Well we wouldn't be clamouring for change if what we got now was working well would we? This country has not elected a Government with a commitment to public ownership since 1976, yet the most popular policy on all sides of the political spectrum is rail nationalisation. For all those that say BR wasn't that great and civil servants will interfere and the Treasury will do this and that what exactly is your solution to overly complex, sometimes expensive and poor value for money fares? Overcrowding? Late and very expensive infrastructure work?
The reality is there's nothing on offer and that's why people who may not ordinarily support public ownership for other things support it.
Rather than continuing with the nostalgia for old Southern EMUs let us try and answer these very reasonable questions:
"Overly complex" is a slightly perjorative term but I well remember how BR's fares were often criticised for their complexity with different 'colours' of Saver tickets and the introduction of advanced fares, etc. even then. Barry Doe and Alan Williams both had critical columns in Modern Railways at the time. One thing that was almost guaranteed then was fares being systematically increased by more than inflation. (I have quoted the eye-watering figures from Gourvish's official history of BR on this board before.) Since 1994 regulated fares have been restricted to slightly below inflation in the first franchising round to slightly above in the early 2000s and now in line with inflation in recent years.
"Overcrowding" seems to be being met with major investment in enhancements such as Thameslink, Crossrail, rebuilding of Reading and many, many more schemes, together with significantly enlarged rolling stock fleets either by direct DfT order or franchise requirement. We can quibble about whether the seats are too hard but in BR's day it always seemed to be about managing with fewer coaches and pricing off 'excess' demand. I was a Regional Railways service group manager at the time so know what went on!
"Late and expensive infrastructure work" is certainly an issue now although at least unparalleled amounts of money have been made available. It is easy to see 'late' in terms of saying that a line would be electrified by 2017 and it taking until 2019 but what about BR?
I always had a soft spot for the Great Northern Suburban Electrification and well remember going to an exhibition about it at King's Cross on the way to my BR job interview as a teenager. That had been 'promised' as part of the Modernisation Plan in 1955 but somehow never got under way until being very belatedly authorised by the Heath Government in the early 1970s. When it was completed in the late 1970s I well remember all the problems with Class 313 sliding doors and 6-car sets becoming electrically uncoupled when they went over a sharp vertical curve, of which there were several. Then people couldn't believe that the outer-suburban Class 312 sets were a decade-old design, still with slam doors. But anyway, it was only more than a decade 'late' and at least it was cheap.
Meanwhile we have record passenger demand, record levels of safety, record investment and a record amount of money commited in the 'SOFA' for the next control period, primarily for basic operations, maintenance and renewals. We have actually seen a decade of recognition across the political spectrum that railways are a national enabler, worthy of taxpayer support as we recover from the 2008 financial crisis. This support being 'guaranteed' in the shape of multi-year franchise payments and Control Period funding rather than a year-by-year negotiation with the Treasury.
Although I am now retired I know that many current industry managers and staff are aghast that delivery has been so patchy for what are often 'internal' reasons.
I learnt a great deal in my 20 years with BR and we certainly achieved 'quite a lot with not a lot' but I certainly wouldn't like to go back the structures and policies of that era.
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