How would you rank the Big 4 railway companies in terms of your liking/interests?

[DenysW]

58 minutes ago, wasabi said:

Dividends had a slight mention above (unless I've missed something) but I haven't been able to find anything about share prices - or the total return to shareholders.

Not that simple, I'm afraid. Grouping was not uniformly fair - some of the Big 4 got proportionally more of the financial basket-cases (examples: the Great Central, London Chatham & Dover) and the financially marginal ones (e.g. Great Eastern, all of the Scottish companies) than others. Southern was lucky in its electrification - it paid off. GWR was unlucky with its Welsh take-overs - the demand for coal to fuel shipping dropped off, changing the value of formerly hugely profitable lines like the Taff Vale.

[Nearholmer]

The dividend and share issue/price topic was discussed in another thread, IIRC the one about SR electrification plans.

 

my personal “interest” ranking went SR, GWR, LMS, LNER, the gap between SR and the rest being huge, because I’ve studied the SR in fair depth, and worked for BR(S) at a time when the ghosts of the SR were still stalking the corridors.

 

In truth, my knowledge of British railways north of about Birmingham is very weak indeed, so most of the LMS and LNER are terra incognita so far as I’m concerned.

[Nearholmer]

27 minutes ago, DenysW said:

Southern was lucky in its electrification

I think the word you are looking for is “intelligent”, rather than “lucky”. Sir Herbert Walker in particular had a genius for knowing where to put money in order to get a return on it, and how to manage with little money elsewhere.

 

Where the Southern was genuinely lucky is that it’s revenues were nothing like as dependant upon heavy goods, so it wasn’t impacted anything like as badly by the depression as the others.

[Invicta]

On 29/11/2022 at 20:21, Dungrange said:

 

I'd say it influenced my choice.  Steam had gone by the time I was born and the pre-nationalisation railways ceased to exist when my parents were small children, so I didn't form an allegiance to any of the Big Four through location or family connections.  For me, it was looking at the Hornby catalogue as a youngster - which steam locomotives did I like best?  The answer was the ones that had been designed by H N Gresley, which led to a greater interest in the LNER than the others.  A visit to Carnforth and the National Railway Museum allowed me to see locomotives from each of the Big Four, but again, it was the LNER or LMS locomotives that attracted me more than the examples I saw from the Great Western and Southern, so that was how I answered.

 

Now I model the post privatisation period, so I have no allegiance to the steam era.

 

RTR availability had an influence on my choice, in that my first two locos as a kid were a Tri-ang Jinty and Princess, and although I've had a pretty eclectic collection of locos and stock over the years, it's always had a distinctly LMS/LMR flavour overall. I guess growing up in very much Midland/LMS territory (although I'm too young to remember steam), was the other big factor which puts the LMS top of my list.

 

I can see fairly obvious  influences for 2nd and 3rd on the list as well- I put LNER second - I lived in Newcastle for a few years as a student, and much of my preserved steam mileage over the years has been on the Great Central -  and Southern third- I spent a good portion of my life living and working in East Kent, before moving back to NW Leics about 10 years ago.

 

GWR comes last simply because I've simply never really had much contact with it. I've only ever owned a couple of model GWR locos, and apart from GW locos on heritage lines, most of my recent contact with things Western has been while holidaying in North Wales, but I suspect that influence would be more likely to steer me towards modelling narrow-gauge than the GWR!

[Steamport Southport]

2 hours ago, DenysW said:

Not that simple, I'm afraid. Grouping was not uniformly fair - some of the Big 4 got proportionally more of the financial basket-cases (examples: the Great Central, London Chatham & Dover) and the financially marginal ones (e.g. Great Eastern, all of the Scottish companies) than others. Southern was lucky in its electrification - it paid off. GWR was unlucky with its Welsh take-overs - the demand for coal to fuel shipping dropped off, changing the value of formerly hugely profitable lines like the Taff Vale.

 

Was the Great Central a basket case though? Or was it stitched up by those with an agenda?

 

A modern railway that went to most of the major English cities by the direct route with up to date locomotives and rolling stock.

 

There was a feeling that the GCR probably should have been put in the LMS rather than LNER grouping. Or even been put in a group with the MR and CLC which was suggested at the time.

 

It was a travesty that most of it closed whilst lesser routes stayed open.

 

 

 

Jason

[Nearholmer]

1 hour ago, Steamport Southport said:

Was the Great Central a basket case though?

I think it was financially, because it was carrying substantial and recent construction costs, to a degree that few other railways were by the grouping. Although other railways had undertaken substantial construction in the same time window, I think these were primarily financed from earnings and that their original capitalisation of their main routes had deflated a long way, allowing higher percentages to be paid on it.
 

Route wise, the London Extension was somewhat hampered by The Chilterns and sharing the rather squiggly routes through them with other operators.

 

 

Edited December 24, 2022 by Nearholmer

[DenysW]

1 hour ago, Steamport Southport said:

Was the Great Central a basket case though? Or was it stitched up by those with an agenda?

It (mostly) paid 2% on its Ordinary Shares in the 1870s and 1880s when others were paying 6%-ish. In bad years it only paid some of its preference shares, and did not pay anything to Ordinary shareholders. Despite this it declined a take-over (by Midland-Great Northern Joint) that would have paid its shareholders 4%. After the London Extension was complete it did not pay a dividend on its ordinary shares ever again.

 

Leicester London Road is 99 miles from St. Pancras. Leicester Central was 103 miles from Marylebone (data from 1922 Bradshaw). The ruling gradients are, essentially, the same.

 

In several of its key cities (Rugby, Leicester, Nottingham, Sheffield) you had to walk across town to change trains. No!No!No! Same for some of the lesser places (Loughborough, Chesterfield).

 

As a confession - the hype around the Great Central (especially the false assertions that its London Extension was built to the Berne loading gauge) really annoys me.

 

Yes it was propped up by some really good engineers, and had some really nice rolling stock. But it also crossed the Pennines at Woodhead because it had third choice of route.

Edited December 24, 2022 by DenysW
Add Sheffield

[DenysW]

4 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

I think the word you are looking for is “intelligent”, rather than “lucky”. Sir Herbert Walker in particular had a genius for knowing where to put money in order to get a return on it, and how to manage with little money elsewhere.

 

Where the Southern was genuinely lucky is that it’s revenues were nothing like as dependant upon heavy goods, so it wasn’t impacted anything like as badly by the depression as the others.

I believe we are, essentially, in agreement. Would you settle for:

 

- Southern intelligently put its money into electrification of the London suburbs and beyond  (contrast Great Eastern and the Midland's London Tilbury & Southend), and luckily this part of the business was less affected by the depression than the goods/mineral traffic of the other companies.

[Nearholmer]

And the trouble with the LNER, and indeed the GER before it, was that it was intelligent enough to see the need for early electrification in the suburban area, but simply couldn’t afford it for a long time. The SECR was in a similar boat, knowing that it needed to electrify in the suburbs, but forever skint.
 

I’m less sure about what went on with electrification thinking for the LT&S, but surely the LMS must have considered it.

[DenysW]

14 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

I’m less sure about what went on with electrification thinking for the LT&S, but surely the LMS must have considered it.

I believe the Midland agreed to do it on taking over the LT&S, but it was always 4th or lower on the list of '3 things we really must get around to doing next year'.  It wasn't broke. it was profitable, and they didn't fix it.