Privatisation vs nationalisation vs the RoW

[LNW-GW Joint]

Technology moves on, something the railway habitually ignores.
Many things are "smart" today and many transactions are electronic rather than person-to-person.
This affects railways just as much as retail or banking, or the meter reader.
You might not have a local bank or station ticket office, but you have a much wider range of services at your internet fingertips.
In fact the railway is still playing catch-up, with orange paper tickets and lights on sticks still the norm.
If the railway was nationalised (I would argue it pretty much already is), it would still have to recognise the march of technology since 1996.

 

[coppercapped]

We do know.

It's for Government to decide public policy, and even if BR had been in a position to lobby, they might have decided that agitating against the CCO was a dead duck having seen their predecessors get nowhere with it.

From 1948 the British Transport Commission (BTC) was the organisation which was responsible for all inland transport in the UK including railways and inland waterways. 'British Railways' was the public name of the Railway Executive which was the body administering railways and which, nominally at least, was directed by the BTC.

It would have been the BTC, not the RE, which should have lobbied for the removal of the common carriage obligations as these also affected canal traffic. In all my readings of the history of the immediate post-war period I have not come across any reference to any activity undertaken by the BTC for the removal of the CCO. By the mid-1950s when the BTC did start making noises, it was all too late.

The very fact of nationalisation of inland transport, which at one period even included 'for hire' road transport, meant that all goods travelling more than, IIRC, 30 miles would have to be transported by one or other branches of a Government monopoly. So from the BTC's perspective it didn't matter whether the goods were carried by rail, road or canal - it was paid anyway. As long as total income was equal to, or slightly larger than, total expenditure the BTC had met its obligations. However by the late 1940s and early 1950s the more flexible road operators found ways round and through the regulations covering road transport and the railway's share of freight traffic fell. At this point the costs pressures started to mount and, in a replay of the situation in the 1930s, the price increases granted by the Traffic Commissioners were limited and late. And still, until the end of its existence in its initial guise in 1953, the BTC made no apparent attempt to break out of this straitjacket.

The point was that the BTC administered rather than managed the inland transport system, its remit was to 'break even taking one year with another', and from 1953 it administered rather than managed BR alone. It was accepted by both Labour and Conservatives during the post-war period that a subsidy might be necessary but from 1955 onwards the dramatic rise in its size started to reach levels which were unaffordable.

The BTC should have strived to have the Common Carrier obligations removed much earlier - for the same reasons that the "Big 4" gave. But as I have stated previously the Attlee Government were collectively economic ignoramuses - the 1947 Transport Act made no attempt to accept that the economic pressures which were already visible in the 1930s would continue post war. Collectively the Attlee Government's actions and the BTC's inaction made the financial collapse of the mid-1950s inevitable.

 

[SamYeager]

It's just based on the way the profit motive seems to be creeping into everything these days; whereas in the past it was " and just have the government make the shortfall, this is not seen as politically acceptable these days.

Being "acceptable to run things at a loss" also meant there was no incentive to decide between "nice to have" and "essential". Like most of these discussions posters seem to fall into an "either/or" position. On balance I feel privatisation has been beneficial but that doesn't mean that central government shouldn't have tried to bring in some of the better nationalised bits during the last labour government however it's too late for that now. With the increased centralisation we're now getting the worst bits of nationalisation such as DfT short term thinking and increased Treasury control over funding without any of the advantages.

 

[HH]

It's just based on the way the profit motive seems to be creeping into everything these days; whereas in the past it was acceptable to run things at a loss and just have the government make the shortfall, this is not seen as politically acceptable these days. The decline of rural bus services (private, but funded by the council so public money) is a good example of what I'm talking about. Even in the private sector things are going downhill too; while the profit motive was always there it seems to be even more rigorously enforced these days. Witness how local branches of my bank (and I'm in a city) have closed and been replaced by a new branch where you have to wait longer to do things like bank transfer.

I will admit that I perhaps use unprofitable services more than the average person; for instance I don't drive and therefore am more likely to notice cuts in more esoteric bus routes than many others.

But that's something different - the services are being run by private companies, who do have a profit motive. It's arguable whether that is a good or bad thing, but I've seen some the public service bus companies and some of the private and you'd have to be very blinkered to think that every publicly owned company had a better public service ethos.

Besides the real reason for cuts in bus routes is that government (both national and local) has reduced funding.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

The BTC should have strived to have the Common Carrier obligations removed much earlier - for the same reasons that the "Big 4" gave. But as I have stated previously the Attlee Government were collectively economic ignoramuses - the 1947 Transport Act made no attempt to accept that the economic pressures which were already visible in the 1930s would continue post war. Collectively the Attlee Government's actions and the BTC's inaction made the financial collapse of the mid-1950s inevitable.

