By Among all great benefits to the development of the civilised world that Britain has created and established, the invention of the railway must rate as the greatest. From its inception in the nineteenth century through to high speed trains in the twenty-first the Railway has been the foremost method of transport throughout the world.
The railway in Britain developed rapidly from a few small local lines carrying mainly freight to a network of passenger and freight lines covering the entirity of the British Isles. As some railway companies grew in commercial stature and financial strength they took over and incorporated other smaller lines and companies.
In 1921, by Act of Parliament, the big four were created: LNER, LNWR, Southern and GWR became operational in 1923. But they were still private companies, competing with each other and operating to make profits for their shareholders. This situation was not viable for long as investment in improvements and new locomotion became too expensive for the companies.
The shortcomings of the private railway network became apparent during WWII, as services became less efficient and equipment frequently failed. To stop the total decline of the railway network - one of the best in the world in its heyday - the post war Labour government nationalised the railways and brought them into public ownership in 1948.
Nationalisation allowed for huge investment in the Permanent Way and in those new and more efficient locomotives, as well as the upgrading of rolling stock. A new system of ticketing was brought in that enabled the passenger to buy one ticket for the whole journey instead of having to buy separate tickets from each company for the section of the journey travelled on that company’s lines.
We would still have a national railway network to be proud if two acts of folly had not been perpetrated by Conservative governments. The first was the decimation of the rail network following the Beeching Report in 1963. This travesty allowed the Tory-led road lobby to gain power at the expense of the railways. Many branch lines and freight lines were closed in the sweeping cuts that followed the adoption by the Conservatives of Dr. Beeching’s recommendations.
As a result we have spent countless millions on an overcrowded road structure that has never been capable of accommodating the volume of traffic wanting to use it. We have huge, fuel-inefficient, pollution-producing lorries travelling long distances, each carrying a tiny fraction of the goods that could be transported by rail. Often these lorries are travelling on roads that run parallel to railway lines. There are now more private cars on the roads than ever envisaged because for most of the people there is no longer a railway station near their homes. And the buses are as infrequent as snow in July. One of the strong arguments put forward at the time of the Beeching cuts was that busses would replace the trains. It never happened. Bustitution did not work.
The second act of folly by a Conservative government was the privatisation of the railways. Having failed to invest in the railway the Tory government under Mrs. Thatcher sold off one of our biggest national assets. But just like the effect of cutting the railways under Beeching, privatisation has not worked either. Companies set up to run different parts of the railway system have under-invested in their service provision and equipment. Millions of pounds of public money has been handed over to the privatised companies to keep them afloat, while fare prices have escalated, passenger numbers have dropped and shareholders have profited. Inefficiencies have increased and accidents like the one at Hatfield are all too common.
The only way to bring our railway network back into the supreme transport system it once was and make it a beacon of excellence to the world is to re-nationalise it. A nationalised railway network will:
* Invest in re-opening closed lines and open new routes to attract more custom.
* Create employment.
* Invest in additional and new rolling stock to add carriages to trains and enable all passengers to sit for the whole of their journey, including commuters during peak times.
* Run at a lower cost without needing to make a profit.
* Reduce fares for travellers and thus encourage more people to travel by train.
* Reduce the number of cars on the road.
* Carry more freight and cut out all the HGV traffic on the roads. Only smaller LGV lorries will be needed to carry goods from railheads for local delivery.
* Eliminate the need for building new roads.
* Have a more efficient timetable so that passengers do not have long waits between connections.
It is time the Labour Party returned to its socialist roots. One step along the way would be to re-nationalise public services: telephone, energy, water, buses and first and foremost, the railway network.
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Firstly, Mike Thomas: I think that a good argument can be made for railways being Britain's greatest invention. The railway infrastructure built in Victorian times has literally shaped our cities. The Metropolitan line is a classic example; it was built out to the Northwest of London, and the suburbs spread around it. Before the railways, people paid to go on a journey by canal boat from Slough to London - and it would take all day. The railways really shaped the way we live.
