BBC2 knocking the railways

[lmsforever]

Tonight on BBC2 the Aprentice people Nick and Margaret are knocking everything about our railways they seem determined to be against our current system you wonder if the beeb told them what to say.Northern Ireland is held up as an example of wonderment  but don't admit how small it is,so what is the point of this show is it to push the nationalisation again?

[Joseph_Pestell]

They started off from a "knocking" position. They mainly criticised the complexity of the current set-up - particularly the amount of time, effort and money that can be spent arguing over who is at fault for a delay (train hitting a peacock).

 

But overall, quite positive and recognising the problems that Network Rail are up against. I would say that it was not necessarily pro-Nationalisation but pro vertical integration.

[roythebus]

The main beneficiaries of privytisation are the lawyers and those who argue over contract details. Oh, and the tendering departments that have sprung up. someone has to pay for all that red tape the government has pledged to cut.

[hayfield]

Very interesting program, interesting to see that the only railway that's not been privatised (Northern Ireland) is doing very well.  I think its been general knowlage the way the railway has been privaitised its been the many shareholders that have benefited, too many snouts in the same trough.

 

Also the only people to build a new line (outside London) are the Germans !!!!

[jonny777]

I didn't see it as knocking the railways at all.

 

Just two intelligent and relatively well-off people who were obviously not enthusiasts, trying to make sense of how the railways are run in this country and why fares are so high, and increase each year well above the rate of inflation.

 

I think they made some very valid points, such as highlighting the Chiltern investment linked to a relatively long franchise period, and the efficiencies that can be gained by private and public companies working together. For me, the main conclusion they came to was the most important; that is despite the privatisation, just how much power has been retained by the Civil Service with regard to how much, and where, all the money is spent.

 

The part about the Burnley to Manchester service (or lack of one) and the continued operation of Pacer units, showed just how towns within commuting distance of northern conurbations suffer from a completely different set of problems to those of London commuterland.

[SHMD]

I liked the programme and thought it was balanced and well researched. (The last bit is probably good indicator of how little I really do know about the big railway!)

I personally liked the bit where it stated that all the objectives of privatisation were not achieved, (which is what me and a lot of other people were advocating at the time), and the Nodding Donkey part – especially the denigrating bit on just how the 142 came about. (Good use of props for the hard of thinking though!)

The interesting bit was the (unsaid) conclusion that the monies being paid out to the Operator company's shareholders was really neither here nor there in the grand scheme of things but could still grate with the public.


There was a lot in this programme and if you hold any strong views then, being selective, you can get a lot of supporting arguments from it by ignoring the counter views that are also shown. (The potential for generating argument here is obvious.)

I would recommend that you see it. It really does try to make you question what has and is going on.


Kev.

[Gareth Collier]

A very misleading title to this thread confirmed by watching the programme. I thought it a well balanced, intelligently written look at the state of the railways, their shortfalls and successes. Presented by 2 well regarded individuals who gave no impression of a hidden agenda whom gave an unbiased appraisal of what they discovered.

It's just a pity that the biggest success story was Chiltern who are owned by the German state railway!

Gareth

[Trevellan]

Yes, the programme raised some valid points, but for me much of it was done in a way that seemed to be smug trivialisation of important issues. Several years ago I was told that the cost to TOCs of bidding for franchises was in the region of £4m per bidder. I saw this as money being taken out of public transport to spend on bureaucracy. However, others with whom I worked on policy issues maintained that privatisation has delivered considerable benefits. As others have said, it depends on which side of the fence you are standing. I still believe that privatisation occurred at a time when BR was performing well under Bob Reid (the second) and the process was partly driven by a political desire to curb the power of a highly-unionised industry.

 

It is useful to have these public debates, but for me the delivery in this programme was too close to tabloid journalese for my liking. Sorry.

[jonny777]

The programme did not appear to be targetted at enthusiasts, or railway employees past and present. It was aimed at passengers, or potential passengers and especially those who complain about ticket prices. People who have paid £5000 for a yearly season ticket and have to stand on virtually every journey have a legitimate complaint, in my opinion.

 

Therefore, the programme was not going to hold the attention of its target audience by going into minute detail of how the finances of TOCs or ROSCOs work. If they had done that, people would have switched over/off in their droves.

 

I think that we enthusiasts have to step back somewhat and realise that the average Jo Public does not regard the railways as something to love, cherish and become misty-eyed with nostalgia for the good old days of compartments, silver dinner service and a restaurant car on every train.

