Good riddance to Britain's franchised railway system

[DLT]

37 minutes ago, Reorte said:

 

Just as long as I can get a decent cup of tea, it's been a long time since I've had one on a train.

 

Or a seat.....

[Reorte]

26 minutes ago, 62613 said:

We've had this before; the railways were privatised; passenger journeys increased; therefore privatisation was a success in those terms. however, are the two actually related? Passenger journeys had started to increase before privatisation occurred. Correlation does NOT equal causation, especially when the financial terms of reference differ.

There have certainly been changes, possibly as a result of privatisation, that could be reasonably thought to contribute towards passenger growth. The primary one would simply be more services making using the railway a more practical option.

 

On the other hand you'll struggle to find anyone who doesn't think the roads haven't got a lot busier in the same timeframe so there's reason to believe it's all part of overall increases in travel.

[Mark Saunders]

2 hours ago, Mark Saunders said:

Be careful about what you wish for as quite often you end up disappointed with the results!

 

For those that think this post is funny must have short memories or rose tinted spectacles and never lived through reorganisation that seemed like a good idea!

[Jeff Smith]

Being a post-nationalization (b 1951) child I have not known anything other than BR; and strangely enough moving to the US in 1988 I have had only limited post-BR experiences.

 

I used the train (DMU) weekly and sometimes daily from Mill Hill Broadway to St Albans for college for several years in late 60's early 70's.  Memory is a bit foggy but I don't recall any failed services or not getting a seat, perhaps because it was the first stop from London.

[Reorte]

17 minutes ago, Mark Saunders said:

 

For those that think this post is funny must have short memories or rose tinted spectacles and never lived through reorganisation that seemed like a good idea!

Sometimes a "funny" response can be "Hah, you're right there!"

[InterCitySpud]

12 hours ago, DavidB-AU said:

 

The British Rail Sandwich shall return!

Lets hope so! Around 1985 I used to regularly enjoy a ham, egg and gherkin sandwich, on brown bread, delicious and always super fresh from the station buffet.  Also on regular morning trips to Crewe, two rounds of hot buttered toast and a decent cup of tea for about 69p sat in the white plastic seats of the MK1 RBR before retiring to a more comfy MK3a.

The first microwaved burgers on the HST were also amazing at the time, in fact almost all the food served on trains under BR was way better than the fare dished up today and nowhere near as bad as joked about. Sadly today they don't actually really want to provide food do they, for this impatient get me there yesterday society?

 

Maybe now as people take stock of their lives, getting to London from Manchester itself may not be so important never mind getting there in under two hours? As long a service departs and arrives about the correct time, is comfortable and a generally pleasant experience, I don't think people are that bothered. We know the pleasure is in the journey!

 

What a perfect time, now thousands of commuters will change their working habits, more look to holiday at home sacrificing flights for their eco credits, and also off the back of Brexit to take the railways fully back under a new public owned system, Government subsidised, not for profit, designed and built in Derby or Crewe again, not Italy and run by those who actually know our railways and how to deliver them.

 

Sadly wont happen but bring back the new BR!

 

[Phatbob]

3 hours ago, DLT said:

 

Or a seat.....

Or a COMFORTABLE seat.

 

[Reorte]

2 minutes ago, Phatbob said:

Or a COMFORTABLE seat.

 

Definitely! Can't help thinking that the only reason some Victorian wooden bench coaches would've been more uncomfortable is because at least the new stuff has better suspension.

[ejstubbs]

6 hours ago, Zomboid said:

It's an opinion/ editorial piece isn't it?

 

It's an opinion piece, not an editorial*.  The clue is in the URL: ...theguardian.com/commentisfree/... and at the top of the article's web page:

 

 

The Guardian, and many other newspapers, do publish articles that don't necessarily chime closely with the opinions of the newspaper's editorial board but which they believe put forward well-argued and well-written viewpoints (so long as they are not illegally racist, homophobic etc, or likely to incite violence or civil unrest).