The Attlee Government , for all of the failure to deliver a quick return to the consumer benefits of the 1930's (with better social comfort for all - bar just the wealthy) were obviously magnificently compromised by the immense fiscal challenges of debt and frankly "survival" in an age of deep , non banker led Austerity. Their legacy in social housing and health care is immense - and now recognised in recent books. The Tories would have done none of that. (Good old Winston just loved wars and similar strategy)

As far as the railways were concerned , they could have acted more commercially - and probably wanted to - but were told in no uncompromising terms , to carry on, in exhausted and often "dangerous" situation (note the number of derailments etc 1945 to 1955) , saddled with not enough replacement resources for track and traction ,let alone paint and cleaning materials. They ought certainly have taken major axes to branch lines which had no purpose in a modern Britain , and done simple things like streamlining freight services to better fit the market , - you only have to look at that glorious film "Fully Fitted Freight" to challenge the question why a so called ace" freight to the North was loaded in an open (ex Midland yard) , with traffic transhipped from ex GWR routes , roaded across , and again reloaded in the open. The 447 pm train should have left from the much better facilities of Temple Meads Goods , - and no doubt a million other lost chances - in a simple village like Brynamman in South Wales - 2 "competing" freight yards survived till line closure in 1964 - one ex GW and one ex LMS.

 

[yorksrob]

From 1948 the British Transport Commission (BTC) was the organisation which was responsible for all inland transport in the UK including railways and inland waterways. 'British Railways' was the public name of the Railway Executive which was the body administering railways and which, nominally at least, was directed by the BTC.

It would have been the BTC, not the RE, which should have lobbied for the removal of the common carriage obligations as these also affected canal traffic. In all my readings of the history of the immediate post-war period I have not come across any reference to any activity undertaken by the BTC for the removal of the CCO. By the mid-1950s when the BTC did start making noises, it was all too late.

The very fact of nationalisation of inland transport, which at one period even included 'for hire' road transport, meant that all goods travelling more than, IIRC, 30 miles would have to be transported by one or other branches of a Government monopoly. So from the BTC's perspective it didn't matter whether the goods were carried by rail, road or canal - it was paid anyway. As long as total income was equal to, or slightly larger than, total expenditure the BTC had met its obligations. However by the late 1940s and early 1950s the more flexible road operators found ways round and through the regulations covering road transport and the railway's share of freight traffic fell. At this point the costs pressures started to mount and, in a replay of the situation in the 1930s, the price increases granted by the Traffic Commissioners were limited and late. And still, until the end of its existence in its initial guise in 1953, the BTC made no apparent attempt to break out of this straitjacket.

The point was that the BTC administered rather than managed the inland transport system, its remit was to 'break even taking one year with another', and from 1953 it administered rather than managed BR alone. It was accepted by both Labour and Conservatives during the post-war period that a subsidy might be necessary but from 1955 onwards the dramatic rise in its size started to reach levels which were unaffordable.

The BTC should have strived to have the Common Carrier obligations removed much earlier - for the same reasons that the "Big 4" gave. But as I have stated previously the Attlee Government were collectively economic ignoramuses - the 1947 Transport Act made no attempt to accept that the economic pressures which were already visible in the 1930s would continue post war. Collectively the Attlee Government's actions and the BTC's inaction made the financial collapse of the mid-1950s inevitable.

The fact remains that the railway had a statutory obligation to facilitate and plan for the common carrier obligation. In that respect, spending modernisation plan funding on it was understandable. Far more understandable than the decision of a strand of management in the 1960's to continue Beechings disasterous policy of slashing route mileage at all costs, regardless of whether operational costs could be reduced or not.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Frankly , the biggest post war disaster was the ill-thought out 1994 Railways Act , - discuss .......(extra marks for examples of the benefits or not - of privatisation...)

 

[coppercapped]

The fact remains that the railway had a statutory obligation to facilitate and plan for the common carrier obligation. In that respect, spending modernisation plan funding on it was understandable. Far more understandable than the decision of a strand of management in the 1960's to continue Beechings disasterous policy of slashing route mileage at all costs, regardless of whether operational costs could be reduced or not.

The Modernisation Plan was published in 1955 and the first results were seen a year or two later. By that date the BTC was trying to get the limitations of the Common Carrier obligations eased, see the BR Annual Reports and other published statements and speeches. Indeed the Traffic Commissioners did react more quickly - so it was clear to the BTC that the CCO was on it's way out and it was indeed abolished by the 1962 Transport Act.

So you are claiming that the millions spent on marshalling yards and Type 2 diesels to operate the traffic made unavoidable by the Railway and Canal Traffic Act 1854 was inevitable? I would point out that 327 Class 25 locomotives were built between 1961 and 1967 by which time the Railway and Canal Traffic Act 1854 was already dead for 5 years.

This is an almost criminal waste of money - building locomotives to fulfil a legal requirement that no longer existed.

 

[yorksrob]

So you are claiming that the millions spent on marshalling yards and Type 2 diesels to operate the traffic made unavoidable by the Railway and Canal Traffic Act 1854 was inevitable? I would point out that 327 Class 25 locomotives were built between 1961 and 1967 by which time the Railway and Canal Traffic Act 1854 was already dead for 5 years.

This is an almost criminal waste of money - building locomotives to fulfil a legal requirement that no longer existed.

