The double arrow and steam locomotives

Just a shame NSE didn't continue it seemed to be the turning point when BR started to turn it's self around. I wonder how our railways would look now if the government hadn't privatised the network and allowed BR to continue develop its business plan with people like Chris Green running the network.

 

from a southern point of view, 442's would have been built in larger numbers, and been the main type of unit on 3rd rail lines , using the old 1950's BEP S as the donors , i would expect except for the west of england line every line would have been electrified, possibly a deisel version of the 442 would have been developed for the west of england lines and possibly oxford services enabling the 165's to be cascaded else where, you would have seen any new desiels being compatible with existing couplings, and maybe just one class with sub classes with electro deisel and deisel/ ac electric models to be able to work over the entire network and be serviced anywhere

 

Yes, I concede on NSE. Remember a couple of trips to London in the mid 1990s and seeing lots of VEPs and still a few EPBs in that livery. I also liked the Regional Railways scheme on EMUs and mark 2 coaches. Overall, I think the current, privatised railway is bland and charachterless and I see very little of interest in it. The blue era of the 1970s/early/mid 80s, to me still had much of interest, there were plenty of steam era stock and semaphore signalling in use and it had links with the old railway, such as the regions etc

 

Oddly, I was never a fan of NSE/InterCity/Regional liveries and the large BR arrows - I loved the blue era with blue/grey coaching stock, the 'inverted' scheme for Pullmans (oh, the joy of seeing a 'Deltic' hauling a few Pullmans in a rake of blue/grey stock!) and the white/blue that appeared on some DMUs. The HSTs looked so striking, but as has been mentioned elsewhere, the uniform blue did nothing for the aesthetics of some locos (step forward the 'Deltics' and Brush 4s)

Privatisation has just brought a complete mess - especially the hateful Virgin livery.

 

Privatisation is not a complete mess and the Virgin livery is good looking. There is no reason hate the liverys and all never livery are great. In my opinion Privatisation was one of the best things to happen to our railways and most of the companies are actually good.

 

Sorry, I think privatisation is a complete mess.

 

Which Virgin livery do you mean? The early neo-fascist one with the black ends and white stripes on the carriages, the WC silver, or the EC coke can? As I rate one of those, and loathe the other two, it would be good to know which we're describing!

Equally to the point, I think from that, and the two posts above, we can probably agree that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

 

The first and last. Not seen the WCML livery 'in the metal' so can't really comment. I'm gonna stick my neck out and wager a quiet shilling with myself your preference is the WCML livery?

Would you care to show me where I was specifically referring to the privatised companies themselves? I was referring solely to their liveries, as one might infer from a thread discussing the BR logo on locomotives.

 

I know it's digressing slightly, but if I was to be asked "what was your favourite livery post-nationalisation?", it'd actually be one I'd never seen: BTC black and silver on a diesel and crimson/cream on the carriages. That however predates me somewhat! I do also love the proud, bold statement of BRITISH RAILWAYS on locomotives post 1/1/48

Edit - just found this, apologies if it's been posted afore:
http://www.fictitiousliveries.co.uk/photo.php?S_98832_BRB.jpg

 

Today's liveries are a mixed bag. Some are impressive. Some are a mess. But I enjoy the variety.

What I don't like are vinyls that treat the side of a vehicle as a mere canvas to display a marketing message, especially when the vinyls continue over the windows and degrade the view out of the window.

 

I look some photo's of 68005 at Yarmouth earlier this year and I have to say in some of the photos I could see a passing resemblance in DRS compass to BR large logo.

