If The Pilot Scheme Hadn't Been Botched..........

[rodent279]

I think you're spot on about "resenting success". Nothing seems more guaranteed to make you enemies than being good at something.

[Nearholmer]

JJB

 

Continuing the almost-not-on-topic wander .......

 

There is something in the British attitude that doesn’t quite believe in the virtues of hard work and the long slog, something not very puritanical when compared with Northern European attitudes and the transfer of Northern European attitudes into US culture, or compared with attitudes in much of Asia.

 

It’s slightly as if our maritime and colonial past has given us a belief in adventure, a fortune conjoured-up quickly by bravery, a flash of personal brilliance, or gambling on the financial markets, and thereafter a life of ease and art-collecting. And, because we have a tendency to worship old money or money recently acquired in a flash, a proportion of that overwhelming majority of people who have no realistic prospect of getting rich quick become resentful, or simply decide not to bother much at all. It’s a sort of all or nothing view of the world.

 

I’m not contending that these attitudes are universal in Britain, they clearly aren’t, but I think they are widespread enough to have an affect ...... the belief in the virtues of hard work in practical trades and professions, and the long slog, simply isn’t quite widespread enough.

 

Whether or not we squandered Marshall Aid is a different issue. Given how poor our housing stock, schools and education system, and healthcare for 80+% of the population were before WW2, I’m not sure it’s right to classify spending on those things as squander. Perhaps what the country should have done was spend a few bob on a fleet of bulldozers, and demolished every Victorian/Edwardian factory, railway, etc etc, to force itself to invest in new productive and distributive capacity, instead of continuing to attempt to run an empire for another fifteen or twenty years in places.

 

What bugs me is not the recent-history perspective on this, which is simply interesting fodder for chat, but that I hear nothing from our leaders of any political persuasion that indicates a move towards more ‘virtue of hard work’ focus, or engagement with real, practical issues. How we are supposed to inculcate a set of values that include both hard work and compassion in our children when one lot of politicians frequently forget to talk about hard work, and the other lot frequently forget to talk compassion, or spend their time fantasising about a sort of return to the eighteenth century, I cannot work out.

 

Right, I’d better get on with some work now, or i’ll Break my own creed!

 

Kevin

[adb968008]

Just thought I would remind you what your point was since you seemed to have forgotten.

 

That was at least 30 years of 'BRs changing environment' that they not only met the needs of, they were in fact 'required on the changing railway'. Please explain how a post explaining how they were essential to BR for 30 + years proves your above points?

 

As for the strange type 2 comment, seeing as diesel locomotives have been built right down to 2ft gauge with 40hp or less, not to mention the hundreds of shunting locos, the idea that nothing could be built between the gap of a large shunter and type 2 is clearly a desperate clutching at straws...

Your mixing hindsight with foresight.

 

Look at where the pilot 50 class 20’s were allocated... they were all (except 2 or 3) around London, Norwich .this gives a clue as to their intended pilot evaluation, trip workings, freight yards, ECS moves.... it wasn’t until the mid 1960’s, post pilot did they start to congregate at the sheds they were to be associated at for the next 30 years.

 

That with hindsight it was successful for 30 years doesn’t mean those piloting the class 20 had foresight to see its need for that purpose.... MGR traffic was unheard of in 1957. It’s quite possible BR could have (wrongly) selected the class 14 instead of a class 20 for the duties it was designed for.. but the 14 wasn’t a pilot diesel either so wasn’t a contender either...

 

The thread is about the pilot scheme if it had followed through with its original aims, not what was successful and why.

 

As someone earlier said.. had the pilot scheme gone to its natural conclusion.. the railway fleet would have been vastly different, I agree, it could have been either a much poorer fleet of standard locomotives of few types, of probably have gone the path of electrification instead.

 

The pilots aims were flawed, but that’s why you do pilots.. to learn, and the learning was what we see today. I think the pilot could have eradicated the need for a type 1 as the work intended for them dried up, given a minimal need it would have recommended the forced an upgrade of facilities or the use of shunters at other locations. If a type 1 was required... it’s shape would not be a single cabbed diesel with exterior platforms either side.

 

The 20 was a successful product of the pilot, but not for the foresight purpose it was designed for, but because of the solution it presented for other problems later, which are the ones you refer to with hindsight.

 

Pilot projects have specific aims and goals, they tend not to be moving targets. Once the pilot is complete it makes recommendations, which can be to make a selection, do nothing, recommend a different course of action or state the pilots goals were not met and recommend a new pilot.

