British Rail is Back?

The railways are being renationalised - but what does that mean?

[neilharbott]

Something the big-four understood, that the British Government didn't, was that those small money losing lines were feeders for the large express lines, which did make money. Those small lines were a reason to not get into a car, and thus remain a captive audience for the railway. These days, I get into a car to drive 20miles to the mainline station, and then ask myself, why use a train for the remainder of my journey? - the only time I see that as a positive, is when I go to London and can abandon the car at an out of town tube station, and use the tube from there (less stress all around).

[dumptrump]

"We should abandon the idea that railways have to make a profit." ABSOLUTELY! Why railways are held to a standard that roads don't have to is baffling. Roads don't make a profit, save for a miniscule number of toll roads, in fact they cost MASSIVE amounts of money each year.

[broadsword]

"I choose to be optimistic"

Hear, hear!

[thatguyfromcetialphaV]

'Bernard, I have served eleven governments in the past thirty years. If I had believed in all their policies, I would have been passionately committed to keeping out of the Common Market, and passionately committed to going into it. I would have been utterly convinced of the rightness of nationalising steel. And of denationalising it and renationalising it. On capital punishment, I'd have been a fervent retentionist and an ardent abolishionist. I would've been a Keynesian and a Friedmanite, a grammar school preserver and destroyer, a nationalisation freak and a privatisation maniac; but above all, I would have been a stark, staring, raving schizophrenic.' - Sir Humphrey Appleby, Yes Minister.

[EdMcF]

A few years after privatisation, I was working in a legal office, and I saw a Crown Court indictment for the theft of a Midland Mainline sandwich between Kettering and Leicester. My first thought was that theft of a British Rail sandwich might have led to a plea of insanity.

[sluggy]

Very important video. The focus on hypothetical problems is holding us back from actually correcting the serious existing ones. We can’t keep holding ourselves back out of fear that fixing a horrendously broken system might lead to a new problem or two.

[vkdrk]

In Slovakia, there were talks about selling the state-owned railway company and most people were saying: ''just look at how that went in Britain''. Pricing was the main issue. You can get pretty much anywhere in Slovakia by train, but Slovaks also love their cars (they make lots of them). Most families own 2 - 3 cars + you often get a company car for work. This created a huge problem with parking in Slovakia and the only way to keep people off the road is to keep train travel cheap. They did not increase the prices since 2012, train travel is free for kids under 6, free for students (6 - 26), elderly (62+) and disabled people, most trains are new, and very safe. You can go on a school trip to another city or you can go hiking in the mountains or explore a different town for the day with your friends and it won't cost you anything. I think that's great because it keeps young people entertained and out of ''trouble''. I don't want to get political, but I think British youth is getting wild (I live in the UK). You start coming up with stupid ideas when you are bored and stuck in your bubble, because traveling around your own country is too expensive.
What I love about train travel in Slovakia is that prices are set and don't go up just because you are buying a last minute ticket, only IC and International trains need a bit of planning because of seat reservations, but they are still cheap. An InterCity train from Bratislava to Košice (2nd largest city) costs 19€ (27€ in First Class) for a 440km journey. I believe that affordable train travel is never a bad idea for the society. May I just add that the free train tickets cost 15 million euros per year, which is just under 3€ per person per year. For all the stupid things some governments spend the tax money on, this is actually a useful thing and it's definitely worth it.

[simonbrown]

My grandfather was head accountant for British Railways under Dr. Beeching in the 1960s at Euston House in London his name was William Brown, and he told me that he told Beeching that a lot of the branch lines could have been saved. Unfortunately Beeching didn't agree with him and had to retire in 1970. He died in 1986.

[markhughes]

The railways have, as you rightly point out, always paid their way. They got people to work and this generated prosperity for all, not just The Chaps. Arguing otherwise is like saying "Damn it all, Tristram, I just can't get round the feeling that my circulatory system isn't, you know, pulling its weight."

[thegorillaguide]

'Ferries are better handled by outside companies.' - thems is trigger words! I live on the Isle of Wight. The ferries - which are a key piece of transport infrastructure, creating a bridge for railways and roads across the Solent - are monstrously expensive. They are used as a cash-cow by investment companies because ever since privatisation they have formed an unavoidable ransom strip for the people of the Isle of Wight. You would think, considering the eye-watering ticket prices, that they would at least link up with the timetables of the trains, but you would be so wrong. You might also imagine that they run at times of the day or night when trains are running. Again, wrong. National ferries are part of the national infrastructure and should be nationalised.

[Zy]

In fairness, I believe that the ferries SHOULD be under the same umbrella (at least somewhat) as the rail network. They can effectively act as extensions of the rail system, after all. At the very least, things should be coordinated to a high degree.

[hollyruston]

On a serious note; the 1948 Nationalisation of the railways was vital to the very survival of our railways. They were worn out and dropping to bits after 6 years of hammering during WW2.

[robincowley]

When faced with a service that has to be monopolistic (due to e.g. infrastructure limitations), it's pretty much always better to have a state monopoly than a private one: at least the state monopoly won't have, as it's primary reason for existing, siphoning off cash to shareholders.

[richardp]

5:29 I wasn't ready for the Croydon Tramlink jumpscare 😭

[paulgardener]

Well presented. I was a signaller at Kings Cross in the 90's. When Railtrack took over, the first thing it did was get rid of all the staff that maintained the track and signals. (All given to Jarvis, Balfour Beatty et al.) Having been on 18 years at that point, this action rang my alarm bells. Being a new broom, Railtrack asked for volunteers for redundancy and I jumped ship. Within ten years, I was proved right, with the disasters of Hatfield and Potters Bar. Both of these locations were on the 5 panel NX sytem of the time. As you said, BR was not perfect, however, the local Pway and S&T gangs knew their patch and actually looked after it. And finally, it has been good to see that the Double Arrow symbol has survived all of this. 🙂👍

[ronnyskaar]

If something is not profitable, but still crucial and needed, the public sector has to take responsibility for it anyway. Only very few and very central lines can be profitable if you consider all costs. Private sector just can't provide a nation with trains if profit is needed. The government taking over must mean that government is prepared to spend money to get good service. I hope ...

[chriswareham]

The current "privatised" system consumes more public subsidy than British Rail cost (adjusted for inflation). That was the same even before the state took back control of the worst run services. It is also less punctual and less reliable when you look at the actual statistics.
So despite the reputation BR had back in the day, it was a far better service than what we have now. It's biggest issue was underfunding, first due to post war austerity and towards the end because of that woman and her rabidly ideological hatred of public services.

[immoralreplicant]

I remember in the 1970s that every comedian had a BR joke in their armoury. 10 years after privatisation we realised how lucky we'd been. OK, sometimes the environment was a bit jaded & scruffy & the food was a good reason to take a packed lunch but it was cheap. & What we thought was unreliable service actually seemed pretty good compared to what followed. I travelled all over the country back in the late 70s / early 80s for gigs & football matches, almost always by train. & that was as a low paid teenager. No way would that be possible now. One time in Preston, after missing the last train to Brum, the bloke sweeping up let me sleep in the guards office & even provided me with tea bags, milk, a blanket & a kettle ! I had a nice kip & caught the first train in the morning. Imagine that now ! Different times indeed. How much of the disastrous mess they can actually put right & how long it will take is open to question but good god it's worth a try.
Most abysmal privatisation of all time, closely followed by water.

[thegreyfolk]

"Fat Controller" is only a couple of syllable more than the term I use now for the bosses.

[sweetestperfection]

As a passenger what I would value most is if a ticket from A to B is exactly just that. Not a ticket from A to B valid only via C at time D on train type E run by company F.