British Rail Documentary - First Sight Part 3 of 3.

[EliotBoonHuat]

Google "public spending investment railways"...

... the top result will give you the graphs on government spending and investment in the rail industry from 1985 to 2009. It's ridiculous.

@MrCagivaman Margaret Thatcher owes us big. Smart move mate!

[JVerschueren]

I don't know why NS is held as an example here. In my experience their service is just as crap as our NMBS (Belgium), which, ironically, recently, made a press release to the effect of their goal being to emulate a particular London station (I can't remember which one), where, apparently, a scheduled train has never been obliged to stop at a different platform as planned for over 20 years. Go figure....

[rikbakker1996]

@JVerschueren Nee, wij in Nederland hebben gewoon overal wat over te klagen. En als er niets te klagen valt, zoeken we naar iets om te klagen. Wij zeuren inderdaad ook over de NS, maar eigenlijk hebben wij een van de beste spoorwegnetwerken in de wereld. En ja, jullie NMBS is gewoon crap.

[uhegbu]

If I ruled Britain's railways, I would have created independent organisations running its own services like Grand Central operating services between London King's Cross and Sunderland via York/Bradford Interchange via Doncaster rather than one company operating all of Britain's rail services. I would also have invested new rolling stock right away but it is all in the planning, the health and safety, testing and how the train works that worries me a lot.

[Trakkiefy]

Privatising pieces of your national railway network does not help. Private bussinesses want profit, and tat cannot be made if you sell them for a term of 5 years. Nobody will invest in those conditions. Keep it under the government, and put people in the transport ministry who know what they are talking about.

New ( and thus lighter ) trains can cause problems in winter times as well. No grip.... delays.

[ejcmoorhouse]

yes we've got a detailed ten year plan! but it onlys up three years because of privatisation

[ashthemainman2012]

brunel must be turning in his grave with the railways of today. spose it be another 100 years till its fixed and how it currently is running in germany and japan ( where they have 100years better transports links compaired to us) - they should cancel all trains and replace them with buses so engineers can crack on and upgrade the network for how ever long it takes to get the job done properlly rather than bit by bit.

[MusicalElitist1]

Lol! And in 20 odd years, hardly anything has changed: our trains are still shite, we are still the most expensive in Europe- possibly the world and the staff are still rude. The only thing that is slightly different is our rolling stock- which is marginally better. Sad, sad times.

[Ropponmatsu2]

2:55 :So, Mr Prescott, you know the stock is old and the system is worn out, yet the mid 90's Labour party is not pledging an extra penny. It's going to be up to the public to moan the railway into improving things piecemeal, accident by accident, decade by decade, because as far as you're concerned, you don't have a clue what the public want and you're not interested in going and finding out because you'll get held to it.

And you're their FUCKING SHADOW TRANSPORT MINISTER?

How?

Why?

[Cliffjumper24]

@Ropponmatsu2 The problem is, the privatisation system had been put into effect by the time Labour got into power.

The best labout could do was try to micromanage a system that was flawed and is costing us more money than it was before.

For example, InterCity West coast made a profit, but the franchise running those services (Virgin) a get £280million subsidy.

[soundnicetome]

Nationalisation was and always will be the better option.Railways being a complex industry would always be very cost effective,BUT,as history has proven,this has only come about when past Goverments have had no option but to do so.Put simply,the public want railways,Goverments dont !!!

[32678knowle]

Mr Prescott - how the hell does identifying quality help if you're not prepared to put money into the system to make it happen?

Typical politician on the rail industry - talking about a highly specialised, complex industry which they don't understand.

[MrCagivaman]

@32678knowle I think you will find he was the SHADOW transport minister at the time. It was Maggie bloody Thatcher that screwed everything at home. Thats why I moved to THE NETHERLANDS.

[MrCagivaman]

Jimmy Knapp, ex signalman at Kilmarnock Junction. Knows the UK rail system like the back of his hand !!!!.

[AG3304]

@32678knowle Too bloody right! How they made that buffoon a lord amazes me!

[mattbbuck]

john prescott was also involved in fucking the railways to an even worse state than what thatcher did

[PenzancePete]

@mattbbuck Y'know, if you're going to make statements at least get your facts correct. Thatcher didn't want to privatise the railways, it was Major.

[mattbbuck]

@PenzancePete no thatcher did cut funding railways so that major in an attempt to help the railways which did not decided to privatise them then labour came in and steven buyers made the railways worse than it was

[Cliffjumper24]

@mattbbuck Major knew the govt couldn't afford to buy thousands of coaches worth of new trains, so it was privatised so the private sector could buy the trains instead.

Neither govt really understood that public subsidy of the railways is vital, they expected the railways to pay for themselves.

The railways drive the economy by getting the people to the officies where money is generated.

UK govts think too short term.

[mappman1000]

5 stars and a fav! Great set of videos, well done!