Built between 1961 and 1967 eh ? During the height of the Beeching revolution.

And people claim that they couldn't afford to rationalise marginal routes rather than close them !

 

[ninja-lewis]

The Attlee Government , for all of the failure to deliver a quick return to the consumer benefits of the 1930's (with better social comfort for all - bar just the wealthy) were obviously magnificently compromised by the immense fiscal challenges of debt and frankly "survival" in an age of deep , non banker led Austerity. Their legacy in social housing and health care is immense - and now recognised in recent books. The Tories would have done none of that. (Good old Winston just loved wars and similar strategy.

You might be surprised if you actually read the 1945 Conservative manifesto.

http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/man/con45.htm

 

[coppercapped]

Built between 1961 and 1967 eh ? During the height of the Beeching revolution.

And people claim that they couldn't afford to rationalise marginal routes rather than close them !

Yes, but that is a different debate...
...but the point under debate was your assertion that

...As we know, a lot of what turned out to be unnecessary expenditure incurred through the modernisation plan resulted from legal obligations (common carrier obligation) and Government policy (use of alternative suppliers to provide locos etc)...

which I have shown to be baseless as there was only a five year overlap between the start of the Modernisation Plan expenditures and the end of the Common Carrier obligations. The real reasons for the choices of projects and programmes in the Modernisation Plan were described by, for example, G. F. Fiennes writing of his time as Chief Operating Officer at the BRB in 1960:

It is one of the disasters about British Railways that in the years between 1947 and 1955 no one had done the basic work on what we were there for at all; what traffic should be carried by what methods in what quantities, where from and to, at what rates. The upshot was that the Modernisation Plan produced in 1953-55 with the support of the Government to the extent of £1,500 million was little more than a change from steam traction plus host of mouldering schemes which the B.T.C. and the Regions had found after a hurried search of their pigeon holes. We had made the basic error of buying our tools before doing our homework on defining the job.

(G. F. Fiennes, I tried to run a railway, Ian Allan, 1967)

 

[coppercapped]

It's just based on the way the profit motive seems to be creeping into everything these days; whereas in the past it was acceptable to run things at a loss and just have the government make the shortfall, this is not seen as politically acceptable these days.

It is not just politics, the ability to pay is also an important consideration. As was said many years ago

The State has no resources of its own. It can only spend what it takes from the people in taxes or borrowing. Britain is now a nation of taxpayers.

The decline of rural bus services (private, but funded by the council so public money) is a good example of what I'm talking about. Even in the private sector things are going downhill too; while the profit motive was always there it seems to be even more rigorously enforced these days. Witness how local branches of my bank (and I'm in a city) have closed and been replaced by a new branch where you have to wait longer to do things like bank transfer.

I will admit that I perhaps use unprofitable services more than the average person; for instance I don't drive and therefore am more likely to notice cuts in more esoteric bus routes than many others.

Governments have to make decisions as to the manner in which they raise and spend money. You may or may not agree with the choices made - but negotiations and agreements between the interested parties, individuals and groups (otherwise known as 'politics') enable decisions to be made. If you want a decision made which benefits you - then get involved.

Otherwise others will make your decisions for you.

 

[HowardGWR]

You might be surprised if you actually read the 1945 Conservative manifesto.

http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/man/con45.htm

Actually I wasn't. What point were you making? (I did note the obsession with Empire. Big mistake? See current debates on Brexit. )

 

[ninja-lewis]

Actually I wasn't. What point were you making? (I did note the obsession with Empire. Big mistake? See current debates on Brexit. )

You said "Their legacy in social housing and health care is immense - and now recognised in recent books. The Tories would have done none of that. (Good old Winston just loved wars and similar strategy)".

Perhaps you missed these sections:

HOMES
In the first years of peace, the provision of homes will be the greatest domestic task.
An all-out housing policy will not only make a tremendous contribution to family life, but also to steady employment and to national health. All our energy must be thrown into it. Local authorities and private enterprise must both be given the fullest encouragement to get on with the job.

HEALTH
The health services of the country will be made available to all citizens. Everyone will contribute to the cost, and no one will be denied the attention, the treatment or the appliances he requires because he cannot afford them.
We propose to create a comprehensive health service covering the whole range of medical treatment from the general practitioner to the specialist, and from the hospital to convalescence and rehabilitation; and to introduce legislation for this purpose in the new Parliament.

As a Liberal, Churchill had helped laid the foundations of the modern welfare state through the Old Age Pensions, Labour Exchanges, National Insurance and the People's Budget. Reforms that were opposed by many Labour trade unionists of the day as much as by wealthy Conservative peers. It was Churchill who first described a post war welfare state as "from cradle to the grave" in 1943. It was Labour who were slow to adopt the concept. As Beveridge later said: "For Ernest Bevin, with his trade-union background of unskilled workers... social insurance was less important than bargaining about wages."

The only significant difference between the Labour and Conservative proposals for the NHS was that Bevan unilaterally decided to make it a central government-run service where as the Conservatives (and the Beveridge Report) favoured a Local Authority model.

