Britain's Railway

[SONBoomer]

"The best thing I LOVED about this show has to be it's... Accuracy..." ~ Devious Diesel, circa 10 years before.

[TURBODORK2]

i HATE SOUTHERN RAIL

[pigsrbest]

Having read all the comments made about this advert,with hindsight it would have been better for us if the government had privitised the railways using the original regions as of pre-nationalisation in 1948,instead of treating the railway like some sort of motorway.

[SE962582C]

@pigsrbest But we were not living in the year 1857 any more, were we? 

[Jongo71]

"The tory supporters all making it rich, the bankers the brokers the PR men too, the only ones who will lose out are YOU" - good god - it's pure prophecy!

[Exospray]

hold on a minute, the one by the lefts a real person!

[berlinmitte10117]

How prophetic

[MrThecarebear]

One poster asked "the government didn't have to privatise all of British Rail did it?"

Thing is, Thatcher and the Tories loved it so much that she'd privatise the Downing Street cat if she could.

[turricaned]

@MrThecarebear As much as I find her ideology utterly loathsome, the truth is that even Thatcher balked at privatising the railways and eventually shelved the plan. Unfortunately, the think-tanks suggested the same to John Major after the surprise 1992 win and he went for it.

[269mazinguer]

fantastic video. Could somebody write here the whole lyrics? thank you

[gallafey]

2day it's not just that trains services are messed up but buses too' Leigh in Lacashire

was one of those towns that lost it's railway & Station although it said that Leigh will get it station back, what aload crap!

[joe9320]

Ever since privatisation, things had gone.... better I think.

[Grahammd206]

@joe9320 for shareholder yes not farepaying passengers

[AnthonyUK]

@joe9320 Err....no

[eaststandred]

It is privatised but the goverment still have to subsidise it

[Grahammd206]

@eaststandred not for long hence fares going up

[Doomshark3]

They didn't have to privatise all the railway service, did they?

[eaststandred]

The new tory goverment make me laugh with their big society and how they say we are all in this toghether no if fact it's the top 10% who create the credit crunch but the other 90% have to pay for it. More lies and privertisation from the tories to come.

[AnthonyUK]

Privatization killed everything in the UK and led to greed!

[13agibson]

Please tell me how you can love a system in which children in third world countries are working in sweat shops for the benefit of the population in the west. You might realise that not all people opposed to capitalism are 'commies' either. The Soviets don't count- they went too far, and undermined all the values of left-wing politics but 'Victorian values' my arse.

[BhanuHabbo]

Bring back British Rail, but like ther good ol' 1947-1959 way.

[Verbeke7]

I never realized British people hated capitalism so much. Makes me wonder why we blew so much money keeping the Reds out when they were essentially just a diet version...

[ImPoliticalOK]

@Verbeke7 I love capitalism not all us brits are commies

[Verbeke7]

@ImPoliticalOK

Fair enough.

[retroscient]

@Verbeke7 In Britain, we care about our railways; they are part of our Victorian heritage and we rely on them a lot more than America does. People are patriotic and nostalgic for the bygone era of British industry. Privatisation has resulted in soaring taxpayer subsidy; it's not as easy as you'd like to think. So yes, British Rail had problems, but in hindsight (and apparently with some Spitting Image foresight!) it also got things right too. Leave the immature pseudo-McCarthyism at the door.

[sanatatic]

@retroscient Err...in Victorian Britain, the railways were privatised I believe. GWR, some others too i believe each owned parts of the lines.

[retroscient]

@sanatatic Yeah, there were companies, and GWR was one of them. They were tremendous innovators - there's no doubting that private sector does good work. But the railways were near-collapse (because of war, over-competition, debts, etc) when the government stepped in (twice, actually - first for the grouping into the Big Four, and then eventually nationalisation), to try and sort things out. Today the railways have a different role, best served by the BR model.

[sanatatic]

@retroscient Oh right, I knew (obviously) that the government stepped into nationalise them but didn´t know the ins and outs of it, cheers

[crypticmirror]

I have to laugh at this, if I didn't I'd cry.

[nightw4tchman]

Not sure if it's funny or sad that this came true.

[Frankiezollo58]

they got one of the investors right branson. and this was only ment to be a joke. they predicted virgin rail, congestion and fares going up. amazingly it was exactly what happened. that shows that spitting image is clever.

[BurlingtonNorthernRy]

What year was this made?

[joecostellomusicvids]

@BurlingtonNorthernRy Probably 1988 - that's the year the real ad that this is a spoof of was made. Plus, Thatcher's in power, so it must be 1990 or earlier. Now that's prophecy!

