The Railways greatest blunder

I haven't read it either but there is a problem that free enterprise doesn't always equate with competition. The railway is a large organisation comprising many constituent departments (maintenance, trains, tracks, signalling, departments, branches, freight, passengers etc) and it is the role of management to get these departments to work together in the organisation's (and customers') interest. Privatisation merely sold off each department and replaced a single, hopefully united, monopoly with a number of smaller monopolies each focused on their own parochial goals. Inevitably they ended up fighting each other with reduced support for the end customer. Tony Blair was very critical when he came to power but bleated there was no money available to unscramble the disaster - a bit of a change later when the banks fell apart .....

The railways do not make blunders. Railwaymen sometimes make blunders. But there is a distinction between a simple blunder and corruption/dishonesty. Most of the most blatant crimes against railways in this country have not been blunders, but have been blatant decisions that were against the public interest. I have written enough about Marples etc already on other threads on this forum, and l am not surprised that his name has already been mentioned by another contributor to this thread.

Corruption in ALL governments since 1951 has been rife. Corruption doesn't lead to blunders, but deliberate bad decisions purely for short term gain for a few. These by politicians of various parties of which perhaps Marples was the most blatant example. Beeching got the bad publicity, but his Baronetcy was his reward for being Marples' front man and taking the flak. Marples was aided by toothless men in suits, and bean counters. Many government organisations before de-nationalisation were infested with toothless men in suits, and post nationalisation the bean counters and the wide-boys have risen to prominence. "Railwaymen" have never had much say in what goes on. Railwaymen have a will to get things done, but 'the suits' find reasons why they won't be done. The wide-boys get things done that are not in the public interest.

I feel there should be a National Strategic Body to be above political decisions for things like transport and the environment. Politicians should not be able to serve on it. Too much damage has already been done, much of it is irreversible. A lot of HS2 has the smell of wide-boys in the background about it to be in the public interest. One day, a lot of information has to be released about other decisions that have been made, and when that comes out, a lot of people would be imprisoned for corruption if they were still alive.

Even many Conservative politicians stated that rail privatisation was a privatisation too many. But it went ahead regardless, and it made a small number of people very rich. Surprise! surprise!

Here's a guarantee. HS2 will start to cost far more than is currently stated, and will have to be cut back before the project is completed. But before that happens, a few more people will have become very rich on the back of it, whilst the disruption it causes to thousands if not millions will be a national disgrace.

If you look at the level of investment by BR in the 1980s to 1990s era:-
- Invention on the tilting train (APT)
- Networker Project NSE
- Sprinterisation on Regional Railways
- IC 225 on ECML
- IC 250 on WCML (Proposed)
- Networker Classic
- Pacerisation allowing small local lines to stay open replacing big locos Haulling a 1 coach train!!

Post privitisation:-
- Mallard Refurbishment of IC225s
- 390s on WCML
- 220s/221s on XC
- Refurbishment and life extensions of HSTs
- electrostars and desiros

The issue of none standard couplers has cropped up frequently. Recently a 313 failed in the snow and after a six hour wait for a 73 to rescue it, the passengers could finally go home. In the area there were many 171s but the issue is that southerns new stock have delner couplers (171s, 377s) but the 313 built by BR in the 70s has a tightlock coupler.

I've seen IC225 sets on EC rescued by a HST set and even by two HST power cars coupled together to form a conventional loco!

I think IC225s are hauled by 67s but communication between TOCs and FOCs is awful. As someone said in a behind the scenes program 'the rats at Euston can't be gotten rid of. Back under BR you'd phone the station mager and they'd phone pest control. Now we [virgin trains] can't do anything because they're in the London Midland section. But London Midland can't do anything because network rail operate the station but network rail can't do anything because they're in the London Midland area'

It wasn't just engineering work, I remember as a child looking out of my parents house to see an "Electra" (aka IC225, Cl91+Mk4) being dragged up the Aire valley to Bradford Forster Square in the evening. Then the knitting came to Airedale and we waiting in anticipation to see this shiny new train come dashing along followed by a 321 on the local service. I'm sure you can imagine the disappointment when the diagram was swapped to an HST (insufficient power supply - still the case to this day I believe) and rather than shiny new 321 we got clapped out 308 that Londoners had had enough of.