 

* Confusingly, newspapers in the US often tag their editorial articles as "opinion" - two nations divided and all that.  In the UK there is generally a clear distinction between the paper's editorial viewpoint (called "The Guardian View" in that newspaper, and clearly labelled "Editorial" on each article on its web site) and true "opinion" pieces.

[Rivercider]

I suppose that one worry will be that like each re-organisation before it will cause yet more experienced staff to be either made redundant, or simply decide that they have had enough. The industry can not afford to lose even more knowledge,

 

cheers

[corneliuslundie]

"Just as long as I can get a decent cup of tea, it's been a long time since I've had one on a train."

I suspect that you never will now that there is no urn full of boiling water in the buffet car. Tea needs boiling water, not hot water from a thermos flask

And never ask for tea on a plane. The lower air pressure means that water boils at a lower temperature and it is impossible to make a proper cup of tea.

I am afraid that looking at the larger picture, there never will be a well run railway system until it can be prised from the mitts of civil servants and politicians. And that is likely to be never. So it doesn't really matter whether the system is public or "private". In the end the major decisions are still made in the public sector.

But there is another reason why change has been inevitable for some time. See how many of the potential franchisees have dropped out over the years. If as has been said the rate of return is about 3% if things go well, you are better off putting your money elsewhere - though perhaps not in department stores at the moment. It surprises me that the French, German and Dutch companies have wanted to enter the market - though weren't there noises that the German government wanted DB to get out?

Jonathan

 

[rockershovel]

It’s ironic that the 1945 Labour administration definitely thought of long term stability, Nationalisation was intended to last for any foreseeable future, while that administration was gone within a single term. Governments since have typically lasted three to four terms, often taking office with every expectation of re-election, yet long term strategic thinking seems sadly wanting.

 

 

[rockershovel]

This country has seen the greatest population increase in its recorded history, the substantial destruction of large sectors of its productive economy, a general destabilisation of employment patterns, a great centralisation of remsining employment and a huge increase in peripatetic contract labour. Why would anyone either be surprised at, or have the brass neck to claim credit for the increased travel figures? 

[Jeff Smith]

48 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

And never ask for tea on a plane. The lower air pressure means that water boils at a lower temperature and it is impossible to make a proper cup of tea.

This is true but often the sub-standard tea is better than the very sub-standard coffee.......even on a US carrier!

 

Regarding the notion of TOCs paying to run over someone else's track, surely there will always be some friction, ie, your train damaged my track or your track held up my train, etc.  I would have thought that joint ownership of infrastructure and rolling stock would always be preferable.

[Reorte]

25 minutes ago, Jeff Smith said:

This is true but often the sub-standard tea is better than the very sub-standard coffee.......even on a US carrier!

 

One of the few times I drink coffee is when I went to football matches on very cold days. I'm not keen on coffee but Carlisle United's tea was even worse!

[Robert Shrives]

Rivercider  comment on intellectual bleeding on a dying patient is so true . Too late the IRO and others have realised this and now do suggest its younger members listen to the old lags and repeated RAIB docs show repeat failings across the industry . Way back in the day ... the rule book was a collection of corrected mistakes - it told how to avoid repeats and if you did it was hard when thrown at you - if you surivied. Now it is a comic book of pretty pictures and duplicated words that spreads over several volumes if on paper. 

 

The ability to move sectors and businesses for the BR graduate management trainees - up until 1994  ( I wonder why that date !!) led to the best width and depth of senior managers - who have now all but retired or perhaps become Skegness operators ( the last resort!)...  In the cost cutting bus industry led madness the Grove in Watford became a private management school and then some years ago at vast expense of reinventing the wheel NR opened Westfield as its management school - no idea if still running but it had an uphill task.      

