Ben Elton the great railway disaster CH4

[whart57]

11 hours ago, AY Mod said:

It's an interesting and informative piece of work but there's been a couple of references to magnificent Victorian works - IIRC those were 'private' railways funded by share sale. It's not all black and white; we may have poor operators, services and control but at least it's a safer railway with better accessibility and facilities.

 

Very few Victorian investors made much money from those shares, many lost everything. It was a Wild West business. Even successful lines like the London and Birmingham provided returns of 2% or less most years, certainly after the mergers and expansions that created the LNWR. Then there was Hudson and the Ponzi scheme of the Midland Railway. The second great expansion of the 1860s was driven by the big contractors who needed new projects, and few of the lines built then ever showed a profit - LCDR anyone?

[Wickham Green too]

11 hours ago, AY Mod said:

Apart from a cuppa that's largely a blessing.

Ah ! ............... the British Railways sandwich joke is alive and well ! 🙄

[stivesnick]

I watched the programme and it was not as bad as I thought it would be. As expected there was a lot of "its grim up north" stuff. The programme set out to blame the train companies and that is what it did. 

 

So no mention of the actions of the DfT and Treasury, or Network Rail failing to deliver infrastructure upgrades that the train companies depended on or that unions that initially refused to staff the new trains. 

 

For a more balanced programme, it could have included the following success stories:

• Lumo trains taking passengers off internal flights
• The success of the rail freight companies
• The Devon metro and the re-opening of the Oakhampton line 
• Low floor easy access trains on Greater Anglia 

Regards 

 

Nick 

 

[C126]

9 minutes ago, stivesnick said:

The programme set out to blame the train companies ...

 

Please permit me to differ, but I thought this is exactly what it did not do, digging deeper into the problems revealing the cause as the dead hand of H.M. Treasury, etc., beneath.  I will watch it again a.s.a.p., as I could be wrong.

 

[KingEdwardII]

14 minutes ago, stivesnick said:

a lot of "its grim up north" stuff

Unfortunately, I think that there is some reality behind that. Services across the north of England are not great, even where the major cities are concerned.

 

Yours, Mike.

[Legend]

Not a great Ben Elton fan, but I thought he did this very well .  It was a moment where you stood back and thought , you know what the railway has changed and it’s not for the better . All those private companies having to generate profits for dividends at every level . Track company , Leasing Company , Operating  Company . And the point that the leasing companies were really now hedge funds based in tax havens off shore was a point well made , we are not even getting taxes on their profits . 
 

Yes I’m sure a bit of detail was omitted , but the result would have been the same . 
 

A very good program in my view .  

[lapford34102]

12 hours ago, Northmoor said:

Buying out the ROSCOs is the part the Nationalisers never want to address.  We (the Nation) would have to spend several £Bn and would have exactly the same trains in the evening, that we'd had in the morning;

Are we legally obliged to have ROSCO's ? It's possible to lease direct from the builders so what, if any, advantage is there to having a middleman in the system.

 

Stu

[phil-b259]

2 hours ago, whart57 said:

. The exception is the Elizabeth Line, but that was in London so had the ear of politicians and senior civil servants tuned to different frequencies. 

 

 

 

Not so - Crossrail / Elibeth line would have been axed by the Westminster Government in 2008 if they could - what saved it was the way HM Treasury had dumped the lions share of its costs on the GLA / TfL /  London's elected Mayor several years earlier and the huge amounts of compensation HM Treasury would have to pay out to businesses / London Council tax payers if the ripped up the legally binding commitment to the project!

 

In other words Crossrail got delivered in spite of - NOT because of the clowns in charge at Westminster.

 

2 hours ago, whart57 said:

(As an aside, wouldn't HS2 have been a different project if construction had started from the Manchester and Leeds ends towards London)

 

 

 

Yes - it would be an ex project with just a bunch of unfinished earthworks to show for it!

