Why the British Rail Modernisation Plan Failed

Hello again! :D
Back to trains, and for this week we discuss one of Britain's most audacious but ultimately futile projects to revitalise the network in the wake of World War II. However, rather than undertaking a comprehensive rebuild of the network, British Railways was short-changed time and again, ultimately resulting in a facelifted but largely unchanged system that dated back to the Victorian era, though it was much smaller and crippled by far more debt than ever before.
This video was actually a suggestion from an American viewer, who was curious as to why British Rail had such a vast array of diesel locomotives during its early years. :)
All video content and images in this production have been provided with permission wherever possible. While I endeavour to ensure that all accreditations properly name the original creator, some of my sources do not list them as they are usually provided by other, unrelated KZbinrs. Therefore, if I have mistakenly put the accreditation of 'Unknown', and you are aware of the original creator, please send me a personal message at my Gmail (this is more effective than comments as I am often unable to read all of them): [e-mail]
The views and opinions expressed in this video are my personal appraisal and are not the views and opinions of any of these individuals or bodies who have kindly supplied me with footage and images.
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References:
- Railways Archive (and their respective sources)
- RMWeb (and their respective sources)
- Wikipedia (and its respective references)

[@nightw4tchman]

And not a single lesson was learnt at any stage.

[@NorfolkSceptic]

Here's one that is a no brainer: close lines, if you want to, but DON'T block the rail track by a permanent building as that would make the rest of the track unusable.

[@PreservationEnthusiast]

@@NorfolkSceptic In the case of useless lines such as the GCR complete demolition and building on the track bed was indicated.

[@NorfolkSceptic]

@@PreservationEnthusiast You mean, not even a pause for some contemplation? :) What was the hurry, the usual? £££ I can understand developers wanting to develop, especially in London, but the planners should have given it a few years. And it was nothing to do with the Rail Lobby?

[@PreservationEnthusiast]

@@NorfolkSceptic I think that decision has been vindicated by time. The route is not useful now, not even for HS2 which north of Aylesbury does not serve Birmingham. One can't allow prime sites like Victoria Station, Nottingham to sit vegitating. An extremely useful and popular shopping centre has been built which has served the city for nearly 50 years with 20 million visitors a year.

[@NorfolkSceptic]

@@PreservationEnthusiast I was thinking of other lines, though to say there was nowhere else to build the shopping centre does seem unimaginative and short sighted as it breaks the route.

[@markcousins9337]

Another "nail-in-the-coffin" was the snobbery, apathy and even blatant hostility that existed between regions, with the organisation as a whole, certainly early on, charactised by an LMS mindset, as that company was from where a lot of the staffers were drawn.

[@highdownmartin]

Not to mention the GWR at Swindon , possibly the most inflexible bunch when it came to adoption of better ways from other regions. A castle cab of 1950 doesn’t compare with a jubilee as regards crew comfort!

[@laszlokaestner5766]

@@highdownmartin Naming the first class 52 "Western Enterprise" probably didn't help relations either!

[@redram5150]

Sounds like British-Leyland. Morris workers still thought of themselves as Morris employees and hostile to Triumph. Triumph employees were the same way, as well as others. And rather than consolidate their sales network, maintained separate sales locations-many within the same town and competing with one another. All the while a BL dealer just moved in and sells the very same cars they carry as they’re a corporate-wide retailer. And on top of it, the company fired their most devoted employees and closed their productive factories while keeping open factories that spent more time striking than working

[@farric1]

Even within the former LMS there was tribalism between Derby (former midland railway) and Crewe (former LNWR) that persisted until much later.

[@knuckles1206]

​@@highdownmartin indeed. the bastards even made the long stretches of the of the lines west of salisbury singletrack and used the edict "no more crack expresses" by replacing the Atlantic Coast Express just to get revenge on the Southern Region, stupid grudge if you ask me!

[@factorscrinium]

Superb documentary, far surpassing much produced by the TV companies these days. Well done!

[@DaveSCameron]

Hear hear *

[@harrisongrant8558]

Well, certainly more informative and accurate anyways.

[@bobroberts2371]

Also see the vid " Ronnie Barker - British Rail " on the channel " T.V Allsorts "

[@johnharrison6808]

So it failed because as with most stuff in British History, instead of following the example of others who are making a success of their schemes we did it on the cheap in a way that ultimately led to further costs.

[@jimtaylor294]

Err nope; false economies are as much a global problem as one of the UK; especially with Nationalized Rail, as politicians are the worst people to oversee such matters.

[@TalesOfWar]

@@jimtaylor294 As a nation though we seem to excel at the "we must do it our way despite there being countless other successful examples to follow from around the world, but they're by foreigners so clearly it won't be as good as what we do" mentality.

