Why the British Rail Modernisation Plan Failed

Hello again! :D

Back to trains, and for this week we discuss one of Britain's most audacious but ultimately futile projects to revitalise the network in the wake of World War II. However, rather than undertaking a comprehensive rebuild of the network, British Railways was short-changed time and again, ultimately resulting in a facelifted but largely unchanged system that dated back to the Victorian era, though it was much smaller and crippled by far more debt than ever before.

This video was actually a suggestion from an American viewer, who was curious as to why British Rail had such a vast array of diesel locomotives during its early years. :)

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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Thanks again, everyone, and enjoy! :D

References:
- Railways Archive (and their respective sources)
- RMWeb (and their respective sources)
- Wikipedia (and its respective references)

[nightwtchman]

And not a single lesson was learnt at any stage.

[BigCar]

Interesting. Most history of this period focuses on the Beeching cuts, so interesting to see why BR was in such a mess by the 70s.

[factorscrinium]

Superb documentary, far surpassing much produced by the TV companies these days. Well done!

[markcousins]

Another "nail-in-the-coffin" was the snobbery, apathy and even blatant hostility that existed between regions, with the organisation as a whole, certainly early on, charactised by an LMS mindset, as that company was from where a lot of the staffers were drawn.

[garrymartin]

That was the American "Southern Railway" logo, overall a fab assessment of this period in Britain's railway history, an additional factor in the failure of the smaller diesel classes was the fact that a large percentage of the lines they were designed to operate on were closed.

[jamesedwards]

After a career in BR I always understood that the plan never failed at all, in fact, it was a resounding success for one individual. Earnest Marples made an absolutely obscene fortune out of decimating the railways hidden as he was behind Beeching who he hired and ably assisted by several other well-placed Tory political figures his roadbuilding companies simply sat back and raked public money in. To the point it became a national embarrassment to the then government suggested that Marples might do well to leg it to the South of France and keep his head down for a while. As for Beeching now freed of his mentor so to speak revealed that his much-vaunted slash-and-burn report was always doomed to failure and set about writing another even more draconian one which included closure of the WCML and anything beyond Exeter. Thankfully the government took one look at this and quietly canned it for fear of public backlash, and then just as quietly canned Beeching leaving him to carry said can.
Not going to go into the whole thing. you won't read it and probably will not believe it anyway but your government had no intention of modernising the railways or solving the problems of mass transport in the Uk. Instead, they engaged in one of the biggest heists of public money this nation has ever seen and they did it in broad daylight and plain sight of the public and got away with it leaving you with the issues you face today to deal with long after they have legged it with their spoils. Great documentary coverage of the situation but fails to dig deep enough and I can understand why.

[macjim]

What also killed BR with its modernisation plan was the Beeching cuts. They got rid of the lines that fed the blood into the main arteries of the main lines, the branch lines.
You only need to look at those modern-day successes where closed lines when reopened, have been a major success story, such as the Borders line and the route to Alloa, to see what folly those closures were... Yes, some lines would have not helped and warranted closure but many were not.

[moonshapedabsolution]

If only they had stuck to the original plan without getting cold feet over cash, we wouldn't have half the problems we have today

[johnharrison]

So it failed because as with most stuff in British History, instead of following the example of others who are making a success of their schemes we did it on the cheap in a way that ultimately led to further costs.

[HSMiyamoto]

The old engineering maxim, "To really screw things up takes a committee, " comes to mind. All that highly paid talent did not realize that Britain's coal and steel focused economy was about to disappear, a major reason BR invested so many millions of pounds uselessly. Similar things happened in the Northeastern U.S., but without railway nationalization, unless you count Conrail in 1976.

[highdownmartin]

Vauxhall at Luton used to send spare car exhaust systems ( bulky and awkward to handle) by rail to its dealerships nationwide. It was a lot cheaper for them to do this as they paid BR by weight for the goods. Sending it out by lorry from the factory would have cost a whole lot more

[Northernlightshow]

The revolution didn’t come until BR sectorisation and the outdated “big four” style regions which had too much autonomy, was diluted.
Ironically Network Rail regions today are similar to the old regions with franchises, especially of the ones radiating out of London, geographically are similar to the old regions.
Great video

[SteamboatWilley]

0:54 That's the US Southern Railway badge, lol. :D

[paulc]

Just excellent, thank you. Ironic to think that as the spotlight fell on the end of the steam era in the summer of 1968 there were also dozens of virtually new diesels being quietly withdrawn and scrapped. Either unfit for purpose, surplus to requirements or possibly both. The whole thing was a typically British short-term penny-pinching fudge that has hobbled the railways ever since. In short, what a mess.

[paulwlynch]

Another thoroughly enjoyable video and a pleasure to view on a Saturday morning with a nice coffee.

[alanthefisher]

Great video and the thesis at the end can be echoed through alot of railroads throughout history.

[DaveSCameron]

If these are narrated by yourself then I can only thank you and applaud your talent, such rich yet succinct fare is priceless, thanks again...

[runoflife]

A very interesting movie, thanks a lot. The USSR also had its railways modernisation plan succeed in the late 50's. But it also had its flaws heavily relying on DMUs and passenger locomotives import from Hungary and the CSSR.

[smorris]

"Taking British Railways into the 50s", published 1974.

[mikeytrains]

BR’s real big hit is how they were unable to really standardize only until the 70s-80s, and even then they barely did standardize because the regions still held onto their big 4 pride.

it’s a shame. the british rail system had and still has a lot of potential. it’s unfortunate that it’s never been fully looked over.