 

Current railway experienced managers at the highest levels are still fairly common but now lack the width and depth that the Grove and  subsequent placements and mentoring produced, perhaps as a direct result of this ASLEF have been able to rule the roost with RMT as supporting shadow  management but of course rightly as they see it members first industry second even if that means it all goes down the pan it will be somebody else at fault.  It will take several generations and some spilling of industrial blood to get the balance back.

 

On recent shifts where the cooled system - can cope with traffic it has been good to see controllers putting the world to rights with old tales of yore with wide eyed social media staff who get the least in knowing how it really works but get to deal with many aspects of the business when it goes wrong as the now main public interface from keyboard worriers able to listen and learn, the questions asked show they have the potential. A quiet revolution in Mutual improvement classes of old.

 

The new world will be a brave one I am sure but if you survived OfQ  then not many surprises really await.  

[Dagworth]

9 minutes ago, Robert Shrives said:

OfQ

That raised a smile here, I well remember all the crap of "Organising For Quality" being thrust upon us. Whoever managed to get a whole restructure of everything named "Oh F*** You" was a genius!

 

Andi

[boxbrownie]

3 hours ago, Phatbob said:

Or a COMFORTABLE seat.

 

Hear hear........when we travel up by train we used to always go first class GWR most always HST, lovely nice seats, leather clad and reasonably comfortable for four hours or more, last time we went first we got in a 800 class thingy......I had a numb bum by the time I got to Exeter.......great only another three hours to go!

 

Every time we travel on preserved railways we bask in the luxury of a horse hair stuffed, wire coil sprung, bouncy armchair....nay....settee even......if only the modern seats had a modicum of the comfort of those.

[Titan]

3 hours ago, Dagworth said:

That raised a smile here, I well remember all the crap of "Organising For Quality" being thrust upon us. Whoever managed to get a whole restructure of everything named "Oh F*** You" was a genius!

 

Andi

 

Oh gosh yes!  Do you remember the video starring Lenny Henry about improving our qality?

 

Think I have just found a signature tag...

[brianusa]

It seems a lot yearn for the past.  Comfy seats with room to stretch out, hot tea and delicious sandwiches - gone forever along with the ability to add extra carriages on crowded trains.  The accent nowadays is to cram as many bottoms into smaller and smaller hard seats.  Forget comfort, you are lucky to get a seat anyway and you can always lean on the standee in the aisle next to you or he will lean on you!  We've all been there before - on airlines; the railways learned well!

      Brian.

[corneliuslundie]

"often the sub-standard tea is better than the very sub-standard coffee.......even on a US carrier!"

"Even on a US carrier"? My wife and I can't stand American coffee. Mind you we don't fly with American carriers anyway. True we were spoiled for six years living on Kosovo. A standing joke there is that the coffee is so good because all the waiters are graduates. We travel there and to Albania with Turkish Airlines. Now they DO know how to make a good cup of coffee. Why do the Americans add all sorts of things to their coffee, one has to ask? Mind you, it still amazes me that in Istanbul Nescafe was touted as an up-market coffee brand when you cen get excellent coffee in every cafe and cheaper.

Anyway that was completely off topic. Some very goods points made about the loss of the wide ranging management training schemes the railway used to run. These days the theory seems to be that all you need is a degree in management or perhaps logistics (without ever doing any) and you are on the way to the top. I have just been re-reading the standard history of the GWR and it is noticeable that all the best and best known leaders came up through the ranks. And in earlier days, they usually moved around between companies as well, getting broader experience. True, not all were brilliant, especially some of the Locomotive Superintendents. And sometimes they had pretty dreadful directors to cope with.

But how you recreate such a scenario I don't know. In is not unique to the  railways. 

Jonathan

[rockershovel]

7 hours ago, corneliuslundie said:

"often the sub-standard tea is better than the very sub-standard coffee.......even on a US carrier!"

