Network mess!

[steam for ever]

Now I may be wrong here, but we are pretty much in the same position we were 100 years ago.
Many operating companies which made rail travel stressful and a need to change trains many times.

Now we have the same problem.
Sure you can have just the one ticket, but if you want to book you have to search all over the internet.

A fragmented network did not work 100 years ago, so how will it work this time?

BR at least meant it was more simple and you only had one set of people to go to.
Of course BR collapsed.

Maybe it is time to revert back to 4 main companies and by doing this heal the bad communication that sometimes hampers journies between the operator and NR?
What do yoy think?
Fix the mess, but how?
BR or big four?

[garrat]

Trouble is they aint interested in the customer only the bonuses.The four conpanies didnt work either .I have a book that shows all the charges for frieght from the western to most places in the country,all charged by the chain and what was carried .It is all written by hand and the writing is beautiful tho small you can read evry word .The book is very large and just think this is one must have taken ages to write this info.

[davat]

BR did not collapse, the government of the day decided that they could make money from selling off any Nationalised company and thought they could avoid spending from their purse.

Today's railways are all for profit and many are still reliant on the government purse. With BR when things went wrong they could be put right quicker, not a case of trying to source the cheapest way out of getting things going again.

Many of todays travellers who remember BR days say that they weren't anywhere as near as bad as they were made out to be.

Sorry about that little rant but having served both on BR and the Privatised railway I certainly know which was more efficient in my eyes.

[garrat]

Totally agree davat I also worked for BR and you are right they definitely were not as bad as the media made out

[swisstrains]

I think we should have a nationalised passenger-carrying network with the flexibility to collaborate with the private sector when required (e.g. leasing of locos and rolling stock)
Freight traffic is probably best left in the hands of private operators.

[John H-T]

Originally Posted by steam for ever

Now I may be wrong here, but we are pretty much in the same position we were 100 years ago.

There is no way you can compare the Railways before grouping and particularly as they were before the First World War with the current network and opperating system. Railways were the form of transport. There was a network which covered most of the country. Anyone or anything that needed to move more than a few miles was transported by rail.

The Edwardian Period was the Golden Age for Railways.

Best wishes,

John H-T.

[steam for ever]

Hmm...
Yes I do agree with you about BR, I just don't like the decision to close all those lines and to end steam.
Apart from that I like BR.
I think however painting all of the trains blue was not a good idea.
There was just no variation on the railways.
John you are right, but as I have said before, more and more people are using the railways again.

I think by the way that the best thing that BR brought in was the freightliner style train.
I think that some routes of operators need to be looked at nowadays.

[John H-T]

BR only came into existance in 1948. As I said in 1909 Railways were the form of transport. The rot set in after WW1 ie 1918 when there were a lot of Army surplus lorries available and men who knew how to drive them (ex servicemen) Thus was laid the foundations of the road transport of goods over longer distances. The Railways were also very run down after the war effort (1914-18) and the investment to repair the damage did not happen very quickly.

The same happened after WW2. The damage done was not made good.

BR and the end of steam was the last ditch attempt to run the railways as a intergrated transport system. Also Road transport was Nationalised at the same time as the railways in an effort to develop a fully integrated transport system. Rightly or wrongly there was never the will to make it work.

So often peolpe do not look at the full history of the decline of the railways to gain an understanding of what went wrong including the gross under investment in the railways from the 1970's to the early 1990's while there was massive investment in roads. No level playing field!

Best wishes,

John H-T.

[martin adamson]

Most other coutnries in Europe take a 'it's for the public' approach and provide a lot more subsidy than the UK. France being a prime example of what you can achieive if you put a lot of public money into something.

Becuase of the poor politics of this country thats why our rail system is so bad. We should have a passenger system that is publically controlled and paid for, if real investment is put into it (and not this cheap 'try and make a profit' approach) we could have decent railway.

[jeemac]

I think this discussion shows that there is a lot wrong with each extreme position. I am regular rail user, and there is a lot that the companies I use do well, but there has not been enough fundamental and strategic investment in making our national network good. Glasgow is typical example of this - even in 2009 it's not (easily) possible to travel between anywhere to the North of the city to anywhere on the South, without not just changing trains but changing STATIONS, and Queen Street must be a nightmare oprationally because of restricted approaches and platform space.
However I come from a railway background and remember only too well appalling customer service and rampant 'jobsworthness' that plagued BR then.

Surely in broad terms what we need is good central structural strategic investment, looking after projects such as ECML upgrade and good franchise arrangements so that TOCs can make a reasonable return if they provide the service to the travelling public and the freight industry?