 

[highspeed990]

Privatisation isn't as bad as everyone thinks, but it is still not that great.

The prices are too high!!!: No they're not. People complain saying planes are cheaper, but most people book in advance on a plane. People think that doesn't apply to trains. They expect a walk up anytime ticket from Manchester to London to be cheaper than an advance on a plane. That's not how it works. Try buying a walk up plane ticket and see how much more expensive it is than the train.

Booking in advance for one person is cheaper than fuel costs for a car. People also compare costs to Europe. This is silly. Things in Britain will always be more expensive as it has the most valuable currency in Europe. Of course Romanian trains and Asian trains are cheaper. Although advance tickets in the UK are among the cheapest in Europe.

The trains are always delayed!: A lot of things are to blame for this but rarely the train company; inadequate infrastructure owned by Network Rail which is (surprise surprise) government owned, failing equipment, suicides, and attention seeking morons who stand on a bridge threatening to jump but never will. Also blame the health and safety mob;
Train delayed due to fire: A piece of paper set alight for a few seconds.
Train delayed due to health and safety issues: the toilet flooded.
Train delayed due to obstruction/danger on the tracks: A stone fell from a bridge onto the tracks and they are concerned more could fall(this was even on Paddington 24/7)
Train delayed due to trespassing on the tracks: An idiot ran across the tracks to the next platform but they have to shut down the railway to make sure everyone is accounted for.
Very few delays are caused by staff being on a tea break.
The trains are always crowded: This one is somewhat understandable. A lot of this is caused by underinvestment in longer trains and frequent services, a lot of it is caused by infrastructure being unable to facilitate these investments.

Despite all this, I think it should be nationalised but only if the government is going to invest in it. Nationalisation is good but our governments starve them of investment. They did it to British Rail and then used it as an excuse to privatise it.

Long post but I wanted to address some arguments people always use.

 

[yorkie]

The prices are too high!!!: No they're not. ...

We have a dedicated thread for this, which you started. Rather than disagree with you on this thread, I refer you to responses there: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/are-rail-fares-overpriced.155554/

 

[highspeed990]

We have a dedicated thread for this, which you started. Rather than disagree with you on this thread, I refer you to responses there: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/are-rail-fares-overpriced.155554/

Yes thank you, I'm just incorporating all aspects of rail travel into my response.

 

[yorksrob]

Yes, but that is a different debate...
...but the point under debate was your assertion that



which I have shown to be baseless as there was only a five year overlap between the start of the Modernisation Plan expenditures and the end of the Common Carrier obligations. The real reasons for the choices of projects and programmes in the Modernisation Plan were described by, for example, G. F. Fiennes writing of his time as Chief Operating Officer at the BRB in 1960:

(G. F. Fiennes, I tried to run a railway, Ian Allan, 1967)

I'm not sure it is a different debate.

I've been told many times on here how even the worst decisions made during the Beeching era were somehow necessary because of the financial position of the railway, yet here we are at the height of the Beeching cuts, with many marginal cases such as York - Beverley via Market Weighton destroyed in the teeth of public opposition, all the while the Beeching regime was squandering money on locomotives that had been rendered obsolete before they were completed !

In terms of what the modernisation plan actually produced, I suspect the "tragedy" element of this expenditure is somewhat overdone, even dare I say it, by Fiennes himself. Thinking of the Southern Region, the "mouldering" schemes seem to have been Kent electrification, replacement of life expired electric rolling stock in the suburbs and on the central division, and the diesel electrification of main line services to Hastings and secondary services across the region. None of these schemes strike me as remotely frivolous, infact they have all proven to be highly necessary and have served us well (with the exception of the diesel electrification of the mainline to Hastings), well into the 21st century.

I would suggest that the fact that the Beeching regime and its immediate successors were churning out unnecessary diesel locomotives at a time when passenger routes were being self-defeatingly curtailed, speaks volumes about his and his successors idealogically driven disproportionate obsession with freight services as opposed to regional/local passenger services.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I would suggest that the fact that the Beeching regime and its immediate successors were churning out unnecessary diesel locomotives at a time when passenger routes were being self-defeatingly curtailed, speaks volumes about his and his successors idealogically driven disproportionate obsession with freight services as opposed to regional/local passenger services.

A couple of observations.
The locomotive fiasco started well before Beeching was appointed, in the BTC era.
The orders were placed and deliveries peaked under his watch, and they were eventually rationalised but the damage was done.
A batch of Westerns was built at Swindon simply to keep the factory busy, not because there was a demand.
The Regions still had considerable autonomy and were spending money on their own pet schemes, diesel hydraulics for the Western for instance.
I agree with you about the successful Southern schemes, but elsewhere we ended up with large numbers of poorly-performing metro DMUs around 1967, when the great need was for fast, long-distance DMUs.
This was because the decline in traffic meant that too many were ordered for the early schemes (on a 1 for 1 basis).
So we had a generation of clumsy local DMUs pressed into long-distance services (eg Manchester-Holyhead) replacing loco-hauled services, because the money had run out for a proper replacement.
The one 90mph DMU design, from Swindon (a development of the TransPennine units), was unreliable and was one of the first fleets withdrawn.
Beeching gradually got control of the Regions, but they lasted until 1993.
Some would say they are still there, sitting under NR's structure.
It's also true that things were so bad financially that no real effort was put into making many local services more efficient. They were just closed.
Little effort was put into rationalising the network until the Beeching process had almost completed.
Things like closing Leeds/Manchester/Liverpool Central and concentrating services at other stations, or selectively closing stations rather than complete closure.
I think BR had no idea, really, of where its costs were going, so tactical cuts had no effect on the overall decline.
They only began to get to grips with it after Beeching, with a much simpler network.
By then the Treasury was in iron control.