"Even on a US carrier"? My wife and I can't stand American coffee. Mind you we don't fly with American carriers anyway. True we were spoiled for six years living on Kosovo. A standing joke there is that the coffee is so good because all the waiters are graduates. We travel there and to Albania with Turkish Airlines. Now they DO know how to make a good cup of coffee. Why do the Americans add all sorts of things to their coffee, one has to ask? Mind you, it still amazes me that in Istanbul Nescafe was touted as an up-market coffee brand when you cen get excellent coffee in every cafe and cheaper.

Anyway that was completely off topic. Some very goods points made about the loss of the wide ranging management training schemes the railway used to run. These days the theory seems to be that all you need is a degree in management or perhaps logistics (without ever doing any) and you are on the way to the top. I have just been re-reading the standard history of the GWR and it is noticeable that all the best and best known leaders came up through the ranks. And in earlier days, they usually moved around between companies as well, getting broader experience. True, not all were brilliant, especially some of the Locomotive Superintendents. And sometimes they had pretty dreadful directors to cope with.

But how you recreate such a scenario I don't know. In is not unique to the  railways. 

Jonathan

 

I saw the same thing happen in Baku. There is a central square there called Fountains Square, which when I first went (around 2002) was still in a very run-down state; it now resembles the expensive end of an airport shopping concourse. This glittering tribute to Mammon includes both Macdonalds and KFC, with people queueing in their best clothes outside.... one thing I did learn working in the Levant, was to appreciate good kebab and shawarma, preferably with espresso coffee and fresh orange juice. 

 

Civil engineering used to have a quite good entry scheme by which school leavers did ONC and HNC, some eventually progressed to degrees and got a lot of practical experience along the way. However the ICE preferred to entrench its position as a bureaucracy serving the interests of a small number of consultants, by way of establishing a captive subscriber base of local authority staff who mostly, simply regarded their membership as a tax on their jobs. The Chilver Report marked the end of effective vocational training; I don’t believe that Brunel or Stephenson would be able to join, now. 

[Chris M]

As a daily passenger in the Midlands during the privatisation period I have to say I loved travelling by Chiltern Trains. Somehow all the staff seemed interested in providing great service and gave the impression of loving their job. This was right down to the folk selling tea and snacks. Even when things went wrong you felt they were trying hard to fix it and when there were little problems you could kind of detect a sense of humour with the situation. In stark contrast I hated London Midland Trains. The staff just didn't seem to want to be there. They were certainly more interested in clocking off bang on time than they were in providing anything like customer service. Information about what trains would be running when things went wrong was usually sadly lacking; I'm pretty sure the staff on the ground weren't given any information from those in control. My point is that the managers of a railway have a significant effect on the whole ethos of the staff which in turn has a significant effect the passenger experience. I worry that a government controlled railway will lose that special touch.

[TheQ]

I love a good shawarma, but sadly a strong coffee sends by heart rate through the roof.

 

I've been trying to work out the last time I used a train, non preserved that is. It's about 1980, from where I've lived ever since except MK it's been impractical, the costs of taxi's to be able to get to and from a station make it expensive as well.

Any way that means I've never travelled behind anything as modern as an HST, so can't give a view of the travellers experience during privatisation.

 

One thing I always thought was separating track maintenance from track use is always going to be a problem, one "owner" of both track and trains is always more likely to give a coordinated level of service.

[DCB]

Privatised or Nationalised running almost new 9 or 10 coach Bi Mode units with 10 passengers cannot be sustained.  The good old pre 1948 railway would have left 8 or 9 coaches behind to save money.

but like 1955 the planners of the mid 2010s didn't see the precipice before they tpped over it.

That 2020 precipice is home working  You spend 8 hours at homeworking and not doing your other activities and get paid for 8 hours, instead of being away 10/11/12  hours and paying 20% of your wages on a season ticket..

Conversely the railways don't seem able to respond to reductions in demand, I blame Thomas the Tank engine, he always took both Clarrie and Annabel with him no matter how spares the traffic.    Its like 1915 again, we just didn't realise we saw the end of the  golden age of railways