 

Hindsight shows the pilot recommended a different course of action (these are the suppliers to trust buy what they suggest, scrap the pilot...) , and the project ended early. The class 20 fleet went to 120+ Ignoring the pilot project but note after a 4 year hiatus in 1966 the next batch immediately went not to Devon’s Road or Hornsey.... but enmass to Tinsley, as now they had a defined purpose, so did the class 17’s for Scotland.. but it wasn’t the intended pilot purpose.

 

The thread is about what would have happened if it reached a different conclusion.

 

My thoughts are based on if the pilot made its recommendations, what to select, but in all reality I think the conclusion could have been that the goals were not met and recommend a new pilot (the recommendation being electrification).

 

Similarly the pilot may not have made the correct decisions too, and I think in this case it could have had risk of making an incorrect decision that a type 1 is not required, as the use case for a type 1 (branch, trip, ecs workings) had ceased to exist in the format it existed at the start of the pilot and so they could have concluded a type 1 is not required.

 

At the end of the day it’s all hypothetical, there is no right or wrong answer, so there is no straws to clutch.

Edited February 21, 2018 by adb968008

[cheesysmith]

Actually, one of the sucasses of the class 20 was the shape, with the doors giving easy access to the mechaincal bit for maintenace. Ask any fitter who has had to change a compressor on a peak, where you need to remove the cab doors and carry it from the body of the loco, into the cabs, and out through the door at a aquaward angle. If you consider them to be the diesel version of say a J15, for use on lightly laid branch lines, with the passenger service done by a DMU, they make more sense. Of course, weather said line was to survive is a different question.

[Bob Reid]

So that's the answer?  The demise of British Industry was all down to cultural stereotypes as detailed in the latest Industrial Management work of fiction.  I feel another Kaizen course coming on....  By the way I am neither lazy or feckless and have over the years voluntarily given free time and work to the (nationalised & private) companies I've worked for as I'm sure many on here have for pay that at times might be considered nominal.  They probably resent as much as I do this notion that the "British" worker is somehow a lazy bar steward and only in it for the money.
 

[daveyb]

There has been a lot of talk in this thread about lack of foresight and poor decisions in UK industry - I'm not about to argue with that, as it seems there is a certain amount of truth to it - and a lot of talk about poor design and poor build (and not much about poor environment which BR realised very early but didn't have the money to change)... but what seems to have been missed on all fronts is a significant amount of political influence and meddling.

 

1950s - 1980s were a terrible period for swing policies interspersed by periods of deadlock.  Some have mentioned and blamed a classist society, and others have mentioned attitude but the political limitations under which all the classes worked ultimately gave rise to the attitude.

 

The quality of US products was suspect, but their attitude to managing that issue was to remanufacture and re-use.  Complaining about the perseverance with poor design in a pilot fleet of 10 locos is fine but the EMD F series was not an overnight success despite the 100s in service but it evolved commercially because it had to.  The 567 engine evolved after a low powered and unreliable start the streamlined bodies were lost to the mid cab GP series, the Bloomberg power trucks were strengthened - often on an exchange basis. Not much political influence in that home market (though low rate loans to pursue the exports). 

 

The US rail market changed as did the European, domestic and more recently the Far East.  How these situations were managed politically is the difference.  Small minded local MPs saving their local factories in UK was not replicated in other markets who conduct politicking in different ways.  Mention above of the 47901 engine as an example... why was the MP at Newton le Willows less successful at saving the Vulcan Foundry over the MP for Norfolk being good for the Paxman factory? There are thousands of examples of where the UK Houses have disadvantaged industrial economic expansion (and lets not mention 'questionable' practices of individuals).

 

Ruston, Paxman, GEC/EE, Rolls Royce, Perkins were all competing in a relatively small market (and later with different rocker covers on the same engine) against foreign engines manufacturers (Sulzer, Maybach - later MTU, EMD, GE) who were playing on a different political field in each case and had opportunity to look elsewhere when Team UK did not. The Dept of Trade used to decide who could tender for which contract and the Dept of Transport used to decide where concentrate the efforts (as mention was made of the VC10, let's mention the BAC (HS) Trident which was developed specifically for the London/Paris run with Ministry money and needed a redesign to go elsewhere hence the Trident 3; and its main competitor the Boeing 727, designed to land and take of on short runways anywhere with a range of 900 - 1200 miles initially).

 

Policies and politics - far more damaging than engineering and reputation or answering market requirements/customer needs.