[@Dickiemiller179]

​@@TalesOfWar I'd have to disagree with you there. I lived in Germany for 4 years. I used the trains extensively. I lived a small town about 20 mins (by train of course 😅) from Dortmund. In these less densely populated areas, rural areas, and semi industrial areas, they used a single track system. Basically rather than having "up and down" lines, there is simply one line which splits to two lines at railway stations, often with a single platform in-between the two lines. This means that trains can only pass one another at stations. And it works fine... Until a train breaks downs in between stations. Then it's total chaos. Or if a train is late, everything comes to a halt until the late train catches up. And in all honesty, the Germans don't run there railways much better than we do. The only difference is everything is Deutschebahn, and so you get a uniform poor service. Whereas here, some franchises are poor, and some are really poor. Where BR went wrong IMO is that they didn't take advantage of freight services. Imagine how many lorries we'd take off the roads of they had the foresight to get wagons capable of carrying containers, and actually priced cargo on a piece by piece basis, rather than having fixed prices which could be under cut.

[@nikerailfanningttm9046]

Uh not everything in British history failed. For example the Coronation of her late Majesty: Queen Elizabeth II, the creation of Top Gear (the good series), and the creation of JCB.

[@johnharrison6808]

@@nikerailfanningttm9046 yeah "Everything" wasn't the most accurate word to use, I've edited it.

[@BigCar2]

Interesting. Most history of this period focuses on the Beeching cuts, so interesting to see why BR was in such a mess by the 70s.

[@DavidShepheard]

Beeching was just brought in to be a scapegoat.

[@gerogyzurkov2259]

It's easy to blame a single person than the company or the overall leadership. Typical government and company politics.

[@steveamphlett1803]

@@DavidShepheard not sure, I believe Beeching bought in because it was believed that Railway men would never cut hard enough or fast enough being wedded to the ‘old’ railway. Hence an outsider, as the video implies the real villain of the piece was the sec of state for transport, Mr Maple. Great video by the way

[@gerogyzurkov2259]

@@steveamphlett1803 The 1st plan should of been implemented 100%. Anything less than completely replacing everything on maintenence for electric would of been a complete utter fail. The corruption, management, and short term thinking was definitely 100% fault.

[@elliottknifton8902]

@@gerogyzurkov2259 makes me wonder what would have happened next if the railways were completely updated with 100% electrification.

[@moonshapedabsolution]

If only they had stuck to the original plan without getting cold feet over cash, we wouldn't have half the problems we have today

[@gerogyzurkov2259]

Even so the Japanese President who started the Shinkasen had to resigned before the project was completed as soon as the cost overruns in the tune of billions and delays came about.

[@4vepvik781]

@@gerogyzurkov2259 Yep but costs overruns are inevitable but He was vindicated and in 1964 the world's first High Speed Railway was inaugurated. And to Britain's shame We haven't even come close!!.

[@Isochest]

We are still stuck with the same problems. But it seems to be the politicians who are the keenest rail saboteurs. Chris Grayling was the last to scrap the basic electrification schemes needed for a carbon free railway. But the Politicians still don't want wires. They spout the "virtues" of Hydrogen which wouldn't be efficient even on lightly used routes. Perhaps they can change the laws of Physics by legislation🤡🤡🤡💩

[@tomtalk24]

A reason why we need HS2. Maybe in 40 years people will say "progressive generation" rather than "balls it up" like the boomers.

[@christopherharmon2433]

'cold feet over cash' seems to be a chronic problem throughout British business and politics.

[@garrymartin6474]

That was the American "Southern Railway" logo , overall a fab assessment of this period in Britain's railway history, an additional factor in the failure of the smaller diesel classes was the fact that a large percentage of the lines they were designed to operate on were closed.

[@knuckles1206]

like the class 14s.

[@oscarosullivan4513]

Class 33’s and 20’s were knocking around recently

[@smorris12]

"Taking British Railways into the 50s", published 1974.

[@robtyman4281]

I know!! Sums things up. BR were always 'behind the curve' compared with the management of railway in other European countries. In fact this should have been their slogan 'BR: Always behind the curve'! Germany, France, and The Netherlands for example had governments who were generally more progressive than reactive. They all saw railways as being integral to transport and getting goods and people to around their respective countries. We didn't, and instead saw railways as both a threat to the car, and then an outmoded firm of transport from a previous era. No prizes for guessing which of these countries got it wrong.... badly wrong at that

[@smorris12]

I wonder if the continent took more damage to its infrastructure during WWII and had to start more from scratch than the UK?

[@MASSspec1990]

@@smorris12 they did, but it still came down to attitude. I read quote somewhere of a BR executive, who stated that if the rail network was to be completely upgraded, the government should invite the Luftwaffe back. I wish I could find that quote again.