 

[yorksrob]

A couple of observations.
The locomotive fiasco started well before Beeching was appointed, in the BTC era.
The orders were placed and deliveries peaked under his watch, and they were eventually rationalised but the damage was done.
A batch of Westerns was built at Swindon simply to keep the factory busy, not because there was a demand.
The Regions still had considerable autonomy and were spending money on their own pet schemes, diesel hydraulics for the Western for instance.
I agree with you about the successful Southern schemes, but elsewhere we ended up with large numbers of poorly-performing metro DMUs around 1967, when the great need was for fast, long-distance DMUs.
This was because the decline in traffic meant that too many were ordered for the early schemes (on a 1 for 1 basis).
So we had a generation of clumsy local DMUs pressed into long-distance services (eg Manchester-Holyhead) replacing loco-hauled services, because the money had run out for a proper replacement.
The one 90mph DMU design, from Swindon (a development of the TransPennine units), was unreliable and was one of the first fleets withdrawn.
Beeching gradually got control of the Regions, but they lasted until 1993.
Some would say they are still there, sitting under NR's structure.
It's also true that things were so bad financially that no real effort was put into making many local services more efficient. They were just closed.
Little effort was put into rationalising the network until the Beeching process had almost completed.
Things like closing Leeds/Manchester/Liverpool Central and concentrating services at other stations, or selectively closing stations rather than complete closure.
I think BR had no idea, really, of where its costs were going, so tactical cuts had no effect on the overall decline.
They only began to get to grips with it after Beeching, with a much simpler network.
By then the Treasury was in iron control.

Arguably it was sectorisation that helped BR get to grips with costs more than anything else. This notably considered the regional network as something more than just deadwood to be cut back.

I find it hard to believe that between 1962 and '67 BR couldn't have re-orientated orders away from obsolete freight locos and towards inter-regional units. Beeching must have known that there were longer distance regional passenger flows, and if earlier Chairmen had the power to specify a standard class of steam locomotive, then Beeching will have had the power to order a standard class of inter-regional DMU. He didn't. i suspect that this was probably because he (and his immediate successors and political "masters") were too interested in creating the "perfect" railway in terms of doing what he felt the railway did best, and not prepared to make the necessary compromises to get to the railway the public needed.

In terms of Regions, if we think five or six regions doing their own thing are going to be wasteful, why do we assume that twenty plus TOC's doing their own thing aren't ?

 

[Olaf]

...
So I got to wondering how the rest of the world do it? Are most countries rail networks generally government run? Is there lessons we could learn to make things better over here? I did hear anecdotally that the East Coast route improved once the government ran it - but that may be all rubbish?

Going back the OP; As far as the EU members are concerned, they are gradually adopting the UK model, or something similar. There was legislation on this, but others will find the time to look it up and comment.

 

[Gareth Marston]

I'm not sure it is a different debate.

I've been told many times on here how even the worst decisions made during the Beeching era were somehow necessary because of the financial position of the railway, yet here we are at the height of the Beeching cuts, with many marginal cases such as York - Beverley via Market Weighton destroyed in the teeth of public opposition, all the while the Beeching regime was squandering money on locomotives that had been rendered obsolete before they were completed !

In terms of what the modernisation plan actually produced, I suspect the "tragedy" element of this expenditure is somewhat overdone, even dare I say it, by Fiennes himself. Thinking of the Southern Region, the "mouldering" schemes seem to have been Kent electrification, replacement of life expired electric rolling stock in the suburbs and on the central division, and the diesel electrification of main line services to Hastings and secondary services across the region. None of these schemes strike me as remotely frivolous, infact they have all proven to be highly necessary and have served us well (with the exception of the diesel electrification of the mainline to Hastings), well into the 21st century.

I would suggest that the fact that the Beeching regime and its immediate successors were churning out unnecessary diesel locomotives at a time when passenger routes were being self-defeatingly curtailed, speaks volumes about his and his successors idealogically driven disproportionate obsession with freight services as opposed to regional/local passenger services.

He pulled the plug on orders of 1st generation DMU's as soon as he came to the Chairmanship in 61 two years before his "report" was pubished.

 

[yorksrob]

He pulled the plug on orders of 1st generation DMU's as soon as he came to the Chairmanship in 61 two years before his "report" was pubished.