As for the main article, the idea that the Beeching cuts were a Conservative thing made me laugh. The inconvenient truth is that the situation was much more complex than that simple sound-bite allows. True, Beeching's report was instigated by a Conservative government, but most of it was implemented under Harold Wilson's Government of 1964 to 1970. The Beeching report was published in 1963; Wilson came to power in 1964 and the main body of cuts occurred under Labour in 1967 and 1968. How on earth can that be considered a solely Conservative act of folly?
The truth is that large tracts of the railway network was massively unprofitable and needed to go. The fact that a Labour Government instituted the cuts shows that, however unpopular it may be nowadays, they were also in favour of them. Please do not buy into the myth that the Beeching cuts were solely a 'Tory' thing. Vast swathes of the population saw railways as a historic, backward mode of transport, a direct contrast to the white heat of modernity. Concorde and the motorways were the future; railways were the past.
Additionally, the railway network was not built as a masterpiece of central planning, but in a red-blooded mania. As a consequence, there was much unnecessary and (for the public) annoying duplication. As competition from roads increased, some of this had to be cut.
However, undoubtedly the cut did go too deep in some areas (e.g. the Great Central route would make an ideal high-speed line nowadays, and as it had been built by Watkins to connect to the Channel Tunnel it was constructed to a wider loading gauge). The closure of this line was massively unfortunate, and the same case can be made for many other lines. However, many lines did need to be pruned (and indeed some were as early as the thirties, forties and fifties).
As a long-distance walker, I think it was a massive shame that the Governments of the day did not see fit to preserve the routes of many of the closed railways; there were arguments for closing the lines and lifting the rails, but in many cases the worst crime was that the actual land was sold off piecemeal. A little foresight would have left us with large, linear green spaces and, if necessary, the land to reopen lines. (note, though, that much of the cost of rebuilding lines is the bridges, and under such a scheme they would not necessarily have been preserved).
Additionally, as someone points out below, passenger numbers have increased during privatisation. Of course, there is a good argument that the increase was down to the economic environment and not privatisation, but the article is still wrong in making that claim.
It should also be remembered that the 1955 railway modernisation plan was a massively costly failure (it cost £22 billion in 2009 figures). Someone below claims that we were still building steam locomotives in 1960 when the US had gone to diesel; the truth is, millions of pounds were wasted during this conversion, for instance on the mass-production of diesel locomotives that simply did not cut the mustard.
Instead of, as the article claims, nationalisation allowing investment in 'new and more efficient locomotives', the fact that we got *some* good locomotives was more down to chance than good planning. For instance consider the baby-Deltics, the Warships, the Hymeks and the Metro-Vick Co-Bo's, all of which had a worryingly short service life. A saner approach would have been to produce a few prototypes, evaluate them well and then slowly move to mass production of far fewer classes. Instead, we had BR throwing contracts and money about in a reckless manner. The problem is not that we had steam so late; it was that we rushed dieselisation.
As for privatisation; that was a mistake. However, it was a mistake that Labour have not seen fit to reverse in 12 years. There are some hard questions to be asked about why this was.
Indeed, an argument can be made that the nationalisation of the railways was just as much a crime as the privatisation fifty years later. Before the First World War we had over 120 railway companies. The Government used these in the First World War, and chose to merge them into the 'Big Four'. History was repeated under thirty years later. Massive demands were asked of the railways during the Second World War, and the railways heroically coped. In the process they became run-down. Rather than pay the Big Four the money they were owed, the Labour Government chose to nationalise them. Although it will be unpopular to say so here, it was a disastrous mistake.
It is disingenuous to claim that during World War II 'services became less efficient and equipment frequently failed.' That decline was not a result of the Big Four's managerial incompetence, but due to a little international disturbance that happened to be going on at the same time. You may have heard of it. Afterwards, the Government owed the railways a massive war debt. Instead of paying, they took the cheap approach of nationalising.
As for the rest of the article, I fail to see how 'renationalisation' of the railways will lead to the bullet-pointed advantages. For instance, how will nationalisation eliminate the need for all roads? Or lead to a more efficient timetable (integrated transport planning under BR was hardly exemplary).
Renationalisation is a grand idea that may have legs, but the arguments in this article goes no way towards providing us with the evidence we need to make such a decision.
The Jet engine made international travel affordable to the many. Telephone has created the information network backbone we take for granted today and touches the lives of almost everyone on the planet. Same with TV, a mass means of communication.