Edited February 21, 2018 by daveyb

[Pandora]

Let us look at the car manufacturing plant as an international benchmark to judge the British worker against others.   The two biggest groups are VW/Audi and Toyota,  each  company  manufactures 10 million cars per annum, Toyota employ 300,000, VW/Audi 650,000 both numbers worldwide.

 

Toyota/Nissan/Honda were all happy to set up world class high-productivity manufacturing plants in the UK employing the much maligned lazy feckless British worker.  Nissan Sunderland  was noted for its high productivity, 100 cars per employee and low defect rate of the product.  Given the correct management, training to do the job  and modern working conditions, the British worker is a world class entity.

Edited February 21, 2018 by Pandora

[adb968008]

Let us look at the car manufacturing plant as an international benchmark to judge the British worker against others. The two biggest groups are VW/Audi and Toyota, each company manufactures 10 million cars per annum, Toyota employ 300,000, VW/Audi 650,000. Toyota/Nissan/Honda were all happy to set up world class high-productivity manufacturing plants in the UK employing the much maligned lazy feckless British worker. Nissan Sunderland was noted for its high productivity, 100 cars per employee and low defect rate of the product. Given the correct management, training to do the job and modern working conditions, the British worker is a world class entity.

Weren’t they given a fridge as a bonus, in the staff kitchen for achieving that target ?

(Seriously), I recall that being on BBC news at the time, haven’t bonuses come a long way too.

Edited February 21, 2018 by adb968008

[Bob Reid]

BBC? maybe the Daily Mail  

[Nearholmer]

Bob

 

If that’s what you read me to have said, I’ve not expressed my view clearly enough.

 

Kevin

[45125]

The HST is a excellent design that had stood the test of time. You have to remember the HST was not just a loco (or power car) to power the train, it was a train designed to operate at 25% higher speeds, be used more intensively than anything else before, without any extra costs. This meant it didn't need signals changing, was kinder to the track than what went before, and brought radical improvment to a entire timetable, not just one or two trains a day. Even now, with their newer V16 German engines, that require more TLC than the old Paxman ones, they are still putting in miles and a intensive service few trains can match. And as to their power, well, BR looked at whole costs over the life of a train. They could have had the HST with more power, but decided that 4500BHP was all that was needed. Because of this, everything else was designed around this figure. The weak point in the HST had always been the cooler group, but having a reliable cooling system has always been a problem for trains, going all the way back to the first WR hydraulics, and high speed engines have always been susceptible more to overheating than the heavy medium speed engines. As to why the HST now doesn't have more horsepower, the limit has always been the alternator, which means the HST has not been able to use full power even in its 2250BHP form until above 40mph (IIRC?). The VP185 that was used in some HSTs was actually type tested by BR at 3500BHP, but derated to use original HST bits, and did not need it's control governor modifying for use in the HST unlike the MTU power plant, which needs a lot more TLC, required warming up before use, but is now used because it came with a cheaper overall cost/warranty package.

 

Never diss the HST. The best train every designed in the UK.

 

The Paxman heaps of *rap needed a lot more TLC than the MTUs. I have worked on both on no which is the better of the two......The Marston cooler group was another big piece of garbage and the Serck group was a vast improvement but did have a few minor hiccups..

[jjb1970]

British workers can be world class. People have already mentioned Honda and Toyota, and it isn't just Japanese companies.

 

British managers and leaders can be world class, there are enough British managers around the world in leading companies and in very well led British companies to demonstrate that.

 

However, we can't bury our heads in the sand and pretend that many of our traditional industries weren't woefully managed, stricken with labour relations from hell and trying to sell second rate products in the 60's and 70's. I tend to think that the common denominator is political interference as noted in post 281.

 

Companies like Toyota and Honda aren't benevolent societies or carrying political baggage going back decades. There staff understand that the factories are there to make money, and if they don't meet quality and efficiency targets then the plant owners wouldn't keep a failing asset because of sentiment or because a government minister has decided it's a state owned plant in a marginal constituency and leaned on the company to keep it going.

 

Many older British companies in the traditional heavier industries had some world class technology and talent but an interfering and capricious government led many of them to ruin. Many of those traditional industries were going to be downsized regardless as a result of changes in the global economy, but some of their plants and facilities could have had a future if they'd been allowed to take hard headed decisions free of political meddling which although possibly well intentioned in some cases led to the entire business going down the pan.

 

I tend to see British shipbuilding as a microcosm. Most of the British yards would have closed regardless, however under state ownership the yards that might have had a long term future were destroyed by political decisions to direct orders to yards that should have been the first to go to the wall based on their productivity, modernity and product quality.

