50 years since the first day of diesel and electric only timetabled service.

[bike2steam]

Indeed.  One of the great "Riddles" of post-war railway politics!!

 

Yep, so many like to say their 'sixpenneth' about what was right or wrong, but haven't got a clue about the state of the nation at the time.

[HillsideDepot]

I just find it so bizarre ( not sure why in such a loco-centric hobby) that the method of traction changing means so much to so many people.

The Railway still stayed the same!

 

Indeed, there is much more to the railway than the means of power, as vital to the operation of the railway as that is.

 

To come back to the HST, I feel that that was a big change given the amount of engineering work which was done ahead of its introduction to make the 125mph railway. Much more so than the change from steam to diesel. As a 6 year old I could see where the track had been slewed and the foot bridge raised at my local station, where the Down yard had been, and the local level crossing too. That, to a small boy, was a big change. But go to Cornwall, even now, and while the HSTs run there the infrastructure has more the feel of the steam age than the high speed age.

 

Of course, whatever the top management might decree, change on the railways takes a long time, making dates rather meaningless. Yes, 50 years from the last day of the last steam locos, but there were hundreds of "last days", depending on where you were in the country. We're in another period of change now, at least on my local line. The HSTs are finally coming to an end. Sadly the next step won't be electrification, although the trains are capable of working "on the juice". The first two IET diagrams began on 16th October 2017, now, lass than a year later, it is already unusual to see the latest London arrival an the next London departure at Temple Meads are both in the hands of HSTs. The final day of HST operation is still some way off however, as short sets will continue in Scotland and the West Country, but their days of 125mph running are closing. Is this changeover less significant than the last gasps of steam? Most would say so, but for the passenger the change from (usually) blue "old" InterCity 125 to sleek, shiny, new, green InterCity Express Train is more noticeable than a Mk1 hauled by a Castle one day and the very same Mk1 hauled by a Western the next.

 

Rather like another thread debating the "correct" (whatever that means) ratio of locos to rolling stock that we should have on our layouts, it is the loco which gets our attention. I nearly typed "motive power" in the previous sentence, but then realised that to many people motive power, when "disguised" as a DMU is of about as much relevance as rusty 16t mineral wagon; you gotta have 'em, but they're of no real interest. Each to their own, of course. Mark the end of steam, be that with sadness for its passing, or celebration for its replacements, but the date for any one change is largely irrelevant among the hundreds of dates which record the development of our railway system.

 

Things change. The new replaces the old. Some changes get noticed, and even remembered years later, some are ignored and forgotten. For some the important date was 50 years ago (plus a few days now), for me I'm approaching the 40th anniversary (towards the end of the month) of an transport alteration which is important to me. Not that I expect anyone else to remember the passing of our 296, 297 and 299 town bus routes.

[Reorte]

I just find it so bizarre ( not sure why in such a loco-centric hobby) that the method of traction changing means so much to so many people.

The Railway still stayed the same!

Probably because that's the aspect of it that a lot of people find interesting. You could argue that it's no more different from being interested in cars but not in roads beyond them being something cars can move along on.

[coachmann]

I just find it so bizarre ( not sure why in such a loco-centric hobby) that the method of traction changing means so much to so many people.

The Railway still stayed the same!

"The railway stayed the same" is one of the more bizarre comments emanating from this forum. It was the changes that hit the railway employee, the travelling public and the enthusiast. The railway landscape of 1958 and of 1966 couldn't have been more different.

Edited August 7, 2018 by coachmann

[Reorte]

"The railway stayed the same" is one of the most bizarre comments I have ever read on this forum. It was the changes that hit the railway employee, the travelling public and the enthusiast. The railway landscape of 1960 and of 1966 couldn't have been more different.

Multiple changes going on at the same time really, for the public the loco up front was the most visible though. In some ways the railway did stay the same, there are plenty of photos around of goods trains that wouldn't have looked out of place hauled by steam being hauled by diesels (a few of which are probably still in service today), but that's really just masking that it wasn't an instant change of everything at the same time. But then it's never stayed exactly the same, although the rate of change has been higher and / or more visible at some times than others.

[Pacific231G]

The 1960s was an era for change, long over due change.