Yet he didn't pull the plug on obsolete freight locomotives. This aptly illustrates where his bias lay.

 

[BanburyBlue]

Going back the OP; As far as the EU members are concerned, they are gradually adopting the UK model, or something similar. There was legislation on this, but others will find the time to look it up and comment.

Thanks - that's what I was trying to find out. We're given the impression that everything works wonderfully elsewhere so I was wondering how it does work abroad.

 

[coppercapped]

He pulled the plug on orders of 1st generation DMU's as soon as he came to the Chairmanship in 61 two years before his "report" was pubished.

Which units were cancelled?

 

[Gareth Marston]

I cant give exact Class's however the Modernisation Plan listed 4600 Diesel Railcars as a requirement in the event only around 3500 1st Generation DMU's were delivered. It is however clear that given the volume of closures and services withdrawls that the bulk of these would have been to run on lines closed and serving small stations on mainlines that were closed.

The Cambrian or Oswestry Division of Western Region was going to be last in the pipeline on Western Region to get the new Diesels and and DMU's but none had been ordered before the Mid Wales line was closed and the remainder transferred to London Midland in January 63. Initially LMR dumped Standard Class's on the Cambrian displaced elsewhere notably 89XXX Standard 4MT Tanks from London Tilbury and Southend. Eventually when the decision to phase out steam was made they found 12 Class 108's that were surplus elsewhere and these appeared in Feb 65 taking over Class 2 trains.

A god Welsh example of how the 1961 DMU cut off affected things was the last couple of years of Aberystywyth to Carmarthen line had Hymeks hauling 2 coaches!

 

[coppercapped]

Arguably it was sectorisation that helped BR get to grips with costs more than anything else. This notably considered the regional network as something more than just deadwood to be cut back.

I find it hard to believe that between 1962 and '67 BR couldn't have re-orientated orders away from obsolete freight locos and towards inter-regional units. Beeching must have known that there were longer distance regional passenger flows, and if earlier Chairmen had the power to specify a standard class of steam locomotive, then Beeching will have had the power to order a standard class of inter-regional DMU. He didn't. i suspect that this was probably because he (and his immediate successors and political "masters") were too interested in creating the "perfect" railway in terms of doing what he felt the railway did best, and not prepared to make the necessary compromises to get to the railway the public needed.

In terms of Regions, if we think five or six regions doing their own thing are going to be wasteful, why do we assume that twenty plus TOC's doing their own thing aren't ?

To return to this never-ending topic one more time - just for the sake of clarification, or possibly muddying the water some more!

In 1948, when the decision was made to order the 'Standard' steam locomotives, the organisation of the inland transport business in the UK was, to put it mildly, less than optimum if it was to achieve the aims set for it in the 1947 Transport Act.

The overarching organisation was the British Transport Commission (BTC) which was supposed to coordinate inland transport, but the Act setting it up also set up the organisation through which it had to work by creating 'agents' for each form of transport: the Railway Executive (RE), the Waterways Executive, Road Haulage Executive, the London Transport Executive and so on. What is important is that the Government also appointed the members of these Executives directly with the result that each Executive fought its own corner and the BTC had little control over them - it did not control the Executives' budgets except at the highest level, it could not move Members of an Executive to a different job or fire those who were thwarting the aims of the Commission because they had been appointed by Government and not by the BTC.

The BTC was concerned about the need for the new designs of steam locomotives being promoted by the RE and the lack of interest the RE showed in the potential of diesel traction. With this in mind, the BTC's records show that it took action after noting the speed with which the Executive was tackling the standardisation of steam motive power - the RE had set up the Locomotive Standards Committee on 8 January 1948 within a week of nationalisation. In April 1948, the same month that the locomotive exchanges took place, the BTC’s Chairman, Cyril Hurcomb, wrote to Sir Eustace Missenden, the Chairman of the RE, to express his dissatisfaction with the progress made in assessing the merits of different forms of traction. Missenden's reaction was grudging - over 8 months later, on 20 December 1948, a committee was set up under J. L. Harrington, the Chief Officer (Administration) at RE Headquarters to study other forms of traction. It finally reported at the end of 1951 - 3 1/2 years later by which time the first of the BR Standards had been completed.

So, which of these two was the real Chairman of 'British Railways'? The big boss who wanted an appraisal of the different forms of traction before orders for new traction were placed or the littler boss who just wanted to build steam engines?

 

[coppercapped]

HI,

I'm sure this has probably been discussed to death before, but I've seen a few posts recently about Nationalisation vs Privatisation. I was also jogged when my son asked me my views the other day after someone in his office was saying how the rail system is broken, and we should go back to British Railways.

SNIPPED

So I got to wondering how the rest of the world do it? Are most countries rail networks generally government run? Is there lessons we could learn to make things better over here? I did hear anecdotally that the East Coast route improved once the government ran it - but that may be all rubbish?

Your question regarding the Rest of the World hasn't really been answered. I can't give a comprehensive answer but I can give some indications for those countries in which I take an interest.

