British Rail
From CroziervisionWiki
In 1948 the state bought out the railways (by compulsion if memory serves) and British Railways or British Rail, as it became known, was born. Between 1993 and 1996 the system was privatised.
In its period of state ownership British Rail:
- started to make losses. It never ceased to make them and eventually these were institutionalised in the form of an annual subsidy known as the Public Service Obligation. In the 1980s this averaged about £1bn a year (1990 pounds)
- (as part of the Modernisation Plan) introduced a large number of diesel-powered units many of which proved extremely unreliable
- I wouldn't say tried to hide the losses but certainly made it difficult to make direct comparisons especially when it came to capital expenditures
- in the 1960s and 1970s electrified the West Coast Main Line
- electrified much of the surburban railway south of the Thames
- closed down a third of the network in what became known as the "Beeching Cuts"
- lost the lion's share of its freight business. BR can't really be blamed for this - road freight had got a lot better
- introduced the ill-starred Advanced Passenger Train (APT)
- introduced the (apparently) very successful High Speed Train (HST)
- (in the 1980s) electrified the East Coast Main Line. Unfortunately, they did it on the cheap which meant that
- in high winds the overheard cables tended to blow down - a problem that persists to today
- although the trains were capable of 140mph, the signalling wasn't, so they were restricted to (and remain restricted to) 125mph
- the trains were often unreliable though to some extent that has been fixed since
- made sandwiches that became a national joke (though they always seemed OK to me)
- suffered many strikes
- (judging by old photographs) let many of its structures eg stations become dowdy. The worst public toilet I have ever been inside was in a BR station.
- knocked down Euston Station and its rather nice (Doric?) Arch and replaced it with the current monstrosity. Again, BR can't take all the blame for this - it was something of the spirit of the age
- started to suffer from the effects of graffiti and vandalism
- abolished the Workman's Fare (a cheaper rate for non-peak travel). I thought this happened in 1952
Whether safety was compromised it is hard to say but Britain's worst peacetime train crash did take place in 1952, at Harrow, only four years after nationalisation.
