The Railway's Darkest Hour - Railtrack (Reworked)

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This is a reworked and reuploaded version of the original video.

Hello again! :D

Returning to the British railway network, we look at the initial period following the privatisation of British Rail in 1994, and the formation of Railtrack, a company that was tasked with operating and maintaining the infrastructure behind the UK's railway system, but due to poor management and a lack of suitable funding, resulted in several fatal train crashes and the near collapse of the entire British rail network.

The views and opinions expressed in this video are my personal appraisal and are not the views and opinions of any of these individuals or bodies who have kindly supplied me with footage and images.

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References:
- Railtrack, 1994-2002 - House of Commons Library (and his respective sources)
- Wikipedia (and its respective references)

[MichaelCampin]

It wasnt Beeching, he was a Scapegoat it was Marples the transport minister who had vested interest in transport companies.

[Mounhas]

A wealthy landowner in Cornwall had a sub contracting company who took on people with a couple of days “training” and sent them off for a 8-10 hour van trip, which they slept in, to work on the potentially lethal 3rd rail system on the southern region. I wonder how much this was happening elsewhere.

[Zenignome]

Don't think my Dad ever forgave Railtrack, he'd been with BR for decades, rising from a train guard up to a network controller. Once Railtrack came along he was offered a "voluntary redundancy", don't think there was anything voluntary about it

[TechOne]

Don’t worry about all the crashes, failures and delays, as long as the shareholders can asset strip it and get a cut then all is well. What a shitshow, from the country that invented the railway. Well done. Selfish greedy bastards.

[andrewcalladine]

People should have gone to prison over Hatfield, Potters Bar etc. Life is cheap in the UK.

[FreyFox]

I don't think Railtrack EVER had anything other than bad publicity.

[aquilarossa]

What a right royal cock up. Some things are too important to be left to the whims of the private sector.

P.S. People tend to think stuff like British Rail was government owned. It was actually public property. It was owned collectively by every UK citizen and its upkeep was one of the things we expected in return for paying our taxes, i.e., we were not getting something for nothing. When they flogged it off the government did not pay every citizen out, i.e., the actual owners were not compensated. It was a robbery on a massive scale. Much the same goes for all the other privatizations. For the most part it was not the government's property to sell. It was ours.

[jadefalcon]

A yoeman's work as always, sir. These rework videos are great - brings a lovely shine to stuff that some of us didn't see from early on. Love it!

[jefffranklin]

Currently live in Hatfield myself. I always take the time to pay my respects at the memorial on Great North Road

[BegudMaximan-zptc]

Railways start from the trackbed up.
If the track infrastructure isn't fit for purpose, neither is it fit to run trains on.
Visual inspection and routine maintenance cannot be missed or overlooked, for fear of disastrous consequences if anything should fail in service.
No room for sloppiness, or cavalier complacency.
Lessons to be taken seriously as can be seen from the wrecks of previous occasions.

[ravenseft]

"The cost to the taxpayer of keeping British Rail afloat was one of the biggest deficits to the state". This is misleading and inaccurate. BR didn't need to be kept "afloat" like a failing company; it was a provider of a basic transport service, much like the Highways Authority. In no country in the world is the rail service 100% free of charge to taxpayers. Back in 1980, taxpayer subsidies to BR were £590m, representing 29% of income. This was lower than in other large European countries. £590m in 1980 would be around £2bn nowadays, still less than the £11bn spent on maintaining the road network and the £180bn for the NHS. It is also far less that the cost of the privatised railway at around £12bn.

[shodan]

Heard some say this might've been the beginning of the long road to reversing privatisation, which I can definitely see in retrospect. Its hard for me in my opinion to see that while Network Rail has done a much better job overall than Railtrack ever did, the publicly owned company essentially exists to maintain the network so that private companies can essentially profit off what they do. From that perspective alone I think nationalisation of services makes a lot of sense. Hopefully we are going to finally turn a page with our railways in the next few years.

[harveybrant]

Excellent video. The Railtrack years were indeed the railways' darkest period. As an employee throughout that time, the only thing that kept me going was my deep seated conviction that such a state of affairs couldn't possibly last.

[pyroplim]

The APT turned out quite well i think. If it rains at Crewe heritage center it is handy to keep you dry. 😀

[mikeuk]

Well done, Ruairidh, a good and well-deserved hatchet-job!

[rob]

An interesting video, not just for train enthusiasts but but for anyone interested in the history of UK travel and general UK history. As I don't use the railways myself I'm nevertheless glad to hear that things have improved, but dismayed and not altogether surprisied to hear that good old taxpayer foots the bill for failed private companies once again. The latest fiasco involving the water companies is yet another example of shareholders benefiting from poorly run entities while under investment leads to public and environmental harm. The fines being imposed in lieu of this are a sham in my view becasue the customers will ultimately pay the penalties through increased bills, meanwhile shareholders and bosses walk away with our, sorry, their cash!

[cduc]

02:47 that locomotive was the original design that Yugoslavian Railways manufactured under licence in the 1950s onwards, some still in use in Serbia and further afield. That orange livery is iconic!

[flickrscreen]

Who could forget the sick feeling in the pit of the gut watching Ken Loach's The Navigators.

[Trent-Bakerloo]

The Uk railway network has perhaps one of the most fascinating and ups to downs history in the entire world ❤🚄

[drstevenrey]

In 19 Minutes of fabulous video, I can see a minimum of 28 places where the track would not be acceptable here in Switzerland. Everything from run down rails to bouncing sleepers and worn out points.