[@smorris12]

@@MASSspec1990 Interesting. Mind you, the gov had to get done with the railways so it could get on with sorting out the British car industry..... ;-)

[@DaveSCameron]

Add the Beeching Rep. and we are left with today's absurd ticket costs and Covid addled thinking...

[@macjim]

What also killed BR with its modernisation plan was the Beeching cuts. They got rid of the lines that fed the blood into the main arteries of the main lines, the branch lines. You only need to look at those modern-day successes where closed lines when reopened, have been a major success story, such as the Borders line and the route to Alloa, to see what folly those closures were... Yes, some lines would have not helped and warranted closure but many were not.

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

The borders line was only heavily used North of Hawick and by heavily used I meant that it had between 5,000 and 10,000 passengers per week and only 2 stations earned at least £25,000 per annum from passengers and 1 that earned between £5,000 and £25,000 per annum, the rest struggled to make £5,000 per annum even on the busier stretch of the line. For the 1968-1969 timetable there were only 4 through trains each way and 9 trains that ran part way, and about half of them ran only during the summer months.

[@TalesOfWar]

You can see this with the success of the Metrolink tram network in Greater Manchester too. Much of the network runs on old mainline and local lines that were cut in the Beeching Axe. Until fairly recently the track itself on the Bury to Manchester line was the same that was decommissioned in the 60's. That used to be a rather wobbly ride haha, it's far smoother now.

[@PreservationEnthusiast]

Beeching was a genius. Most of what he cut was justified. Many hopeless branch lines with 5 passengers a day. Unfortunately he is villified by railfan foamers who work on the basis that any piece of a track is a good piece of track, so long as they don't have to pay for it. They think the network exists to titillate their fancies rather than be run as a commercial enterprise.

[@macjim]

@@PreservationEnthusiast he was indeed vilified and still is but the real ‘bad guy’ was his boss. While some lines were indeed loss-making in financial terms, they provided the only means of travel out-with the boundaries of many small villages. Once cut from the main lines, the only resort was for people to buy a car to get out of those places once served but the railway. Remember, it wasn’t just passengers the railways conveyed but goods as well, much of which was coal for the fires of those villagers homes… they were very much the lifeblood of many villages. This ‘boss’ I mentioned earlier, was one Ernest Marbles, who was a Tory minister who happened to own a construction company which indirectly help build the motorways… motorways that replaced those lines closed as the car became king as a result. Now we’re beginning to realise that those closures were short-sighted. The Borders Railway is a huge success, the line to Leven is being reopened, regular train services albeit in a restricted way is returning to Oakhampton… and there’s more and more being looked at for reopening. Finally, yes the borders railway was used the most from Hawick to Edinburgh passenger wise but there were many express trains the travelled the full length of the line heading north and south to places further afield. This line was a diversion line too… it’s a bit like the Settle and Carlisle line: and we know how that line has grown after BR tried to kill it, there being no Michael Portillo in government to save the borders railway from closure at that time. PS I do admit some lines needed to close and should not have been built either, but there were some stupid choices made for closure that with hindsight were a big mistake too; and others that we're closed in error. The Scarborough to Whitby line (yes, I know there was a daft section where the train had to reverse to get down to Whitby) was supposedly chosen without anyone looking to see if it was not viable, even though it was a viable route... Now, you have a five-hour journey by train if you're daft enough to take the train between each town. Ventnor on the isle of wight lost its service when the line was electrified, with the line being cut short at Shanklin... Now people want it reopened but there are hurdles to deal with such as a power line and water pipes in the tunnel through the downs.

[@bobtudbury8505]

the labour party closed the lines. they did not close all of beechings recomendations but they did close 100's of miles on top

[@HSMiyamoto]

The old engineering maxim, "To really screw things up takes a committee," comes to mind. All that highly paid talent did not realize that Britain's coal and steel focused economy was about to disappear, a major reason BR invested so many millions of pounds uselessly. Similar things happened in the Northeastern U.S., but without railway nationalization, unless you count Conrail in 1976.

[@toddinde]

Hard not to count Conrail which basically nationalized and then hollowed out the eastern railroads to the point where the railways are excessively congested today. The US should never have denationalized the railroads after WWI.

[@souvikrc4499]

@@toddinde And now most of our railroads are owned by freight companies who are reluctant to share, let alone modernize, their tracks for passanger rail.

[@natehill8069]

@@souvikrc4499 I dont blame them. Why should the stockholders of freight railways go out of pocket to support a US government railway? If Amtrak wants to travel across country, have them build track optimized for passenger trains. That would be like making you pay to build a road across your farm to make it cheaper for the Post Office to deliver the mail to people in the next town.