And a train? Come on, be serious.
You mention that the jet engine made international travel possible for many. Yet the railways made *travel* possible for the masses. The first excursion was made in 1841 between Loughborough and Leicester, organised by a certain Thomas Cook. Do not underestimate the effect that this change had on society. For the first time, people could travel between towns for just a few pence. Journeys could be made in hours, not days. Travel was no longer the reserve of the rich, but of the masses. It was transformative.
The telephone was an advance, but was hardly a world-changer in the same manner. After all, the telegraph had been around for years. Ditto the television following radio. TV has changed our culture, but it is harder to argue that it has altered the very shape of our cities, especially in such a short period.
Penicillin is a better example, but has more limited scope. John Snow's discovery of the source of cholera may well have had more effect; how many lives have been saved by the concept that people have a right to a clean water supply? This has saved millions not only from cholera, but from other water-borne diseases as well.
Getting back onto topic, public transport grants a certain level of transport to many of the poorest in society. The value of that should be one of the dividing lines between Labour and the Conservatives.
1) As people have said, passenger levels have increased not fallen, but this makes the need for decisive action, and ultimately nationalisation, of the railways all the more important. First because the conditions of the railways and many peoples journeys are awful (anyone ever had to stand for multiple hours because of lack of seats? I have) yet they are so increasingly important for peoples lives (commuting into cities etc as the major urban cities have grown over the past 10 or so years and more and more people commute into them).
2) It would cost money. lots. And things like new lines etc wouldn't happen overnight and thus wouldn't impact on car use etc for some time. But since when does government policy have to be about short term gains? I think it's exactly the type of long term planning/vision that a government with good leadership should be having. And yes we don't have money to do it now, but that doesn't mean we should be talking about it, and pledging to find ways to make this happen when we return to a more balanced economic position. Again, it's about vision for the future.
3) People have talked about railways being neither one thing or the other (private or nationalised), but the fact is they could NEVER be truly private because true competition is not available. Even if ideologically we all agree the free market solution was best (which given this is LL we don't) how does this actually happen on a train network? I want to travel to say Edinburgh. I turn up to my local station and have to get whatever train gets me there. There is no choice. I may well prefer Virgin Trains to any other (for example) but if they don't run a service through my station, I HAVE to use whoever is the local line. No competition = no market = no 'benefits' that privatisation is supposed to allow = rising prices and lower quality services (exactly what we've got)
4) there's a whole argument to be made about the impact of this type of proposal (in conjunction with high speed rail) on the green agenda, i.e. again about vision for our future and developing a world that works in 20/30/40 years time, and not just scrapes by for now.
Simply put, I used to live in Italy, one of the most inefficient, corrupt and poorly governed countries in Europe. But the trains worked. It was wonderful. They ran on time (not sure how we magically make this happen, but we should be taking it out of the hands of private companies who have so spectacularly failed. It's a definition of insanity to perform the same action repeatedly but expect a different result), had an understandable pricing structure (based on how far you were travelling, and whether you caught a slow or fast train. Can anyone explain the UK pricing structure to me? Or any other service industry where I can pay higher prices for lower quality? i.e. I turn up to the station without booking ahead, pay full fair for a ticket to London and may have to stand the entire time, despite the person with a booked seat having only paid £8 advance. Why am I subsidising their ticket? What is the true cost of travel?).
Sorry for the rant, but I think this is a completely necessary change for the UK, and as such it doesn't (and shouldn't) be anything about a 'return to socialist roots'. Why allow the opposition such a massive hole to pick at with that type of language or reasoning? We should renationalise because it’s the most sensible and best option for our country and its transport infrastructure, end of. We just need a government with the vision and bottle to make it a priority, and the skill to implement it well. Whether that's GB's Labour is a different matter....
Appalling customer service, dirty trains, late trains, disgusting food, surly staff, heavily unionised workforce holding everyone to ransom.
Commuters may not be pleased with prices and overcrowding (I'm one of them and I'm not) at the moment but confront them with what BR used to be like and then ask them what they prefer.
Want to know why nationalised rail was such a disaster? Three letters. R. M. T.