[SCRuffeyfan]

@BurlingtonNorthernRy 1987-1988

[screammac]

not all the routs they got ride of were profitble how about lime street liverpool to scotlad edightbourh and glasgo the costomers from lost routs like this cloge up other rout bring bk britsh rail

[LordGoatAlmighty]

I swear there was a sheep somewhere in almost every episode of the early series, ditto that cat in the later ones.

[maynardsthirdeye]

They've got Tom Courtney down pat.

[thedjnk]

Originally science-fiction; Now science-faction.

[Doomshark3]

spitting image was not only funny, it was also very smart. They have to return.

[Canute1985]

very good - chuckle chuckle

[lewis986]

@getmadgetmad1

Rubbish. BR cut routes in the 1960s when it was Chaired by Mr. Beeching, formerly of ICI, who was tasked with turning BR into more of a commercially-focused (though state-owned) entity. This was not achieved until the mid-1980s, aided by Thatcher's approach to making most state-owned industries more efficient. Major was not forced to privatize the railways - as in France and Germany, this could have been achieved by an accounting change.

Bring Back British Rail.

[BRLSM]

acturally it is unfair to base that view on BR during the 50's and 60's as they were having to spend all the money on repairing all the war damage that took 10 years just for the routes then they had to modernise the locos and rolling stock as again the war meant that damage and maintanence took along time to repair or replace aswell and to be fair it was getting somewhere until the Beechings act came in from guess who the Conservatives plus he never carried out his serveys properly aswell.

[QfromAirdrie]

Proof if proof were needed that we NEED Spitting Image back.

Thanks for adding this.

[LukeForrester]

They were so right in their predictions.

Crammed and over priced!

[LukeForrester]

Bring Back BRITISH RAIL

[fiddleandcatz]

@LukeForrester BR was the biggest monumental cock up of modern times

[banjokitten]

@LukeForrester People complained when BR was there, and they complain now it's gone - I guess it depends which bit of the network you live closest to, but either way, if it's nationalized or privatized, it'll be the same service, without better engineering.

[jorash123]

@banjokitten we only didnt liek it coz of all the shuting down and getting rid ov steam traction they ran more to time then than now

[JBofBrisbane]

@jorash123 - not as many people in Britain then. That would have to have an effect.

[BeveridgeBrownProd]

@banjokitten People complained about BR because the government didn't put the funding in place to make it run well. The system was starved of cash, which made privatisation look like a good idea, but with short term franchises, the companies do not want to make the investment to improve "their bit of railway" because, if they are going to loose it in a few years, why waste the money! As a result fare prices are rising out of control. That is why we complain, too little for too much!!

[053bss]

Nicholas Winterton at 0:30

[WilbertVereAwdry]

wut

[NSMerryweather4771]

HAHAHAHAHA!!! Absolutely Exellent!

I love it. best thing i've seen in a long time.

and yet so so true!

[AntarcticaTelevision]

This spoof actually ended up being 100% accurate.

[fiddleandcatz]

@AntarcticaTelevision thats not true, down where i live they are talking about opening up routes that were closed under BR, and the standards in our trains has improved drastically, infact my mother was suprised how pleasent her journey on the train was, the reason there is more overcrowding is because more people are using the trains as they are CHEAPER and MUCH NICER. So to say that the spoof is 100% accurate is an absolute lie.

[JollyRodders]

@fiddleandcatz "...the reason there is more overcrowding is because more people are using the trains"

Don't forget that the trains are shorter too, so they can cram more people into less space. I remember 15 coach trains to the West Country with another 15 coach train on stand by in the sidings. Six coach loco hauled trains to Salisbury now a 3 car DMU, 12 car electrics to Bournemouth replaced with 10 car electric trains etc. BR was starved of finance to make privatisation look good.

[HaligonianType1]

@AntarcticaTelevision Exactly. I remember seeing this episode of Spitting Image in the 80's. It's almost like a Nostradamus prophecy now. Haha...

[BurlingtonNorthernRy]

@AntarcticaTelevision

This is why I love the satire shows, they seem to nail/notice things that no one else does

[AndrewJimScott]

Trust me I've seen this advert on tape.

It's one of the greatest advert spoof's they ever did do!

[differentdan]

so ture of the privitasations lol spitting image is funny and they should bring it back, but i spose isn't very P.C

[XavierTheBobFriar]

0:38 is an easter egg of sorts... not only have you got "piss off" and "skinhead treatment" graffitied on the train, you've got puppets of Tom Cruise, Dr Ruth and Phil Collins in the window, a sheep, and a human in the bottom corner...