[jjb1970]

What bugs me is not the recent-history perspective on this, which is simply interesting fodder for chat, but that I hear nothing from our leaders of any political persuasion that indicates a move towards more ‘virtue of hard work’ focus, or engagement with real, practical issues. How we are supposed to inculcate a set of values that include both hard work and compassion in our children when one lot of politicians frequently forget to talk about hard work, and the other lot frequently forget to talk compassion, or spend their time fantasising about a sort of return to the eighteenth century, I cannot work out.

 

 

 

I'm in full agreement on that point.

[Bernard Lamb]

Let us look at the car manufacturing plant as an international benchmark to judge the British worker against others.   The two biggest groups are VW/Audi and Toyota,  each  company  manufactures 10 million cars per annum, Toyota employ 300,000, VW/Audi 650,000 both numbers worldwide.

 

Toyota/Nissan/Honda were all happy to set up world class high-productivity manufacturing plants in the UK employing the much maligned lazy feckless British worker.  Nissan Sunderland  was noted for its high productivity, 100 cars per employee and low defect rate of the product.  Given the correct management, training to do the job  and modern working conditions, the British worker is a world class entity.

 

 

 

Companies like Toyota and Honda aren't benevolent societies or carrying political baggage going back decades. There staff understand that the factories are there to make money, and if they don't meet quality and efficiency targets then the plant owners wouldn't keep a failing asset because of sentiment or because a government minister has decided it's a state owned plant in a marginal constituency and leaned on the company to keep it going.

 

 

 

You don't know Honda like I know Honda.

Bernard  

 

[jjb1970]

Something that should be pointed out is that a good company doesn't need a large domestic market to thrive. Quite a few have opined that UK manufacturers lost out to competitors because the home market was small (actually it isn't that small) yet Sulzer thrived for many years and sold thousands of engines many of which were for marine use despite Switzerland not being the most famous maritime nation. The dominant player in the big engine market for many many years has been B&W/MAN, it is now part of MAN but the slow speed unit is still the former Burmeister and Wain and still very Danish despite the name. Denmark is hardly the worlds pre-eminent market for big diesels yet their main engine builder achieved market dominance on the back of designing superb engines (quite sensibly, MAN bought them and binned their own slow speed engines which were utter rubbish). Rolls Royce aren't making all those Trent engines for UK customers (though quite a few are sold to domestic users) and Rolls Royce marine which is effectively a Norwegian company (and now for sale) sells its wares globally.

[Junctionmad]

Had Riddles lived longer in the job and completed his Standard locomotive fleet and they'd run their natural service life, I suspect that we would have seen diesels introduced as the interim measure they were always supposed to be. Then electrification would have followed fairly quickly on all main lines. 

The fact that the steam fleet were scrapped early and the diesels were desperately needed meant mistakes were made and our hobby much more interesting.

 

There is simply no way steam could have remained on BR any longer then it did , in reality the decision to manufacture new steam was a mistake as It merely delayed dieselisation and  resulted in a scramble to change to more cost effective traction 

[Junctionmad]

I dont think one can answer issues like this , by a  catch all  debate around " the British Worker, engineer or Manager".  Taken as individuals , each are capable of operating as " world class ".  I was in the car industry in the early 80s and the perception was the Japanese were beating all around them, in reality, when Japanese methods were finally evaluated, most turned out to be Western management ideas.!!

 

I think the " failure of the pilot programme " was almost pre-destined, The railway was a plaything of the exchequer , because it had essentially completely failed financially.  

Edited February 21, 2018 by Junctionmad

[rodent279]

Let us look at the car manufacturing plant as an international benchmark to judge the British worker against others.   The two biggest groups are VW/Audi and Toyota,  each  company  manufactures 10 million cars per annum, Toyota employ 300,000, VW/Audi 650,000 both numbers worldwide.

 

Toyota/Nissan/Honda were all happy to set up world class high-productivity manufacturing plants in the UK employing the much maligned lazy feckless British worker.  Nissan Sunderland  was noted for its high productivity, 100 cars per employee and low defect rate of the product.  Given the correct management, training to do the job  and modern working conditions, the British worker is a world class entity.

 

It's a shame that you can't say the same about the British political classes.....