One thing, though: you say that passenger numbers have fallen and yet everyone else seems to say that passenger numbers have risen markedly. What is the truth of this?
Just wait for each franchise to fall due and the Government takes over by default. No share purchase, no compensation.
The subsidy that we currently pay to private companies and ends up as profits can then be used to provide a real public service.
I'm sorry but just learn something about the issues before you post drivel.
The subsidy that we currently pay to private companies
You are joking of course? The majority of Train Operating comapnies PAY the government for their franchise.
And where is the Capital Investment going to come from for all these new services?
Rail renationalisation does NOT require money !!!!
Best joke of the week. If you don't realise that David Stuttle's proposals require capital investments equating to £hundreds of Billions of pounds...
He isn't you know.
The operating companies receive substantial subsidies (about £20-30m a year in most cases) on a promise that the subsidy will reduce year on year and they will make up the shortfall by making money from the business. The assumption is that they will eventually make enough to pay a premium. In reality when the going gets tough they try to get out of their obligations, hence the farrago that is the East Coast operation.
Network Rail also receives huge subsidy.
As with a lot of the botched privatisations, it is neither one thing nor another; the difference is that where my taxes used to subsidise an inefficient, overstaffed publicly-owned industry, it now subsidises millionaire executives who cut costs by cutting services and sacking people.
if you want them private, let them stand on their own and charge me whatever they think it costs. If they want subsidising then let's do it properly and have proper accountability. The situation as it stands is ludicrous.
In 2006-7:
Network Rail received £3.4 Billion in grants.
Train Operating Companies (TOCs)received a NET £1.7Billion.
http://www.nao.org.uk/publications/0708/reducing_passenger_rail_delays.aspx
Under nationalisation the first will remain. If fares are to reduce as per David's proposals the TOC subsidy will HAVE to rise.
I agree about the current dog's breakfast.
As far as future investment under David's proposal:
There would need to be new fleet of container carrying trains to take all the traffic from lorries crossing the tunnel.
Ther would need to be major railway yards where containers could be loaded and unloaded onto lorries.
Much would have to be refrigerated: half our food is imported.
Together with new lines etc £250 billion would do for a start.
Of course if they were made more efficient, costs would have to be cut - which includes people costs.
As for the subsidy - it it's felt to be inevitable, on balance I feel an "inefficient" state sector is the lesser of two evils when the other one is me helping to pay for private-sector bonuses when the recipients have demonstrated they cannot actually run the businesses as businesses.
Epic fail. Does not pass first test of a sensible argument. Waste of time and space.
Why write stuff when you do not even TRY to cost it? And if you did, then you have to see how you can PAY for it.
Other points:
Huge investment required over 2 decades. Becasue it takes aboyt 10 years to build a major new line.
So the aims of :
* Reduce the number of cars on the road.
* Carry more freight and cut out all the HGV traffic on the roads. Only smaller LGV lorries will be needed to carry goods from railheads for local delivery.
* Eliminate the need for building new roads.
would be unachievable before 2020 - at the earliest. Allow a 5 year planning stage and you will see no results before 2025 - at best.
As for
* Run at a lower cost without needing to make a profit.
* Reduce fares for travellers and thus encourage more people to travel by train.
On what basis do you assume a nationalised railway will be cheaper to run? Lets see the homework.
Finally:
It is time the Labour Party returned to its socialist roots. One step along the way would be to re-nationalise public services: telephone, energy, water, buses and first and foremost, the railway network.
Please include this in the next manifesto.Please do. Please.
Unbelievable. Learned nothing from the last 40 years.
You'd save a few bob by not having to take money out to pay large bonuses to managers whose business is in some cases such as Network Rail dependent on taxpayer subsidy for a start off. The railways only manage to clank along as they do "privately" because you, me and the other mugs help them out when they get short.
Energy and water - yes, those privatised markets have been a great success, haven't they? I've noticed no difference from the days when they were nationalised. Although again in some cases I note my tax is used to subsidise private companies again - a bit annoying, as if I could choose I'd subside someone local rather than a French corporation.
Cecil Parkinson himself conceded the energy privatisation was botched - it was typical what-the-hell-let's-do-it-anyway short-term Conservative policy - a great source of problems as Labour's stultifying bureaucracy has been.