 

Just think pop music and mini skirts that will help us forget branch line closures. 

Oh I'm not in the least nostalgic for most of what the 60s changed and tend to think that nostalgia, as opposed to respect for our heritage, has got a bit out of hand in Britain.(and if I see one more "Keep Calm and ......" poster I think I may scream) Too much of what went before was grey, narrow and mean spirited and it was changes in the 60s that, for example, enabled people like me to go to University  .

 

I do though believe that several babies were thrown out with the bathwater and one of those was the central role of railways in transport provision. The refrain that, with the possible exception of a few specialised services for a while, railways were a Victorian leftover that had had its day and the future belonged to concrete, rubber and oil was very pervasive. There were many railway enthusiasts who regretfully accepted that view and there were very powerful vested interests pushing it and not just in Britain ("tout automobile" has been a very powerful idea in France since the 1930s)  

 

There was of course an upside to the replacement of steam and the closure of over half of our railway services happening at around the same time with such indecent haste. Britain has by far the strongest railway preservation movement in the world and  I wonder whether that's largely been because we didn't lose our railways gradually and almost unnoticed as has happened elsewhere.  

Edited August 7, 2018 by Pacific231G

[luckymucklebackit]

I was looking back at some "Modern Railways" magazines from the 1970s and it is apparent from the articles in them that BR really pinned its future on the success of the APT project.  One table describes the roll out of "squadron" APT sets on all main lines north and west from London, but not only that, this resulted in the cascading of HST to secondary lines such as Glasgow to Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Inverness by the 1980s, (thirty years before the current deployment on the Scotrail routes).

I think that this affected BR badly, as there was no plan "B" for many years, and the HSTs would have been far superior to the eventual replacements for loco hauled trains that did come along (Sprinters and Voyagers)

 

Jim

[coachmann]

The rate of change in 1958 to 1966 was phenomenal. With no future for single wagon load freight, which had been the bread and butter of marshalling yards, places like Gowhole were transformed into empty weed strewn wildernesses. The wayside goods yard, a feature of the railway scene from the very early years, began to ebb away too. Fields of ash appeared where motive power depots once stood and potholed ballast where once lay double track or quadruple track or even whole branch lines. Closed intermediate stations also became more apparent as the 1960's wore on. Steam traction was merely a part of the whole and I seriously doubt the travelling public gave a damn what motive power was on the front so long as it got them to work on time.

[adb968008]

I was looking back at some "Modern Railways" magazines from the 1970s and it is apparent from the articles in them that BR really pinned its future on the success of the APT project. One table describes the roll out of "squadron" APT sets on all main lines north and west from London, but not only that, this resulted in the cascading of HST to secondary lines such as Glasgow to Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Inverness by the 1980s, (thirty years before the current deployment on the Scotrail routes).

I think that this affected BR badly, as there was no plan "B" for many years, and the HSTs would have been far superior to the eventual replacements for loco hauled trains that did come along (Sprinters and Voyagers)

 

Jim

The timelines of the APT and TGV are very similar. Both started life in 1972 as gas turbines, but went electric following the 1973 oil crisis. Critically the French realised in 1976 to make the train work, it needed its own lines to run on, and built it by 1981, but In the UK it took another 26 years to realise the same conclusion, and it will be 52 years since before the domestic UK actually gets the same.

 

In that sense, the cut backs of the 1970’s have put Britain 50 years behind other world reknown railway powers., a lead it is unlikely British industry will ever recover from. The teams of the 70’s might have held great ideas, but they didn’t have the cash to deliver. I think the low point of British rail innovation has to be the attempts at believing it could sell Pacers internationally, but then also losing a competing bid to a communist designed rail bus from Hungary, which was deemed to be better.

Edited August 7, 2018 by adb968008

[Clive Mortimore]

The rate of change in 1958 to 1966 was phenomenal. With no future for single wagon load freight, which had been the bread and butter of marshalling yards, places like Gowhole were transformed into empty weed strewn wildernesses. The wayside goods yard, a feature of the railway scene from the very early years, began to ebb away too. Fields of ash appeared where motive power depots once stood and potholed ballast where once lay double track or quadruple track or even whole branch lines. Closed intermediate stations also became more apparent as the 1960's wore on. Steam traction was merely a part of the whole and I seriously doubt the travelling public gave a damn what motive power was on the front so long as it got them to work on time.