 

To the majority, the railways are just another form of getting around the country to be compared with buses and aircraft, and if prices are high, trains are packed, running late and their experiences are dreadful, they will find an alternative even if it does mean sitting for hours in motorway traffic jams. Therefore the tabloid journalism approach is the only one that is going to speak to them on a level they can relate to and understand.

[coachmann]

I was prompted by an email showing a tweet from an editor of Rail criticising the BBC. He was not popular for various reasons. But no, I didn't watch it and made do with the write up, which concurred with my own thoughts of the present rail system. Beeching cuts rendered the whole rail system quite useless and so it didn't matter to me what the greedies did with it once got their hands on it in the 1990s.

[The Stationmaster]

Yes, the programme raised some valid points, but for me much of it was done in a way that seemed to be smug trivialisation of important issues. Several years ago I was told that the cost to TOCs of bidding for franchises was in the region of £4m per bidder. I saw this as money being taken out of public transport to spend on bureaucracy. However, others with whom I worked on policy issues maintained that privatisation has delivered considerable benefits. As others have said, it depends on which side of the fence you are standing. I still believe that privatisation occurred at a time when BR was performing well under Bob Reid (the second) and the process was partly driven by a political desire to curb the power of a highly-unionised industry.

 

It is useful to have these public debates, but for me the delivery in this programme was too close to tabloid journalese for my liking. Sorry.

I decided not to watch it - Mrs Stationmaster was fearful for the continued existence of the tv set (and it clashed with a very good film).

 

I think the whole process of rail privatisation in the UK is difficult to understand unless you know an awful lot of detail of what has happened and why it has happened.  The simple fact is that rail ridership has boomed (in my view much of that was due to Robert Adley's intervention on the privatisation legislation) and rolling stock investment has increased.  What is undoubtedly the worst outcome is that Civil Service intervention has - mainly since changes to the original structure - increased dramatically and in my view to the overall detriment of the industry - a lot of where we are now is down to that.  The other, and most appalling, development in more recent years is the involvement of the legal trade - who were originally very specifically included for all the processes of running the industry; quite why this has happened I don't know but it is a very bad state for the industry to have got into.

 

Everyday operations wise I think the situation is very simple - there is a mixture of good & bad not helped in some respects by a lot of inexperienced management and staff but there are still some good folk in the industry and they deserve passengers' thanks for delivering the level of service they do.

 

Incidentally delay attribution is not necessarily complicated - all that has made it complicated is folk arguing as it was all set out very clearly from Day 1.

[SHMD]

Looks like the infamous 07:29 Brighton train "that's NEVER on time" is caught up in this mornings chaos.

My sympathies to all involved.

 

 

Kev.

[phil-b259]

Looks like the infamous 07:29 Brighton train "that's NEVER on time" is caught up in this mornings chaos.

My sympathies to all involved.

 

 

Kev.

 

Yes, its not shaping up to be a good week for the BML. Displaced conductor rail (over 40 insulator pots - and stranded shoeless trains) causing chaos today, TWO broken rails yesterday, the first at Horley (which the p-way really struggled to make safe for trains) and a second at Wandsworth Common plus a SPAD and wrong side failure allegation on a signal at Balcombe (itself probably partly due to all the trains running out of kilter).

[Ian J.]

I just watched the program on iPlayer. I think it highlighted something without actually saying it - that the devil is in the detail of the finances. Whether it be who ultimately pays for any given delay (the delay attribution bit); the 'incorrect' estimates for a given piece of work (in this case the West of England electrification) and subsequent hike in the budget (which would undoubtedly contain some inflated costs anyway); the costs of dealing with all the separation of elements (and how, at Waterloo at least, getting things co-ordinated can certainly help matters); the issues with long term private investment (again, with a solution via Chiltern that is not being implemented elsewhere on the network it seems); the issue, perhaps smaller in value but large in consciousness, of shareholders getting 'profit' while subsidy (overall) remains high; etc., etc. The answers all seem to be down to the fiddling around in the detail of who is actually paying for something, and how at the end of the day, the state, in some form or other, is perhaps still interfering too much in the way day-to-day operations are conducted. My conclusion is that the 'answer' is not necessarily state or private, and there isn't a single solution. What is needed is to implement some 'common sense' to deal with the many and varied small and large inefficiencies that seem to be endemic in the way the railways are being run, which probably means a change of attitude and culture for all involved in how those inefficiences manage to live on.