Sure, you can't privatise telephony in the 21st century. Buses maybe not either. As for the others - yes, please do stick them in the manifesto. They would indeed be big vote winners. Or at least they could have been - the promise if free electric and one's own personal train wouldnt save Gordon now.
And equipment failed during and after WWII because it was worked to death by the demands of the war, not by lack of investment before hand. The system was worked as one by the Railway Executive during the war and the railways worked wonders (such as the putting together of hundreds of trains for the troops from the Dunkirk evacuation at short notice). Reductions in service were caused by the need to provide priority to war traffic.
After the war the railways were worn out by their war effort and yes the private companies couldn't afford it (certainly not the LMS & LNER) so nationalisation was needed but much of the investment was wasted. We were still building steam engines in 1960 when US railways had virtually phased them out.
Beeching was required as the railways weren't suited to a Britain with mass car ownership (though he did go too far on some lines) and you fail to mention that Labour didn't stop it.
So your history is off, what about you argument for nationalisation now.
Invest in re-opening closed lines and open new routes to attract more custom
Invest in additional and new rolling stock to add carriages to trains and enable all passengers to sit for the whole of their journey, including commuters during peak times.
Reduce fares for travellers and thus encourage more people to travel by train
How will we pay for these if we also have this point - Run at a lower cost without needing to make a profit. Without a profit there is no money to invest in opening routes, building carriages or reducing fares. If you hadn't noticed the government is in a lot of debt so won’t be able to fund this. It would have to come out of operating profits.
The Beeching cuts were required because the 1955 Modernisation Plan had spent so much money and hadn't made a return on it. Government finances were in a mess (plus la change) so cuts were needed. Your plan seems to be to pave the way for a Beeching Mk2 in 10 years time.
I note the postwar exhaustion was similar in mining, hence nationalisation there as well.
I often suspect that the postwar nationalisations that were presented idealistically as enriching and empowering the people were in fact born of necessity because the private sector was broke - it's an interesting corrective to the received wisdom about post war politics.
Penicillin and computers are certainly up there, the jet engine, telephone and television are too. Rail would struggle to make the top 10 in terms of world impact of solely British inventions. What's more Tarmacadam would certainly trounce it.
Rail provided rapid mass transit that could beat anything else until about 1960, then the car could get you to your destination faster and cheaper. Incidentally, those private companies like GWR and LNER are considered to be the zenith of rail's golden age, trains exactly on time, spotless stations and the epitomy of civilised public transport.
The problem with rail travel ever since has been those final miles to your destination, stations built before the car required a walk to the nearest bus terminal.
Whilst rail definitely as a role to play with freight, businesses need a guaranteed means of getting goods from ports or manufacturers to warehouses and shops. Those warehouses do not keep weeks worth of stock anymore to make rail frieght viable. Warehouses only keeps days worth of stock. Rail cannot guarantee delivery 365 days a year.
Why? Precisely because of those good ol' socialist unions.
Lastly, since privatisation in 1995, passenger numbers have risen from 720 million journeys to 1230 million journeys they have not fallen as you state.
I had to travel from Liverpool to Salford. I checked the possible routes on the internet but on arriving at the station was told to use another route. The same was said at the travel centre when I enquired.
The reason being that both the ticketing service and the travel centre are actually run by one of the providers - who only give details of their own services even though in this case, the journey took 25 minutes longer. They went as far as giving me incorrect information, telling me that i would have to change twice on the route i intended to use
Then on the way back, a connecting train - advertised as such - did not bother to wait because the train it was connecting with wasn't the same providing company.
There has to be a better way of running things than this, and I think we need to look at the Dutch or German systems and learn from them. I also think it must be combined with compulsory road pricing
We already have road pricing , Its called road tax .
ricki
We all ready have that , Tax on petrol , the more you use the more you pay ?
ricki
I Have a question or two ,
How would it be cheaper and more efficent ? and lets be honest our goverment has not got the best track in running things .
I like the idea of opening disused lines there is lots of hidden beauty in this country .
ricki
We should give the nation what it wants, a publicly owned railway in accordance with the Labour Party conference decision of some years ago.