Most of the loss of goods traffic was due to the railways, thankfully, losing the common carrier status in 1962. The railways were able to refuse the half wagon load of manure if it was not going to profitable, before hand they could not and they had to offer the lowest rate. The railway was no longer cluttered up with part loads going short distances for no profit. 

 

As much as I like railways and there importance in how Britain was able to be a major industrial nation by the 1960s the world had changed and British Rail had to as well.

 

[rockershovel]

The French also have a system of government by which Ministries set policy over long periods of time, and Ministers (who are political appointments who come and go, and cannot be expected to give priority to the function of the department) are their political servants.

 

It never made any overall sense that the Channel Tunnel was built in isolation from the necessary infrastructure, but it was a wholly predictable consequence of the project-driven mentality behind the decision, and the ideological and profit-seeking attitudes in Westminster.

[rockershovel]

Oh I'm not in the least nostalgic for most of what the 60s changed and tend to think that nostalgia, as opposed to respect for our heritage, has got a bit out of hand in Britain.(and if I see one more "Keep Calm and ......" poster I think I may scream) Too much of what went before was grey, narrow and mean spirited and it was changes in the 60s that, for example, enabled people like me to go to University  .

 

.....

 

There was of course an upside to the replacement of steam and the closure of over half of our railway services happening at around the same time with such indecent haste. Britain has by far the strongest railway preservation movement in the world and  I wonder whether that's largely been because we didn't lose our railways gradually and almost unnoticed as has happened elsewhere.

 

Read “Railway Adventure”, in which Rolt is quite clear that there was a widespread view that much had been lost, and little gained. Britain, uniquely in Europe, never passed through the rejection or disowning of the past which was universal and inevitable in Europe; the people were well aware that the country had been diminished, and no one was queueing to thank them for it.

[Nearholmer]

The trouble with the ‘has privatisation done any good?’ debate is that, exactly as with the ‘did nationalisation do more harm or good?’ debate, is that, in the absence of a parallel run of history it’s pretty much impossible to tell for sure.

 

The increase in passenger traffic might have come without privatisation, or not. The significant above-inflation rise in unit costs might have happened on a still-nationalised railway, or not. Short-termism might have been eradicated on a still-nationalised Railway, or pigs might fly etc etc

[rockershovel]

The trouble with the ‘has privatisation done any good?’ debate is that, exactly as with the ‘did nationalisation do more harm or good?’ debate, is that, in the absence of a parallel run of history it’s pretty much impossible to tell for sure.

The increase in passenger traffic might have come without privatisation, or not. The significant above-inflation rise in unit costs might have happened on a still-nationalised railway, or not. Short-termism might have been eradicated on a still-nationalised Railway, or pigs might fly etc etc

The first thirty years of nationalisation in the coal industry, saw investment on a scale not seen within living memory. It saw advances in technology which led to NCB standards becoming respected, and often followed world-wide. It saw suppliers like Dosco and Anderson Mavor prosper on their exports. It saw the industry progress from a worn-out wreck to developments like the Selby field, a world-class operation by any standards. Where is all that now?

 

The railways were totally worn out in 1945, flogged into the ground by thirty years of war and depression. Nationalisation would bring a journey, over thirty years, from a railway where worn-out Edwardian locos were a common sight, to the HST.

 

Without nationalisation, I don’t believe we would have a railway at all, by now.

[david.hill64]

The timelines of the APT and TGV are very similar. Both started life in 1972 as gas turbines, but went electric following the 1973 oil crisis. Critically the French realised in 1976 to make the train work, it needed its own lines to run on, and built it by 1981, but In the UK it took another 26 years to realise the same conclusion, and it will be 52 years since before the domestic UK actually gets the same.

I think this is a bit harsh. BR understood too that it was relatively easy to provide a high speed train running on dedicated new infrastructure. They also realised that there was no chance of getting funding. Building trains is cheap compared to building new lines. The 1970's were all about managing decline gracefully. APT was a valiant attempt to get high speed travel on existing infrastructure. 

