Nationalisation good or bad ? (ex cheerful 2015 thread)

Pooling receipts was very common with coal traffic so I believe.

 

More to competition than just which train to which destination though: Torquay and the GWR competed with Lyme Regis and the Southern for holiday traffic, the different lines promoted towns on their routes as being the right ones to set up a new buisness in, all that sort of stuff. Quality of rail service can be a factor in choosing which destination - ask any commuter whether the quality of rail service affects where they choose to live.

 

The point I'm making was many more so after 1923 than before hand..
Even towards your neck of the woods Bedford had LNWR and MR therefore competition.. Post 1923... It was LMS.

who did competition serve best ? The customer or the government ? - was railway mania a means for government to get a national network built by the private sector... After all ww1 showed it was obvious that a national network under central control made the system work better... But the govt couldn't afford the war debts it built up, so grouped them into 4...

If competition didn't really form part of the plan, merely the allowance of redundancy of network.. Grouping to 1 in 1923 would be a whole lot more desirable....

I still like to think natural selection would have been the order... The LNW had already merged with the L&Y before 1923 so a super power was already born... Who knows maybe the LSWR may have merged too..Or perhaps the MR with the GN and LSWR, and the GCR may have pursued that tunnel link and gone under London to Charing cross to merge with the SECR and then the NER, or perhaps the GC and GWR ?
We could have had a big 7 or so based on network alignment, revenue rather than geography...

 

LSWR was already the dominant power in the south - would have more likely for LBSCR and SECR to merge, I suspect - or would it have been more probable for non-neighbouring lines to form alliances? E. G. LBSCR/GNR? Sharing some resources, management, design teams, although I presume maintaining independent engineering facilities...

 

It would have taken quite some time for enough companies to be engulfed for increase in efficiency to be noticeable, but apart from that it doesn't sound too bad, who knows what would have happened if that had happened...

 

If we are going to debate this then surely we need to start with why some would define nationalisation as bad and for those who think it was or wasn't to state what would have happened in their alternate universe.

As to the airline analogy, given that over the history of aviation, airlines have made a large net loss, I'm not sure it is of much value to the debate.

 

Depends on where you started your journey. Once the MR arrived in London your choice of a trip to Bedford was a direct train from St.Pancras, an LNWR train to Bletchley and change for Bedford or a GN train to Hitchin and change for Bedford. London passengers had a choice but for those in outlying areas they would use the route on which they lived.

 

A free market economy would never have implemented either the premature scrapping of a modern loco fleet nor the closure of financially viable lines. You have nationalisation and Marples to thank for that.

 

How many financially viable lines were closed? Very few.

Look how quickly steam disappeared in the states and other countries to see we weren't the only ones.

Without nationalisation, far more lines would have closed far more quickly or the firms would have gone bust. Remember post 1955 BR was hardly minting money.

 

All for political reasons rather than economic ones. Dieselisation may have made sense where loco fleets were ancient and knackered, but that did not apply here, nor in France, Germany, America, India and I could go on. There were a lot of profitable lines closed without good reason, often where Western Region took control of ex LSWR lines (and the SDJR). The last of those had been turned around by the arrival of 9Fs, which made double-heading unnecessary while still having a good turn of speed. The GCR was another case - Marples planned to widen the M1 all over its trackbed. Why was the old Midland line from Cheltenham to Birmingham kept open while the much more modern GWR route (no 1-in-37 there!) was closed south of Stratford? Thanks to Marples there is also no direct route for freight from the industrial heart of the Midlands to Southampton - both the DN&SR (doubled at considerable expense in WW2) and the M&SWJR/Sprat & Winkle being closed. The LSWR main lines to Plymouth and North Devon/Cornwall. Perth to Aberdeen direct up the Mearns via Forfar. The direct Perth to Edinburgh line which was quickly converted into a Marplesway. The Waverley and Stainmore routes. I could go on. In any case, as Lord Adonis proved at the age of 11 when BR was trying to close the Chiltern main line completely, the maths BR used to "justify" closures was wholly bogus. Their figures were LIES. It was the biggest deception and betrayal of the British people since WW1 propaganda.

 

I'm sorry but the conspiracy theory of most closures has long since been debunked.

 

By whom?

 

Except it hasn't been and never will be. Corruption, conflicts of interest and outright lies caused most closures. Sure, some lines lost services in the 30s, but that was the Great Depression... in the booming years of the MacMillan government, there was no excuse for it. Betjeman was one who could see the madness for what it was - even then, road transport was no substitute and congestion could be severe. Now, with car ownership as much as tripled and popilations in some communities doubled in the last fifty years in some areas, it's even worse. Cranleigh to Guildford was 12 minutes by Ivatt 2MT - good luck doing it in under 20 with even a clear road and a powerful car. It's more like 90 minutes in the evening rush hour.

 

Last trains by Charles Loft is a good start and the works he references.

 

There's a lot to be said for this. The accounting procedure BR used was designed to prove that certain lines were unprofitable. It's all written about in David Hennesey's book 'The Great Railway Conspiracy'.

 

I haven't read that, thanks for the reference.

 

don't forget Overall BR lost money and lots of it.

 

it is not perfect but it is a useful read.

 

And still does... As long as railways depend on a state handout it's not making money.

Thing is back in the 30's roads weren't serious competition, today roads and air are alternatives. Had things been done differently the world might be a different place... Britain could gave had railways like the Swiss.
Railways can make money, look at the U.S.. That business is solely based on mixed freight...something we abandoned.

 

Exactly.