[Trevellan]

My view of the privatisation process was from local government, commenting on Public Service Obligation documents and talking to the TOCs. I had seen the privatisation of the National Bus Company from the inside and it was not a pleasant process. In my view, many of the same mistakes were visited upon the railway.

 

Later, I had the opportunity to contribute to high level policy, so I am far from being "misty-eyed with nostalgia for the good old days". Yes, I love railways and enjoy studying the past, but I am also realistic about the present.

 

I therefore stand by my earlier comments about trivialisation of important topics. And that's one of the problems today of trying to have sensible debates: everything has to be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator.

[D854_Tiger]

Tonight on BBC2 the Aprentice people Nick and Margaret are knocking everything about our railways they seem determined to be against our current system you wonder if the beeb told them what to say.Northern Ireland is held up as an example of wonderment  but don't admit how small it is,so what is the point of this show is it to push the nationalisation again?

 

Seeing as how Give A Pet A Home was on the other side I doubt much of the uninformed audience, that could have been influenced by it, were actually watching.

 

Once I realised Rachel Riley wasn't in it, I didn't bother watching either.

[locoholic]

I thought it was poor that no-one from the Dept of Transport had the courage to go in front of the camera, given the vast amount of public money that the rail system soaks up, and the way the civil-servants micro-manage things.

[andyman7]

I was prompted by an email showing a tweet from an editor of Rail criticising the BBC. He was not popular for various reasons. But no, I didn't watch it and made do with the write up, which concurred with my own thoughts of the present rail system. Beeching cuts rendered the whole rail system quite useless and so it didn't matter to me what the greedies did with it once got their hands on it in the 1990s.

Although the cuts were savage, an awful lot of the railway system was (eventually) saved from those that would have seen the network cut to just the London commuter routes and a couple of main lines. I started working the industry in 1987, and although there is plenty of bureaucracy and nuttiness in the industry today, I can at least say that for the past 20 years it has grown and grown (in terms of numbers carried) so that these days the arguments are over where HS2 should go, rather than when the whole system will be closed.

 

The real problem I have with the railway of the 1950s and 60s is whilst the system itself was full of fascinating operations and interest, to society at large it was perceived as a Victorian anachronism that had a very diminished role in modern life; many times I have researched a line and found that the 1950s or 60s timetable involved a few irregularly spaced trains - no wonder the population at large yearned for the 'freedom' of the car. Now that has entirely changed and most passenger lines have a regular service - hourly, half hourly or even more frequent. Contrast that with traffic-filled roads, speed cameras, ludicrous insurance costs and I would contend that the present day system (at least that which remains) is far more useful and attractive to ordinary people than the network of yesteryear.     

[jonny777]

The real problem I have with the railway of the 1950s and 60s is whilst the system itself was full of fascinating operations and interest, to society at large it was perceived as a Victorian anachronism that had a very diminished role in modern life; many times I have researched a line and found that the 1950s or 60s timetable involved a few irregularly spaced trains - no wonder the population at large yearned for the 'freedom' of the car. Now that has entirely changed and most passenger lines have a regular service - hourly, half hourly or even more frequent. Contrast that with traffic-filled roads, speed cameras, ludicrous insurance costs and I would contend that the present day system (at least that which remains) is far more useful and attractive to ordinary people than the network of yesteryear.     

 

 

The other problem with railways in the 1950s and 60s, from the point of view of families, was the cost.

 

I remember my father treating us to a trip to London in about 1962, but the return fare from where we were in Lincolnshire was £1 10s. When that was multiplied by three (mother plus two kids at half price) it came to £4 10s which was a lot of money in those days.

 

Petrol was about 2s a gallon, which meant 5 gallons to the £; and even with an inefficient car doing 30 mpg, that was 150 miles for £1 for a family of four.

 

So much so, that my Dad only went by train once in a blue moon. The other times it was cheaper to drive to an Underground station outside London, park there for the day and get the Tube to the West End. 

[APOLLO]

Two weeks ago I had a couple of days in London. 2 Adults, 2 Children Wigan to London outbound £49, return £25, total £74 for all of us (with a family railcard). Travel round London (again with railcard) £20.70 for all 4 of us per day, zones 1 to 6 off morning peak. All trains on time. Railcard was "free" with £17 Tesco vouchers !!.

 

Well done Virgin, Fantastic value. (as was the family room at the Travelodge, Moorgate).

 

I watched the above film, near the end they mentioned the ballooning Network Rail "debt". I see it more as a national investment, especially our newly electrified lines here in Lancashire. I had a new conservatory built a couple of years ago, it's not a debt, but an investment as it adds value to my house. So it is with railway modernisation, adds to the wealth of our nation.

