British Rail Documentary - First Sight Part 3 of 3.

An episode of First Sight which was shown in the early 1990s.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• British
• Railways
• BR
• Intercity
• Network
• SouthEast

[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.

[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 !!!

[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.

[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....

[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.

[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.

[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.

[AG3304]

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

[MrCagivaman]

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

[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.

[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.