[Junctionmad]

 

 

Toyota/Nissan/Honda were all happy to set up world class high-productivity manufacturing plants in the UK employing the much maligned lazy feckless British worker.  Nissan Sunderland  was noted for its high productivity, 100 cars per employee and low defect rate of the product.  Given the correct management, training to do the job  and modern working conditions, the British worker is a world class entity.

simply because a factory exists and is well run ( or seemingly so ) is not really any confirmation or otherwise of the anything , Most likely Nissan could build a plant in deepest Swazi land and make it productive 

 

 

 

the British worker is a world class entity.

every worker everywhere is the same , circumstances etc make the difference 

[adb968008]

It's a shame that you can't say the same about the British political classes.....

You can’t have it all ends up...

 

People resent the career political elite, so instead they vote for the Butcher, the Pub landlord etc to become MP...

You can’t then expect that person to go on and negotiate a good trade deal with an Oxford / Harvard educated negotiator from another country, and expect a good deal.

 

I once walked into a bar in Davis, California... when the guy realised I was English, he insisted on a game of darts.. I explained the last time I threw a dart I was 4 and it landed in someone’s ass meant nothing to him..I was English.. he wanted to challenge an English man to darts... I lost he was puzzled.

 

Same thing goes for these trade negotiators queuing up to do a Brexit deal.. they are expecting / wanting a rough tough fight to put their wits against after that Anglo training they did 20years ago... only to find BoJo & co rocks ups speaking an English that no ones ever heard of, describing a deal as selecting a numbered box with Noel Edmunds.

Edited February 22, 2018 by adb968008

[Junctionmad]

 

 

People resent the career political elite, so instead they vote for the Butcher, the Pub landlord etc to become MP...

You can’t then expect that person to go on and negotiate a good trade deal with an Oxford / Harvard educated negotiator from another country, and expect a good deal.

we are in a post-expert world it seems, largely controlled by the actions and tweets of morons with 10000 "followers", but what this has to do with the pilot programme is beyond me 

Edited February 22, 2018 by Junctionmad

[rodent279]

Ask any fitter who has had to change a compressor on a peak, where you need to remove the cab doors and carry it from the body of the loco, into the cabs, and out through the door at a aquaward angle.

Try changing the master cylinder on a Morris Minor.

Whoever put it in the chassis leg, in such a position as means you have to dismantle the suspension to remove it, should be tried for crimes against humanity.....

[daveyb]

Try changing the master cylinder on a Morris Minor.

Whoever put it in the chassis leg, in such a position as means you have to dismantle the suspension to remove it, should be tried for crimes against humanity.....

But you were never supposed to change it... putting it there made eminent sense from a through-the-floor pedal design - short pipe run, easy leverage route, easy to install at the build (whilst the car was on its side and before the suspension was fitted). Nobody designs a vehicle to be repaired, it's only recent thinking to make it easy to service one.

 

 

Some say that we're reaching and age of mediocrity (Jeremy Clarkson being one of them) and the comment in posts 295 & 296 are an indicator of the reactionary, short attn span world in which we live.  We (the world) have gone from pinnacles to averages (Concord to 777, Veyron to Accord, HST to 800) we probably cannot recover (there is not enough money in the world to repair the roads and railways in UK).

 

Political and personal expectations have changed since to pilot scheme (which was the start of this thread), and 60 - 70 years of rose tint, hind sight and theorising isn't going to change that.

 

Change or drown in a pool of your own irrelevance; change is feared but necessary; tradition and history are fine teachers but better anchors... a plethora of other 'management terms' and any number of ruder, soldier terms could apply here... 

[TT3]

You can’t have it all ends up...

 

People resent the career political elite, so instead they vote for the Butcher, the Pub landlord etc to become MP...

You can’t then expect that person to go on and negotiate a good trade deal with an Oxford / Harvard educated negotiator from another country, and expect a good deal.

 

 

 

I think this point was well covered in Yes Prime Minister

 

Sir Humpreys response was, that is why all such negotiations are conducted by Civil Servants such as himself in advance of the meetings.

[PatB]

I've no problem with experts. Proper ones, with decent credentials in their field.

 

I am, however, of the view that many modern day professional politicians are not actually very bright but do tend to be very good at knowing the "right" people to ensure that their career advances. They're also very good at circling the wagons when anything looks to threaten the cosy little club

 

There was a particularly good example of this in Australia recently. Nobody had been particularly bothered about how our upper house voting system worked until significant numbers of the "wrong" people worked out how to get themselves elected. Many turned out to be not bad Senators - certainly no worse than some of the existing seatwarmers - but they weren't part of the established political clique and didn't know the funny handshake and so suddenly we had a crisis demanding urgent reform of the voting system.