On the continent of Europe at the time the railways were developing the supply of private capital was not as great as was the case in Britain so many were built in the form of concessions granted by the Government or by royal decree or licence. To permit the concessionaire to make a profit very few competing lines were permitted by Government although in some cases the cities at the start and end of two routes might have been the same they both served very different areas of the country. This can be most clearly seen in France.

The Belgium railways were built to bind the country together. After the defeat of Napoleon in 1814 the Congress of Vienna created a new United Kingdom of the Netherlands to act as a buffer between France and Prussia but this split during the Belgian Revolution of 1830–1839 resulting in the creation of the three modern nations, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. The Belgium railways were planned by the state in the very early days of railways to link the areas with Brussels.

At the same time the railways in what is now Germany were planned and built by each state, Bavaria, Prussia, Hessen, Württemberg, Baden, Sachsen and so on, which made up the German Customs Union (Zollverein). The routes in each State were generally centred on the respective capital city and the method of funding varied from place to place and line to line.

All this is a long way of saying that most railways in Europe had a great deal of Government involvement from the beginning and practically all of them are now Government owned. The Swiss private railways are often at least partially owned by the Cantons and other local authorities through which they run. Of course the railways in the USA were privately funded and constructed and I think that the Canadian Pacific route in Canada is also private.

Faced with the railways' declining market share the European Union wanted to bring market disciplines into railway operation. The first attempt was the Railway Directive 91/440/EC of 1991 which required that separate accounts for infrastructure and train operation must be kept and that trains run by other than the state administration should be permitted to use the tracks (Open Access). Subsequent Directives formed what is known as the First Railway Package and since then there have been the Second and the Third Railway Packages.

France went to great lengths to keep the SNCF as a monopoly but this is now cracking. In Germany the Federal Government changed the law to (mostly) comply with the EU Directives some years ago so that the individual States (Länder) now commission local and regional services within their area. The successful bidders contract to operate a given number of train-km over a given route for a fixed term. The Land may also specify the type of stock and service frequencies. In some cases the Land acts as a ROSCO. All the usual suspects have won contracts, Abellio, National Express and so on. The Länder claim that large savings have been made following competitive tendering but there are still questions about DB Netz, the infrastructure organisation, giving the DB passenger operations 'sweetheart' deals. In any event DBAG sees the operation of the S-Bahn networks as part of its core business and went to great legal lengths to delay the award of the Nürnberg S-Bahn to National Express so much so that NE had to back out. There is no Rail Regulator in Germany equivalent to the ORR so issues tend to get resolved in the courts.

There are many private freight haulage companies in Germany, some being subsidiaries of international companies and some private short lines.

In the last few years DBAG has lost its long-distance passenger monopoly, but the competition has had a rocky start and operates on only a couple of lines.

Do not think that everything in the foreign garden is wonderful. The reliability of long distance train operation in Germany has been woeful over the past few years (although it now seems to be improving slightly) and there are continual complaints about overcrowding.

The UK has the safest railway in Europe, see the Eurostat statistics.

 

[yorksrob]

To return to this never-ending topic one more time - just for the sake of clarification, or possibly muddying the water some more!

In 1948, when the decision was made to order the 'Standard' steam locomotives, the organisation of the inland transport business in the UK was, to put it mildly, less than optimum if it was to achieve the aims set for it in the 1947 Transport Act.

The overarching organisation was the British Transport Commission (BTC) which was supposed to coordinate inland transport, but the Act setting it up also set up the organisation through which it had to work by creating 'agents' for each form of transport: the Railway Executive (RE), the Waterways Executive, Road Haulage Executive, the London Transport Executive and so on. What is important is that the Government also appointed the members of these Executives directly with the result that each Executive fought its own corner and the BTC had little control over them - it did not control the Executives' budgets except at the highest level, it could not move Members of an Executive to a different job or fire those who were thwarting the aims of the Commission because they had been appointed by Government and not by the BTC.

The BTC was concerned about the need for the new designs of steam locomotives being promoted by the RE and the lack of interest the RE showed in the potential of diesel traction. With this in mind, the BTC's records show that it took action after noting the speed with which the Executive was tackling the standardisation of steam motive power - the RE had set up the Locomotive Standards Committee on 8 January 1948 within a week of nationalisation. In April 1948, the same month that the locomotive exchanges took place, the BTC’s Chairman, Cyril Hurcomb, wrote to Sir Eustace Missenden, the Chairman of the RE, to express his dissatisfaction with the progress made in assessing the merits of different forms of traction. Missenden's reaction was grudging - over 8 months later, on 20 December 1948, a committee was set up under J. L. Harrington, the Chief Officer (Administration) at RE Headquarters to study other forms of traction. It finally reported at the end of 1951 - 3 1/2 years later by which time the first of the BR Standards had been completed.

So, which of these two was the real Chairman of 'British Railways'? The big boss who wanted an appraisal of the different forms of traction before orders for new traction were placed or the littler boss who just wanted to build steam engines?

I

To return to this never-ending topic one more time - just for the sake of clarification, or possibly muddying the water some more!