 

Out of all the bits of HS2 the section which had the best BCR was the bit out of London precisely because the southern bit of the WCML is the bit of railway which is most under pressure capacity wise plus the volumes travelling to / from London are substantially larger than traveling between regional hubs.

 

Even after all the cutbacks, the link to London remains the most viable bit of HS2 as well as having the potential to be spun politically as being of benefit to far more people.

 

 

[phil-b259]

40 minutes ago, lapford34102 said:

Are we legally obliged to have ROSCO's ? It's possible to lease direct from the builders so what, if any, advantage is there to having a middleman in the system.

 

Stu

 

Generally speaking, manufacturers (and their shareholders) do not want to carry the associated costs and legal / financial risks from owning assets long term. A manufacturer is there to, well manufacture stuff after all and would not want to be left with surplus or older equipment on its balance sheet should the operator decide to lease someone else's product instead.

 

Thats why when you 'lease' a car you are not leasing the car from the manufacturer as such - the people you are leasing the car from is in fact a special entity backed by banks etc which ensures that the motor vehicle manufacturer is not left holding onto huge number of vehicles rendered surplus by people deciding not to renew their leases

 

It therefore suits manufacturers for someone else to handle the business of managing a piece of equipment over the long term - even if the manufacturer does enter into a 'build and maintain agreement' with the operator like Hitachi with GWR or Siemens with GTR (Thameslink)

 

 

[D860 VICTORIOUS]

Not really wanting to get into politics here,though I found the programme informative and enlightening,for me Elton is a really tiresome individual-just my opinion.At least he had the good grace to admit to being a "leftie Metropolitan liberal".I don't see that as a reason for him to witter on with his biased viewpoint.

Yes,how easy it is for an alleged "comedian" (never found the bloke remotely funny) to make jokes about Michael Portillo,who probably wasn't most people's fave politician,but wasn't it him as a Minister who prevented BR from closing the Settle-Carlisle line?

Also,no mention of the damage being inflicted on the Rail system by the long-running strikes.Then again,that probably doesn't fit in with Channel 4's and Elton's left-leaning bias.

Just saying...

 

 

[Wickham Green too]

11 minutes ago, D860 VICTORIOUS said:

... no mention of the damage being inflicted on the Rail system by the long-running strikes. ...

Not really wanting to get into politics here, I suspect Ben Elton didn't want to spend the whole programme delving into the minutiae of WHY there are long running strikes - in the rail industry and elsewhere.

[didcot]

I was a bit sceptical when I saw it was Ben Elton presenting, but have to say it was a pretty good programme and thoroughly enjoyed it.

I suspect he could make a whole series starting with Water!

[Siberian Snooper]

Having just watched the first bit, that I missed when it was on air, I think it should be compulsory for every politician and the upper echelons of DafT and the Treasury civil servants to watch, it might just give them an inkling of what is happening in the country, but I have minimal expectations that even that would do any good.

 

I travel quite a bit by train, but the experience has gone into decline since covid. 

 

 

[RichardT]

1 hour ago, D860 VICTORIOUS said:

.At least he had the good grace to admit to being a "leftie Metropolitan liberal".I don't see that as a reason for him to witter on with his biased viewpoint.

*Everybody* has a biased viewpoint - including me and you.  It’s an inescapable part of holding opinions.  I have to deduce your biases from your comments, but Elton was being open about his so that you could factor that into your analysis of the programme.

 

RichardT

Edited June 28, 2023 by RichardT

[Northmoor]

14 minutes ago, RichardT said:

*Everybody* has a biased viewpoint - including me and you.  It’s an inescapable part of holding opinions.  I have to deduce your biases from your comments, but Elton was being open about his so that you could factor that into your analysis of the programme.

 

RichardT

It has always been my complaint about the TV going to Christian Wolmar.  Yes he has plenty of knowledge, but he has far more opinions and I'm not sure those interviewing him can spot which is which.

