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British Rail: The Nation's Railway
British Rail was a success. It successfully carried millions of commuters to and from their jobs every day; organized its trunk route services to yield a profit under the brand name "Inter-City;" and pioneered world-beating research and technological development through its own research center and engineering subsidiary. It transformed the railway system of Britain from a post-World War II state of collapse into a modern, technologically advanced railway. It did all this despite being starved of cash and being subjected to the whims of ever-fickle politicians. British Rail: The Nation’s Railway is the story of how all that was achieved, seen from a passenger’s perspective.
256 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 13, 2014
This is an excellent warts and all review of the age of nationalisation of the British railway system. While primarily focussing on the years during which the railways were a state concern Tanya Jackson begins with a review of the period and events leading up to nationalisation. Anyone who has read Christian Wolmar's excellent “Fire and Steam” will have an idea of the chaotic Mafioso development of the rail network in Britain where any idea of state intervention in the planning or running of railways was a none starter and where the landed gentry were able to interfere with development to the detriment of the system and national economy. This lack of early state intervention, as it is clear to the reader, was a large part of the problem. The other part of the problem has been the intervention of the state in running the railway system.
In 1908 Jackson notes things had become so bad that all party support existed for nationalisation. What the country got was a post war grouping into the “Big Four” companies who pulled things back together in the post war climate and following economic depression only for another world war to reduce the rail network to breaking point and beyond. Not only was serious damage caused by enemy action but maintenance work was not carried out, modernisation did not happen and the locomotives and rolling stock had been driven into the ground by the wartime economy. Once again a general consensus emerged in favour of bringing the system under state control and this time there was an up beat Labour government prepared to see it through, or sort of anyway. The 1948 nationalised railway was no longer fit for purpose, road transport was growing expectationally while a Victorian rail infrastructure shackled by out dated working practises and expectations wheezed its way towards a terminal buffer stop. What followed was decades of the best and worst of rail practise as managers tried to square circles, governments meddled and pulled at purse strings while washing their hands and workers struggled to improve working conditions and save jobs that were doomed.
Dr Beeching's arrival on the scene as the most notorious moment in British Rail history is addressed dispassionately by Jackson to her credit. It is probably true to say that Beeching did untold damage to the railways but they were like an unpruned straggly tree full of dead wood and over grown by ivy. Much as I have always regarded Beeching as the bogeyman in the recent re-examination of his track record I have come to accept that there was certainly a problem that needed tackling and that this was going to involve to pretty vicious hacking back of dead wood and wasteful sprouting. Beechings use of the axe however came close to killing the patient. As Jackson says of his decimation of feeder lines imagine what would happen to motorways if you cut off all the feeder roads. His reign, fortunately cut short, did however bring about important steps towards a programme of modernisation and thinking about how to build a railway suited for the purposes of the late 20th Century.
The impression throughout the book, based on the evidence, is of a typical British make-do-and-mend management situation in which good ideas were constantly thwarted through being starved of cash and where the Treasury always wanted a cheaper version which would see a bodge job over a state of the art job. Britain, birth place of the railways, had always been at the cutting edge of development. On the down side this has often meant others have learnt from the inevitable errors of imperfect first attempts. Throughout the BR period the Derby Technical Research Centre was a world leader in rail developments despite being run on a shoestring. Today's Pendelino is a development of the much maligned Advanced Passenger Train, developed for next to nothing and allowed to go to the wall due to the reluctance of the government to invest in cutting edge technology and domestic know-how. The Mark III coach was another major success story. Meanwhile the BR brand (the development of which Jackson examines in fascinating detail) was created and remains strong today even post-privatisation. At their height BR branded marketing and products reached an impressive zenith, not bad for a cash starved system rebuilt after a devastating war and dependent largely on first generation and untested equipment.
Out of the 1970's and into the 1980's a battle for survival was acted out while those with a vision fought to prepare a railway fit for the 21st Century. Integration became an increasingly important feature. Sectorisation identified particular business units such as Intercity and Rail Freight. A young dynamic manager Chris Green gave birth to Scotrail before heading south to create Network South East a brand that is still remembered today. By the late 1980's it was starting to look like BR had pulled out of it's death rattle and was coming back to life. Quality and safety were being understood and developed at both a staff and infrastructure level. New stock was being ordered and some of it was actually pretty good (some, such as the dreaded nodding donkey Pacer units, not so) but numbers were up and Intercity was flying.