 

Who was that moron (Serpel ?) who wanted to shut down most of our railways (well after Beeching) in the 70's - just think if this had happened. What t***s these people are - and there are still many around in positions of power.

 

Railways cost, they always have done, always will, but they ARE necessary, especially in our little crowded isles

 

Brit15

[Ian Hargrave]

No it wasn't comfortable watching.Did we realistically think it would be ,given the fact that like most public utilities it's been a political football forever? My sympathies..if that's what one might call them..are with professional railwaymen serving or retired caught in the crossfire who can say with some justification "no ,it's not that simple" .Remember this is the age of sound bites and packaged communication and we all have to live with that. The programme was simply that and it fulfilled its remit effectively,taking few prisoners in its wake.It was not without optimism,so please don't reject it out of hand.It did not in my view show railwaymen in an unfavourable light.Rather it highlighted the confused way in which the organisation of an essential service is structured.

 

If Mike (Stationmaster) was watching Inspector George Gently as a well chosen alternative....as was I....that also made uncomfortable watching. I caught up with railways just now.....a change from election broad casts....or is it ?

[woodenhead]

Was Serpell anti rail or was he like Beeching tasked with a difficult job.

 

Serpell presented a case for a profitable railway and it allowed a Government to understand the sheer scale of the cutbacks to achieve and just how much public support a railway required. It might have been brutal but perhaps it paved the way for what we have now because it meant government had a reminder of the wider social mobility and economic benefit the railways deliver with subsidy.

 

After Serpell came new units to replace the first generation units, class 90s, ECML wiring and new liveries to reinvigorate the public with trains.

[The Stationmaster]

No it wasn't comfortable watching.Did we realistically think it would be ,given the fact that like most public utilities it's been a political football forever? My sympathies..if that's what one might call them..are with professional railwaymen serving or retired caught in the crossfire who can say with some justification "no ,it's not that simple" .Remember this is the age of sound bites and packaged communication and we all have to live with that. The programme was simply that and it fulfilled its remit effectively,taking few prisoners in its wake.It was not without optimism,so please don't reject it out of hand.It did not in my view show railwaymen in an unfavourable light.Rather it highlighted the confused way in which the organisation of an essential service is structured.

 

If Mike (Stationmaster) was watching Inspector George Gently as a well chosen alternative....as was I....that also made uncomfortable watching. I caught up with railways just now.....a change from election broad casts....or is it ?

Actually I was watching 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel' - and it even had some trains in it

 

Having worked on my region's part of the Serpell review (in fact I did most of the work as it happens) it was really a radical money saving exercise to reduce costs as far as possible on what would remain (I did no work on closures but developed an awful lot of very radical layout reduction proposals for the Western, most of Cornwall would have been single line for example).

[roythebus]

Some of the main beneficiaries of privatisation seem to be the train drivers. In my day I earnt around £23k for working 8 hours a day, 13 out of 14 days and could retire at 65; there were no guaranteed holidays then except bank holidays. (see the BR conditions of service for the time if you don't believe me). A friend who was a driver for the DB at the time worked a 37.5 hour week and earned about £32k a year, and he retired on 90% pay at the age of 55.

 

I suspect part of the reason for the dramatic increase in drivers pay was the advent of Eurostar, then the competitive salaries offered by the TOCs.

[Pacific231G]

I found the programme a bit shallow but that's probably inevitable in what could only be an overview of a very complex situation.

The idea that Nick and Margaret would ever say what "The BBC" told them to say is unlikely to say the least.

Bringing out Christian Woolmer yet again seemed a little uninspired and I thought the PR chap from Virign was allowed to get away with a very dodgy argument about the ludicrously high price of turn-up and go tickets. Great for people who can plan their lives weeks in advance but why do I have to pay through the nose to travel on a half empty train just because I only decided to travel today (which in practice means that because of the price I usually end up driving instead and the seat I might have occupied has earned the railway nothing at all)

 

I think the conclusion I reached is that even if the various companies aren't raking in huge profits (though a number of people apparently made millions during and after the privatisation process) the sheer arcane complexity of the privatised railway is creating a vast amount of essentially unproductive work that people, who are probably very dedicated and hard working,  have to be paid to do just to make all the bits fit together. 

 

I don't know enough about the N Ireland situation to draw any conclusions from it but I have experienced how much more efficient a well managed and vertically integrated organisation can be than one in which every part is run by separate businesses or even busness units.