[Andy Kirkham]

I once came upon an interesting statistic that spoke volumes about the state of the privatised railway. Unfortunately I can't remember the exact figures but the gist was:

How many civil servants are there dealing with the railways nowadays? Answer: several hundred

How many were there in BR days? Answer: about a dozen.

[MrTea]

I found the programme interesting and entertaining as well. It really highlights the difference between the experience of train travel in the south (where you can expect delays but cancellations are more of a rarity) and the lottery that commuters face in the north. 
 

I think we might be in danger of looking back at the good old days of BR  with our rose tinted glasses on - especially with regards to the notion that government input/interference is a post-privatisation problem. I happened to be reading the editorial of  an old issue of Modern Railways from March 1980 the other morning and it has a segment about government (DTp) intervention in the procurement of further HST sets to expand services to Hull and Aberdeen. 
 

“What does become clear from this affair, however, is the remarkably detailed control which the DTp mandarins are now exercising over the British Railways Board's business. It is plain that this control covers not just how much BR spends and what it spends it on (in quite fine detail) but also just where equipment funded with the investment will be used - down to the allocation of 5% of the HST fleet”

[whart57]

8 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

Out of all the bits of HS2 the section which had the best BCR was the bit out of London precisely because the southern bit of the WCML is the bit of railway which is most under pressure capacity wise plus the volumes travelling to / from London are substantially larger than traveling between regional hubs.

 

 

The London bit is also the one with the most problems regarding land, costs and political pushback. However you give a great example here of the narrow minded accountancy thinking that has screwed up so much in the last forty odd years. HS2 is not and can not be a glorified fast suburban line to Birmingham. Nor will it be a trans-Pennine route, that needs a different project. HS2 needs to connect the northern cities to London. If it has to use existing tracks for the last ten miles to London initially, so be it, but if trains from the North can still cut 45 minutes or an hour off the journey time then it's worthwhile.

[phil-b259]

50 minutes ago, whart57 said:

 

The London bit is also the one with the most problems regarding land, costs and political pushback. However you give a great example here of the narrow minded accountancy thinking that has screwed up so much in the last forty odd years. HS2 is not and can not be a glorified fast suburban line to Birmingham. Nor will it be a trans-Pennine route, that needs a different project. HS2 needs to connect the northern cities to London. If it has to use existing tracks for the last ten miles to London initially, so be it, but if trains from the North can still cut 45 minutes or an hour off the journey time then it's worthwhile.

What part of ‘most under pressure’ is difficult to appreciate?

 

There simply isn’t the line or station capacity available for  HS2 trains to simply rejoin the WCML at Watford say and trundle down to the 1960s sized Euston.

 

The converse is not true of the approaches to many northern cities where space is available for a modest increase in services with existing infrastructure .

 

The ‘rejoin the classic route 15kms outside of a major city’ works in Europe precisely because their approach tracks and stations were more generously sized and under used  in the first place so could readily be adapted to host high speed services without additional land take.

Edited June 28, 2023 by phil-b259

[whart57]

19 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Out of all the bits of HS2 the section which had the best BCR was the bit out of London precisely because the southern bit of the WCML is the bit of railway which is most under pressure capacity wise plus the volumes travelling to / from London are substantially larger than traveling between regional hubs.

 

 

HS2 was never proposed as a track widening to Euston project. 

[D860 VICTORIOUS]

14 hours ago, RichardT said:

*Everybody* has a biased viewpoint - including me and you.  It’s an inescapable part of holding opinions.  I have to deduce your biases from your comments, but Elton was being open about his so that you could factor that into your analysis of the programme.

 

RichardT

Don't agree with any of your comments.

If you're able to "deduce my biases" then you must be a good mind reader.If I view a documentary on Rail,the NHS,politics or whatever,I view it with an open mind,and hopefully being able to learn something.

I would expect these type of documentaries to give facts and information that the viewer can use to form their own opinion,and why on earth I should need to factor Elton's bias into my analysis of the programme is beyond me.