Into this upbeat period was cast the dark shadow of privatisation rejected by Thatcher but embraced by John Majors backfiring “circus car” administration. Pushed through for the sake of ideology the whole business was as Jackson shows a mix of farce and disaster (the hallmarks of the Major reign). Years of experience were lost overnight, systems were set back and decades of work undone. As Jackson notes Conservative MP Robert Adley an MP who actually understood and defended the rail industry sadly died in the run up to privatisation a great loss to the railway and a lone voice that may have been able to have spoken sense to power given the opportunity.
On 1st April 1994 BR ceased to exist as a rail operator. Twenty years on privatisation remains deeply unpopular but no government is any more likely to respond to the electorate on this issue than any other. As franchises fail they are taken into state ownership and then handed back to the private sector to public opposition. Ironically as Jackson shows despite this so-called privatisation government is as involved in running the system probably more than ever and competition is pretty much little more than a few potential franchisees trying to undercut each other to run monopoly services. However, despite the generally negative public perception of the current system there are those, particularly former BR managers including Chris Green, who see advantage in it with investment and decision making at a franchise level being free of politicians meddling and penny pinching.
In conclusion Tanya Jackson notes that “Given the hassles and external interference it's a wonder BR actually achieved anything”, yet it did. BR united a shambolic and disparate system modernising it in the face of political opposition and financial tight fistedness. BR launched an internationally recognised brand and pioneered a range of services. BR was responsible for world leading research and technological development despite the strictures of its garden shed like operation. The conclusion, I believe rightly, is that British Rail was a success despite the harsh conditions in which it was forced to operate. Of privatisation Jackson states (noting the biggest winners to be the administrators and lawyers needed to manage it) “It was designed so as to make it difficult to put it back together again – it was a Humpty-Dumpty privatisation designed to ensure that it could never be renationalised. It was in so many ways a spiteful act of the scorched earth variety, from a party that knew its time in power was nearly over, more than a cohesive transport policy”.
In 1908 Jackson notes things had become so bad that all party support existed for nationalisation. What the country got was a post war grouping into the “Big Four” companies who pulled things back together in the post war climate and following economic depression only for another world war to reduce the rail network to breaking point and beyond. Not only was serious damage caused by enemy action but maintenance work was not carried out, modernisation did not happen and the locomotives and rolling stock had been driven into the ground by the wartime economy. Once again a general consensus emerged in favour of bringing the system under state control and this time there was an up beat Labour government prepared to see it through, or sort of anyway. The 1948 nationalised railway was no longer fit for purpose, road transport was growing expectationally while a Victorian rail infrastructure shackled by out dated working practises and expectations wheezed its way towards a terminal buffer stop. What followed was decades of the best and worst of rail practise as managers tried to square circles, governments meddled and pulled at purse strings while washing their hands and workers struggled to improve working conditions and save jobs that were doomed.
Dr Beeching's arrival on the scene as the most notorious moment in British Rail history is addressed dispassionately by Jackson to her credit. It is probably true to say that Beeching did untold damage to the railways but they were like an unpruned straggly tree full of dead wood and over grown by ivy. Much as I have always regarded Beeching as the bogeyman in the recent re-examination of his track record I have come to accept that there was certainly a problem that needed tackling and that this was going to involve to pretty vicious hacking back of dead wood and wasteful sprouting. Beechings use of the axe however came close to killing the patient. As Jackson says of his decimation of feeder lines imagine what would happen to motorways if you cut off all the feeder roads. His reign, fortunately cut short, did however bring about important steps towards a programme of modernisation and thinking about how to build a railway suited for the purposes of the late 20th Century.