In 1948, when the decision was made to order the 'Standard' steam locomotives, the organisation of the inland transport business in the UK was, to put it mildly, less than optimum if it was to achieve the aims set for it in the 1947 Transport Act.

The overarching organisation was the British Transport Commission (BTC) which was supposed to coordinate inland transport, but the Act setting it up also set up the organisation through which it had to work by creating 'agents' for each form of transport: the Railway Executive (RE), the Waterways Executive, Road Haulage Executive, the London Transport Executive and so on. What is important is that the Government also appointed the members of these Executives directly with the result that each Executive fought its own corner and the BTC had little control over them - it did not control the Executives' budgets except at the highest level, it could not move Members of an Executive to a different job or fire those who were thwarting the aims of the Commission because they had been appointed by Government and not by the BTC.

The BTC was concerned about the need for the new designs of steam locomotives being promoted by the RE and the lack of interest the RE showed in the potential of diesel traction. With this in mind, the BTC's records show that it took action after noting the speed with which the Executive was tackling the standardisation of steam motive power - the RE had set up the Locomotive Standards Committee on 8 January 1948 within a week of nationalisation. In April 1948, the same month that the locomotive exchanges took place, the BTC’s Chairman, Cyril Hurcomb, wrote to Sir Eustace Missenden, the Chairman of the RE, to express his dissatisfaction with the progress made in assessing the merits of different forms of traction. Missenden's reaction was grudging - over 8 months later, on 20 December 1948, a committee was set up under J. L. Harrington, the Chief Officer (Administration) at RE Headquarters to study other forms of traction. It finally reported at the end of 1951 - 3 1/2 years later by which time the first of the BR Standards had been completed.

So, which of these two was the real Chairman of 'British Railways'? The big boss who wanted an appraisal of the different forms of traction before orders for new traction were placed or the littler boss who just wanted to build steam engines?

To return to this never-ending topic one more time - just for the sake of clarification, or possibly muddying the water some more!

In 1948, when the decision was made to order the 'Standard' steam locomotives, the organisation of the inland transport business in the UK was, to put it mildly, less than optimum if it was to achieve the aims set for it in the 1947 Transport Act.

The overarching organisation was the British Transport Commission (BTC) which was supposed to coordinate inland transport, but the Act setting it up also set up the organisation through which it had to work by creating 'agents' for each form of transport: the Railway Executive (RE), the Waterways Executive, Road Haulage Executive, the London Transport Executive and so on. What is important is that the Government also appointed the members of these Executives directly with the result that each Executive fought its own corner and the BTC had little control over them - it did not control the Executives' budgets except at the highest level, it could not move Members of an Executive to a different job or fire those who were thwarting the aims of the Commission because they had been appointed by Government and not by the BTC.

The BTC was concerned about the need for the new designs of steam locomotives being promoted by the RE and the lack of interest the RE showed in the potential of diesel traction. With this in mind, the BTC's records show that it took action after noting the speed with which the Executive was tackling the standardisation of steam motive power - the RE had set up the Locomotive Standards Committee on 8 January 1948 within a week of nationalisation. In April 1948, the same month that the locomotive exchanges took place, the BTC’s Chairman, Cyril Hurcomb, wrote to Sir Eustace Missenden, the Chairman of the RE, to express his dissatisfaction with the progress made in assessing the merits of different forms of traction. Missenden's reaction was grudging - over 8 months later, on 20 December 1948, a committee was set up under J. L. Harrington, the Chief Officer (Administration) at RE Headquarters to study other forms of traction. It finally reported at the end of 1951 - 3 1/2 years later by which time the first of the BR Standards had been completed.

So, which of these two was the real Chairman of 'British Railways'? The big boss who wanted an appraisal of the different forms of traction before orders for new traction were placed or the littler boss who just wanted to build steam engines?

I can comprehend that BTC BR wasn't as reactive to changing commercial realities as it should have been (even though it managed to somehow come up with all the right investment decisions on the Southern Region - with the very small exception perhaps of the class 71 locos), yet this doesn't explain why, six years after Beechimg had swept away the BTC, BR was still building locos more suited to CCO freight traffic, all the while claiming that it had no funding to retain marginal passenger routes.

 

[Dr Hoo]

I



I can comprehend that BTC BR wasn't as reactive to changing commercial realities as it should have been (even though it managed to somehow come up with all the right investment decisions on the Southern Region - with the very small exception perhaps of the class 71 locos), yet this doesn't explain why, six years after Beechimg had swept away the BTC, BR was still building locos more suited to CCO freight traffic, all the while claiming that it had no funding to retain marginal passenger routes.

Whilst the famous reshaping report doesn't go into a huge amount of detail it is worth noting that it envisaged a really quite significant liner train network.

Appendix 4 sketches out some detail of around 55 depots connected by relatively small trains up to 680 tons, many over relatively short distances. Such trains would seem to be well within the capability of a Type 2 on many routes, especially as they could operate in multiple if necessary.

We all know that the forecasts for domestic container movement turned out to be embarrassingly optimistic but at least Dr Beeching was willing to give it a try.