[jjb1970]

Good engineering isn't always spectacular engineering, and in many ways making something new that works well without resorting to the spectacular is all the more impressive.

 

 

Quite so, and very well put. As an observation it is always quite telling that if engineers (or scientists or indeed professionally competent people in almost any discipline) are asked for their opinions of the individuals and accomplishments that they most admire or which have inspired them the answers are often markedly different from popular opinion.

[62613]

Quite so, and very well put. As an observation it is always quite telling that if engineers (or scientists or indeed professionally competent people in almost any discipline) are asked for their opinions of the individuals and accomplishments that they most admire or which have inspired them the answers are often markedly different from popular opinion.

Replying to this post and to David Hill64 above it; you are correct. Didn't BR hire several engineers from the aerospace industry into their research department, and they came up with some whizz-bang ideas of which the APT was the result; the HST was the traditional railway engineers' answer to that. I can remember a TV programme, maybe in the 1990s, where the commercial department had gone to the engineers and said "Could you design a train that will fulfil this schedule on the ECML?" the engineers said "No, but we can give you this" and the commercial department were amazed at how superior the engineers' design was - the class 91 &  mk4 concept.

[Pacific231G]

The timelines of the APT and TGV are very similar. Both started life in 1972 as gas turbines, but went electric following the 1973 oil crisis. Critically the French realised in 1976 to make the train work, it needed its own lines to run on, and built it by 1981, but In the UK it took another 26 years to realise the same conclusion, and it will be 52 years since before the domestic UK actually gets the same.

 

The French situation was very different simply because of the distances involved.

 

In Britain, the distances between London and the country's other major cities are, with some obvious exceptions such as Newcastle, Edinbugh and Glasgow,  generally between around 100 and 225 miles . In France, the comparable distances, again with exceptions, are between around 200 and 350 miles with a bias towards the 300-350 mile range. On the "classic" network, even with trains accelerated to beyond 100MPH, that meant typical journey times of 4-6 hours (or an overnight train) 

whereas in Britain accelarating trains to 125MPH brought most major British cities within a couple of hours or so of the capital*.

 

Germany seems to have taken a different approach by upgrading existing lines where possible and building dedicated high speed lines far more sparingly. Unlike France, and to some extent Britain, Germany has always had far more focus on a network of lines connecting all its major cities with one another rather than just with the capital and doing all that with dedicated high speed lines would have been impractical.

 

In France, the development of the LGV network does seem to have been at the expense of developing other services and routes. When many of us (incuding me) were dazzled by the new dawn for railways in general that the TGV seemed to represent, that wasn't something that many of us recognised. If it hadn't been for the regionalisation of transport policy, I doubt if there would be more than a handful of cross-country and local services left in France. The old joke that the main purpose of railway passenger services was to convey officials and politicians to and from Paris carried more than a hit of truth!

 

One also sometimes gets the impression that SNCF would be far more excited to increase the world rail speed record by 10% than to increase passenger numbers by the same amount but maybe that's too cynical.

 

*I also remember very well the change in morale that the HST's introduction seemed to bring to the rail industry. Rightly or wrongly, it seemed to symbolise the end of the railways' gradual decline.

Edited August 8, 2018 by Pacific231G

[Pacific231G]

Read “Railway Adventure”, in which Rolt is quite clear that there was a widespread view that much had been lost, and little gained. Britain, uniquely in Europe, never passed through the rejection or disowning of the past which was universal and inevitable in Europe; the people were well aware that the country had been diminished, and no one was queueing to thank them for it.

Slightly OT but it's interesting to read Rolt's later Landscape with Figures which includes the period of his life covered by Railway Adventure and gives a very different perspective on it. Suffice it to say that he was a lot more polite about certain people  in Railway Adventure!  

[paulbb]

Most of the loss of goods traffic was due to the railways, thankfully, losing the common carrier status in 1962. The railways were able to refuse the half wagon load of manure if it was not going to profitable, before hand they could not and they had to offer the lowest rate. The railway was no longer cluttered up with part loads going short distances for no profit. 

 

As much as I like railways and there importance in how Britain was able to be a major industrial nation by the 1960s the world had changed and British Rail had to as well.