The impression throughout the book, based on the evidence, is of a typical British make-do-and-mend management situation in which good ideas were constantly thwarted through being starved of cash and where the Treasury always wanted a cheaper version which would see a bodge job over a state of the art job. Britain, birth place of the railways, had always been at the cutting edge of development. On the down side this has often meant others have learnt from the inevitable errors of imperfect first attempts. Throughout the BR period the Derby Technical Research Centre was a world leader in rail developments despite being run on a shoestring. Today's Pendelino is a development of the much maligned Advanced Passenger Train, developed for next to nothing and allowed to go to the wall due to the reluctance of the government to invest in cutting edge technology and domestic know-how. The Mark III coach was another major success story. Meanwhile the BR brand (the development of which Jackson examines in fascinating detail) was created and remains strong today even post-privatisation. At their height BR branded marketing and products reached an impressive zenith, not bad for a cash starved system rebuilt after a devastating war and dependent largely on first generation and untested equipment.
Out of the 1970's and into the 1980's a battle for survival was acted out while those with a vision fought to prepare a railway fit for the 21st Century. Integration became an increasingly important feature. Sectorisation identified particular business units such as Intercity and Rail Freight. A young dynamic manager Chris Green gave birth to Scotrail before heading south to create Network South East a brand that is still remembered today. By the late 1980's it was starting to look like BR had pulled out of it's death rattle and was coming back to life. Quality and safety were being understood and developed at both a staff and infrastructure level. New stock was being ordered and some of it was actually pretty good (some, such as the dreaded nodding donkey Pacer units, not so) but numbers were up and Intercity was flying.
Into this upbeat period was cast the dark shadow of privatisation rejected by Thatcher but embraced by John Majors backfiring “circus car” administration. Pushed through for the sake of ideology the whole business was as Jackson shows a mix of farce and disaster (the hallmarks of the Major reign). Years of experience were lost overnight, systems were set back and decades of work undone. As Jackson notes Conservative MP Robert Adley an MP who actually understood and defended the rail industry sadly died in the run up to privatisation a great loss to the railway and a lone voice that may have been able to have spoken sense to power given the opportunity.
On 1st April 1994 BR ceased to exist as a rail operator. Twenty years on privatisation remains deeply unpopular but no government is any more likely to respond to the electorate on this issue than any other. As franchises fail they are taken into state ownership and then handed back to the private sector to public opposition. Ironically as Jackson shows despite this so-called privatisation government is as involved in running the system probably more than ever and competition is pretty much little more than a few potential franchisees trying to undercut each other to run monopoly services. However, despite the generally negative public perception of the current system there are those, particularly former BR managers including Chris Green, who see advantage in it with investment and decision making at a franchise level being free of politicians meddling and penny pinching.
In conclusion Tanya Jackson notes that “Given the hassles and external interference it's a wonder BR actually achieved anything”, yet it did. BR united a shambolic and disparate system modernising it in the face of political opposition and financial tight fistedness. BR launched an internationally recognised brand and pioneered a range of services. BR was responsible for world leading research and technological development despite the strictures of its garden shed like operation. The conclusion, I believe rightly, is that British Rail was a success despite the harsh conditions in which it was forced to operate. Of privatisation Jackson states (noting the biggest winners to be the administrators and lawyers needed to manage it) “It was designed so as to make it difficult to put it back together again – it was a Humpty-Dumpty privatisation designed to ensure that it could never be renationalised. It was in so many ways a spiteful act of the scorched earth variety, from a party that knew its time in power was nearly over, more than a cohesive transport policy”.
September 8, 2021
I’m no expert on railway history but I think it must rank as quite an achievement to pack so much coverage of the history of British Rail into one moderately sized volume which also contextualises BR’s inheritance and considers its legacy. The chapters are usefully thematic in scope and this allows a great variety of coverage. The style is approachable and on occasion witty - but always authoritative. The author makes no secret of her political outlooks and her opinion of the politicians who have shaped the railways since World War Two, but her reflections are no less insightful for that and her conclusions still granular. A solid introduction to some important history.
May 27, 2021
An interesting insight into various aspects of British Rail, however there is no clear structure to the first half of the book with lots of back and forth between different periods.
Want to read
November 8, 2022these book is very excellent
April 17, 2020
Great book covering all aspects of British Rail, how it came to be right up to nationalisation in the 1990s, it cover not just history but tells the story of the people involved
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews