in its closure, with traffic diverting into Marylebone or Euston, depending on route re-alignment at Rugby. Still, if both lasted into the 1970s, the arrival of HSTs on the GCML would produce sub-two-hour regular schedules to Sheffield (the line would have taken extended 125 easily, unlike the MML).

But would we have had HSTs with electrification being more widespread? Would that not have made it more of an imperative to get APT working properly, for use on East Coast as well as West Coast? Perhaps we would have seen Electra-equivalent schedules on the ECML in the 1980s, and Pendolino-equivalent on the WCML. Then what? An electrified GWML? A gas turbine APT-G? A diesel APT-D (which I think was planned, basically a 221 with older technology).

One thing though, the railways would have been a lot less interesting in the 70s and 80s without all that variety.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

But we'd have ended up with this:

http://www.fictitiousliveries.co.uk/photo.php?S_WC_SWT.jpg
http://www.fictitiousliveries.co.uk/photo.php?52074_fgw2.jpg
http://www.fictitiousliveries.co.uk/photo.php?S_A4_2_gner.jpg

I wouldn't mind seeing Northern Rail livery on a WD Austerity 2-8-0 that ran in vast numbers in that franchaise area.

 

[Buttsy]

How much more funding would the railways got if BR hadn't been privatised??????

 

[Madge Wildfire]

But we'd have ended up with this:

http://www.fictitiousliveries.co.uk/photo.php?S_WC_SWT.jpg
http://www.fictitiousliveries.co.uk/photo.php?52074_fgw2.jpg
http://www.fictitiousliveries.co.uk/photo.php?S_A4_2_gner.jpg

Actually, I quite like the FGW Western.

 

[LE Greys]

How much more funding would the railways got if BR hadn't been privatised??????

BR would lose a lot less money than now, since they would not have all the additional costs of paying shareholders of so many different companies to run the same service. On the other hand, rail freight might not be doing as well as it is, since that is the real success of privatisation. BR could probably have done just as well with good management, but we'll never know that.

 

[ACE1888]

Some good points raised here, only trouble is you can't changed what's already happened..can you???
a 'Western' in Barbie Livery?? no, nay, never...

 

[150222]

Will the railway ever be re-nationalised? It has been before. OK not in the same way but is it possible now?

 

[60163]

But we'd have ended up with this:

http://www.fictitiousliveries.co.uk/photo.php?S_WC_SWT.jpg
http://www.fictitiousliveries.co.uk/photo.php?52074_fgw2.jpg
http://www.fictitiousliveries.co.uk/photo.php?S_A4_2_gner.jpg

Had no idea that site existed, thanks! Awesome stuff

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

On the other hand, rail freight might not be doing as well as it is, since that is the real success of privatisation.

Can't disagree with you on that point.

 

[ACE1888]

Can't disagree with you on that point.

Like most things there are pro's and con's, Beeching (he of the Axe) started the freight 'revolution' looking back on it. The biggest 'disappointment' to me is the total lack of 'flexibility' with modern day 'fixed' formations and the seemingly continual policy of price rises without improving the stock situation, not from the enthusiast side of 'loco hauled' trains, but the general public's RIGHT to travel and sit in comfort..don't start me on Voyagers .....

 

[Madge Wildfire]

Some good points raised here, only trouble is you can't changed what's already happened..can you???

No, but my point was not really 'what if' such and such had happened, but just how short the time scale was between the first proper BR main line diesels appearing in 1957 and the appearance of the most successful freight loco of that era (class 37) in late 1960, followed by the most successful passenger loco (class 47) in Sep 1962.

And if you consider that two of the classes that did appear in 1957 (20 and 31) went on to be very long serving and reliable machines, it is amazing how the answer to most of the BTC's prayers concerning dieselisation was so tantalisingly close without them knowing it.