 

I agree with the above, but another significant factor was the move towards smokeless fuels, both in the home and in industry. Much local traffic by 1960 in our side of town was local coal deliveries, and our local goods yard was empty soon after legislative changes.. This was after the various Clean Air Acts, which transformed the air in places like  Manchester. Also the move to North sea gas meant the end of Town gas and all the 'coke' trains/movements that went with it

[rockershovel]

Regarding German railway design, #93 above, the key thing to understand is that the German railway system played a crucial role in the creation of first, an Empire consisting of a federation of historically separate states and subsequently, a single unified country. The very existence of a single German capital lies within the railway age.

 

Secondly, Germany as a concept was the principal creation of Prussia, proverbially “hatched from a cannonball”, “an army in possession of a state” rather than vice versa. The German rail network, like the Roman roads, was designed to allow rapid mobilisation, followed by rapid passage of its armies against external enemies, current or projected. The whole 1914 German attack plan against France, then Russia depended upon the existence of the necessary rail network, and those who sought to halt mobilisation in that fateful few days were told that no such thing was possible.

 

There is also the fact of German geography that, unlike France, it possesses no Southern coastline and few natural courses from one end of the country to another.

Edited August 8, 2018 by rockershovel

[Mike Storey]

The French also have a system of government by which Ministries set policy over long periods of time, and Ministers (who are political appointments who come and go, and cannot be expected to give priority to the function of the department) are their political servants.

 

It never made any overall sense that the Channel Tunnel was built in isolation from the necessary infrastructure, but it was a wholly predictable consequence of the project-driven mentality behind the decision, and the ideological and profit-seeking attitudes in Westminster.

 

Not altogether true I am afraid.

 

Chirac accelerated autoroute construction, against French civil service advice, and particularly through the Limousin (where we used to live) on the promise that that section would be toll free (and so it is).

 

Sarkozy severely curtailed LGV expansion plans (bar those already committed).

 

Miitterand tried to accelerate them (and did in a couple of cases). But the long term plan to tip the balance in favour of rail by introducing an additional fee for long-haul lorry operators, was cancelled.

 

Macron has not only stopped all additional LGV plans, subject to more intense business case scrutiny, he has implemented a plan to turn SNCF upside down, again contrary to previously announced long term strategy.

[rockershovel]

Not altogether true I am afraid.

 

Chirac accelerated autoroute construction, against French civil service advice, and particularly through the Limousin (where we used to live) on the promise that that section would be toll free (and so it is).

 

Sarkozy severely curtailed LGV expansion plans (bar those already committed).

 

Miitterand tried to accelerate them (and did in a couple of cases). But the long term plan to tip the balance in favour of rail by introducing an additional fee for long-haul lorry operators, was cancelled.

 

Macron has not only stopped all additional LGV plans, subject to more intense business case scrutiny, he has implemented a plan to turn SNCF upside down, again contrary to previously announced long term strategy.

All true, but it highlights another important point - the French President is an elected office in its own right, with powers which do not depend upon the support of any given political party (although as several POTUS have demonstrated, a sufficient level of support from one side or another is essential).

 

There’s no doubt though, that French Ministries exhibit a continuity of purpose rarely to be found in the U.K.

[Gibbo675]

Replying to this post and to David Hill64 above it; you are correct. Didn't BR hire several engineers from the aerospace industry into their research department, and they came up with some whizz-bang ideas of which the APT was the result; the HST was the traditional railway engineers' answer to that. I can remember a TV programme, maybe in the 1990s, where the commercial department had gone to the engineers and said "Could you design a train that will fulfil this schedule on the ECML?" the engineers said "No, but we can give you this" and the commercial department were amazed at how superior the engineers' design was - the class 91 &  mk4 concept.

Hi There,

 

Is this the video you were thinking of ?

 

 

If not it's a good one any way.

 

Gibbo.

[GoingUnderground]

I remember cycling over to Moor Park station with a friend to see the last steam train on that part of the line. But I thought that was more than 50 years ago

What about the LT panniers? They still ran through Moor Park to Croxley tip. But, I jest, as you were referring to main line services over the old Met & GC Joint Committee route.