 

[phil-b259]

3 hours ago, whart57 said:

 

HS2 was never proposed as a track widening to Euston project. 

No - because they planned a brand new route all the way to the termini.

 

However had HS2 chosen to rejoin the classic network at the likes of Watford as you have implied in one of your other posts has suggested then widening the exhausting corridor would have been essential - as would the expansion of Euston.

 

Case history will show that widening an existing corridor (be it rail or road) ALWAYS works out more expensive than new builds because of the extra costs of trying to minimise disruption to existing users while works are ongoing.

Edited June 29, 2023 by phil-b259

[woodenhead]

1 hour ago, phil-b259 said:

Case history will show that widening an existing corridor (be it rail or road) ALWAYS works out more expensive than new builds because of the extra costs of trying to minimise disruption to existing users while works are ongoing.

I remember when they were turning the A1 north of Leeds into the A1M - it was an awful rolling roadworks for many years.

 

And then you look at the disruption to motorways as they are 'digitised' - the M60 near me was upgraded recently except really all they did was replace some gantries with fancier new ones with red rings, threw in some cameras (nothing like say on the M6) and put in a new central reservation.  A lot of the widening could not happen when they discovered the route was too close to houses and they could not give up the hard shoulder as a result.  So exactly how years of roadworks and 50 mph restrictions (with more cameras than now) has improved the motorway I don't know - except now they can tell you to slow down, not a big deal because the lack of capacity keeps you below even their mandated speed.

 

In this new world we now inhabit, I cannot but imagine re-opening closed bits of the London Extension as a classic line between Marylebone and Rugby with a new junction to the WCML might have been a better option.  HS2 had it's time, but politics, Covid and cost of living crises seem to have pulled the rug from under it.

[whart57]

1 hour ago, phil-b259 said:

No - because they planned a brand new route all the way to the termini.

 

However had HS2 chosen to rejoin the classic network at the likes of Watford as you have implied in one of your other posts has suggested then widening the exhausting corridor would have been essential - as would the expansion of Euston.

 

Case history will show that widening an existing corridor (be it rail or road) ALWAYS works out more expensive than new builds because of the extra costs of trying to minimise disruption to existing users while works are ongoing.

 

Concentrating on the last dozen miles into London in that way has effectively killed the project though. It's just waiting for a politician to come in who has no stake in it to apply the final blow. By not making it a true high speed line to the North from the outset it has struggled politically, to the extent that serious consideration has now been given to truncating it before it reaches its London terminus. But it's a classic example of how things go wrong these days. Focusing on which bits have the best return on investment led to the whole purpose of the exercise being forgotten. High speed rail is meant to bring provincial cities closer in time to the capital and to each other. The competition is the car and domestic airlines. The distance from London to Birmingham is too short to let faster trains be more effective competition to cars, existing trains only lose out through poor reliability and too high fares, but Manchester to London and Leeds to London can benefit. At least if they get HS2, which now seems not to be the case because we are over-focused on the London end.

[woodenhead]

6 minutes ago, whart57 said:

 

High speed rail is meant to bring provincial cities closer in time to the capital and to each other. The competition is the car and domestic airlines.

The daft part is that people are going to be priced out of cars as traditional ICE cars are scrapped and replaced with so much more expensive electric vehicles and if you look at what France has done, how long before domestic flying is outlawed here too.

 

Despite all the promises I don't see cheap mass market electric cars yet and inner city focus is now on taxing people out of their vehicles.  That money from car drivers will become attractive as an extra means of raising revenue so you can bet that even if all the vehicles in a city centre were emitting nothing but water vapour or fresh air they'd find a way to charge for it's presence over and above road tax.

 

Train and coaches will remain the most cost effective and least impactful means of travelling reasonable distances on land, but high speed rail feels like a fad because other countries so much bigger than us have them, I'd much rather see lots of classic rail lines being built for a future with less cars than one big white elephant because the politics stopped it being what it could have been.