The Great Railway Disaster (Ben Elton programme)

[Westerndiesels]

No matter what ones particular political views are, I think we all agree that things could be better, especially with the confusing ticketing etc.

Hopefully one day we will get a far better service. I still love travelling by train though.

 

[JonathanH]

we all agree that things could be better, especially with the confusing ticketing

Did the programme come up with an answer to making ticketing less confusing and better?

 

[Horizon22]

Did the programme come up with an answer to making ticketing less confusing and better?

No. Just lots of comments about it being expensive. It was more focussed on the structural problems with the railway.

 

[Basil Jet]

Just watched it. OK he's a comedian, not an economist nor a transport expert. "The railway is locked into a spiral of managed decline" he said at the end. Was he right?

Having visited Reading Green Park a few weeks ago, I have to say no.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The point was made that an additional cost of £64bn has been incurred due to privatisation that would not have been incurred if the industry had remained nationalised.
I’m not an expert but difficult to understand why this is a good thing?

I'd like to see the working that resulted in the £64 billion figure.
Extrapolating anything over nearly 30 years is essentially impossible anyway - the world has changed in that time.
It's like trying to estimate how much a dropped catch has cost in a cricket match.

Even if not privatised, BR would have changed shape in that time, just as BR 1994 was quite different from BR 1964 or BR 1948.

 

[SteveL9]

It didn’t really go in to detail (although it was done by a professor of accounting if I remember).

However, I don’t think the assumption was that BR would have done X or Y differently, more that due to privatisation and the breakup of the industry thousands of transactional costs now occur that otherwise wouldn’t, plus the extraction of money due to the profit motive introduced.

 

[Strat-tastic]

That lad at the end, loving a bash from King's Cross to Stevenage behind a 91. Priceless

 

[Westerndiesels]

Yes that family's enthusiasm for trains made me remember how much I loved it as a kid. I'm not much different now.

 

[Wyrleybart]

I gave it a watch.

There was some hyperbole regarding the elements of privatisation (a particular statement about train crew that was so simplified as to be false) and a lack of understanding that nationalisation doesn't really matter if the funding isn't there anyway (although I thought Mark Smith spoke well on that) but overall not a bad show for the average member of the public, who ultimately is far less informed (and cares less!) than the users of this forum; as others have said I didn't really learn much, although the £64bn figure was quite eye-opening.

The show gave some insights into some of the fundamental problems and historic elements in a easily navigable way and touched on GBR nicely too.

Interested in a small way as to where the £64BN comes from.
I worked for TLF in 1994 when it morphed into TLF-W, TLF-SE and TLF-NE. This and Parcels was sold for £225M to the Wisconsin Central consortium, including the 100 class 66s, 50 class 58s 100+ 56s, etc etc. Would the UK have seen class 66s if not for Wisconsin Central ? We don't know, neither do we know how other investment would have gone.

Mucho speculation it seems, but I am about to watch the programme on catchup

 

[tomuk]

Interested in a small way as to where the £64BN comes from.
I worked for TLF in 1994 when it morphed into TLF-W, TLF-SE and TLF-NE. This and Parcels was sold for £225M to the Wisconsin Central consortium, including the 100 class 66s, 50 class 58s 100+ 56s, etc etc. Would the UK have seen class 66s if not for Wisconsin Central ? We don't know, neither do we know how other investment would have gone.

Mucho speculation it seems, but I am about to watch the programme on catchup

The £64bn figure is put forward by Dr John Stittle. It was £50bn back in 2017 when he was quoted in a Metro article at the time. It appeaers to be his pet subject. Does anyone have a link to a published paper on his research so one can undestand where he get the figures from?

 

[james73]

I thought it was an interesting enough watch. It's on YT if anyone hasn't seen it.

 

[Trainfan344]

Very interesting documentary. Made some very interesting points about how the Orsdall Curve is a failure, and the demonstrating of the issues faced by passengers. I'd say it's the best documentary we've had in recent times about the state of the railways.