 

Yes, but arguably it actually saved the network and ensured that it would not as expected wither away, but has become more popular (with passenger numbers) than ever before. I subscribe to the view that BR was broken up in the way it was so as to secure the largest one off receipt to the treasury. Not a mess but a perfectly logical way to behave if you believed the whole thing was going to eventually wither away, which civil servants and the government of the day as a whole clearly did (even if some of them thought that just possibly private enterprise might turn it round). In fact the TOCs have been pretty successful in growing their business. Not much of a surprise really. You could reasonably argue that the growth might have happened anyhow, but the political pressure to permit the increase in numbers of passengers would have been I think have been less had BR continued to exist, because the TOCs can call upon the support of their investors, whereas BR was relatively speaking easier to ignore. If you think back to the late 1980s BR was raising prices rapidly to manage the demand growth down, because government would not allow it to invest to expand. The political reality is that privitisation changed that. The establishment of a rail regulator (remember Tom Winsor) meant that government was forced to fund investment (not necessarily the original intent). This legal straight jacket was of course later watered down, but the genie of investment once out of the bottle has never quite been put back in.

I also tend to the view that franchising is the part of the "system" of governing the railways that doesnt really work, or provide a noticeable benefit. Christian Wolmar has written extensively on the question "what is franchising for?" and I agree with many of his conclusions. I think it would be hard to conceive of a more complicated or nearly unworkable structure than we have at present. DfT Rail, ORR, Network Rail, TOCs, Leasing companies, FOCs, and slew of consultants. And yet....is it the fastest growing railway (passenger numbers again) in the western world? Is it any less successful or more expensive than SNCF or DB? I realise railfares here are more expensive, but that is because the government has decided (not entirely unreasonably given that the majority of rail journeys benefit London commuters) that rail passengers should bear a greater proportion of the cost. Other governments take a different approach, regarding railways as an essential public service.

To sum up my view ... privatisation is a little like the curate's egg. Good in parts. It cannot be reduced to a single statement. It is neither a unmitigated success nor a complete failure. But then neither was BR, nor grouping, nor the independent railway companies, nor indeed the "process" of building the railways of Britain which almost uniquely received no central planning or coordination.

 

I agree in part with what you say, I appreciate the railway system, but find the network today of little more than passing interest.

As respect to the 1970-mid 80s... so what you are saying here is you had much interest in the stuff the was around prior the BR blue era then and not the era its self....

 

For all the sins of Privatization, perceived or not even its harshest critic must agree that the decades of decline have been stopped and most impressively passenger numbers have actually increased, they must be doing something right mustn't they? The convoluted process that is/was the demi-privatization/franchising of the former BR has produced in general and better, safer, cleaner etc system now than in 1970 or 75 or 80 or 85 etc, with the exception of overcrowding which is a function of its lack of investment in the many decades gone by.

Could/should the whole process be executed better, I would think it should be and I would start with the simplification of the bureaucracy as well as the consolidation of some regulatory units/toc etc etc etc.

Oh and they should stop the seemingly stoned art school livery designers from festooning all rolling stock with swirls and dots and colours and...

 

The 442s were a one off. 471s (a development of the 365) were to have replaced the Cigs, Bigs, Beps and Veps. There was a mock up of the 471 displayed at London termini in the early 90s. 171s would have been ordered on the Waterloo-Exeter line had the Provincial Sector been able to finance all its 158s.

 

In a way, I suppose that is right. I am only just about old enough to remember the tail end of the steam era so my memories of the BR blue era are much clearer and I did also like the early modernisation plan diesels and DMUs/EMUs and I suppose when there started disappearing and were replaced by things like Sprinters my interest started to go

 

i would have thought for longer distance and a higher top speed the 442's had more potential than any other design, mk3 based, and the build costs would have been smaller, using existing jigs etc, an established design, indeed loco hauled Mk3's may have been suitable for rebuilding into emu's, the 365, or networker types most likely are better suited for commutator traffic. the lastest SWT 444 with its plug doors could be said to be the modern equivalent of the 442, they themselves far from being outdated, have seen use and are still modern looking ,

 

The 442s are very definitely outdated, and as a small niche fleet, it is hardly surprising that they are being retired

 

The 1990s plan for Crossrail was a development of the Networker in fact.

 

The 471s would have been 100mph units just like the 442s but with much better acceleration at lower speeds and 20m vehicle length. The cost per vehicle would have been less than the 442s being based on the Networker family concept. The 442s and 444s being 23m vehicles have limited route availability on the Southern.