[@souvikrc4499]

@@natehill8069 the problem is trying to convince our politicians to fund Amtrak properly is like trying to convince a drug addict to “just say no”. If they had their way, they would have defunded Amtrak all together And I haven’t even mentioned the lobby power of the Big Four

[@tachobrenner]

​@@natehill8069Because that freight doesn't exist for stockholders. It is for the public good. Highways are massively government-funded already. The stupid thing about those is that they cost more and are a lot less efficient than trains, in both cost (including tax money) and how many people and how much freight they can handle. And this whole disaster was brought about by lobbying car companies, wanting car-based infrastructure, which just results in Houston, Texas. Vast swathes of parking, making every mall into an island in the desert, giant roads impossible to cross, and the whole thing isn't lively.

[@SteamboatWilley]

0:54 That's the US Southern Railway badge, lol. :D

[@MrArpSolina]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Railway_(UK)

[@squeaksvids5886]

That’s what I thought as well.

[@MelioraCogito]

Oops...

[@cesariojpn]

@@MrArpSolina The logo is from the US version. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Railway_(U.S.)

[@MrArpSolina]

@@cesariojpn Yep. That's why I posted the correct link to the UK Southern Railway.

[@yourfriendlyneighbourhoodb2688]

*The British Rail Modernisation Plan* “A costly Facelift”

[@mikeytrains1]

BR’s real big hit is how they were unable to really standardize only until the 70s-80s, and even then they barely did standardize because the regions still held onto their big 4 pride. it’s a shame. the british rail system had and still has a lot of potential. it’s unfortunate that it’s never been fully looked over.

[@jamesedwards7241]

After a career in BR I always understood that the plan never failed at all, in fact, it was a resounding success for one individual. Earnest Marples made an absolutely obscene fortune out of decimating the railways hidden as he was behind Beeching who he hired and ably assisted by several other well-placed Tory political figures his roadbuilding companies simply sat back and raked public money in. To the point it became a national embarrassment to the then government suggested that Marples might do well to leg it to the South of France and keep his head down for a while. As for Beeching now freed of his mentor so to speak revealed that his much-vaunted slash-and-burn report was always doomed to failure and set about writing another even more draconian one which included closure of the WCML and anything beyond Exeter. Thankfully the government took one look at this and quietly canned it for fear of public backlash, and then just as quietly canned Beeching leaving him to carry said can. Not going to go into the whole thing. you won't read it and probably will not believe it anyway but your government had no intention of modernising the railways or solving the problems of mass transport in the Uk. Instead, they engaged in one of the biggest heists of public money this nation has ever seen and they did it in broad daylight and plain sight of the public and got away with it leaving you with the issues you face today to deal with long after they have legged it with their spoils. Great documentary coverage of the situation but fails to dig deep enough and I can understand why.

[@paulc9588]

Just excellent, thank you. Ironic to think that as the spotlight fell on the end of the steam era in the summer of 1968 there were also dozens of virtually new diesels being quietly withdrawn and scrapped. Either unfit for purpose, surplus to requirements or possibly both. The whole thing was a typically British short-term penny-pinching fudge that has hobbled the railways ever since. In short, what a mess.

[@highdownmartin]

Vauxhall at Luton used to send spare car exhaust systems ( bulky and awkward to handle) by rail to its dealerships nationwide. It was a lot cheaper for them to do this as they paid BR by weight for the goods. Sending it out by lorry from the factory would have cost a whole lot more

[@highdownmartin]

@@andrewchaston503 I overcarried a red Star parcel when I was a guard. Buggered someone’s schedule up. It ended up at three bridges at 11 pm. I think I was supposed to have put it off at Gatwick. For points west. Just had a little read up on red Star etc. Interesting. All the best mate

[@kenstevens5065]

There are echoes of the Post Office here, the PO have to deliver letters to the door, a lot of commercial bulk mail is just sent to PO distribution centres to be delivered on to individual addresses.

[@barnabykirk7662]

It’s a shame there was no time travel in the 1950s, because if there was they could have visited 2021 and realised how dependent we Brits are on the rail network, due to the relative rubbishness of the road network.

[@Reddsoldier]

If only they hadn't appointed a guy who owned a road building company to oversee transport... I also feel like the "regions" system was to blame for their inefficiency. I feel like had they gone with sectorisation way back in the 50's we'd have seen a pretty much unrecognisable network today.

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

@@Reddsoldier yes, we wouldn't have half the network we have.

[@sameyers2670]

I agree some lines closed that should never have done, though the lines that closed on the 50s were lines that didn't really stand much of a chance. I am a volunteer at a preserved line and our line closed in 1958, what kept it open was Burdale Quarry and once that closed there wasn't enough traffic for the line.

[@jimtaylor294]

@@sameyers2670 Aye. The '60's & '70's was when the good stuff was thrown on the rail infrastructure scrapheap.

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

@@sameyers2670 but which ones would those be? And remember any use of hindsight is forbidden. You can only use information that was available at the time of closure. What? You can't do it. Well, how did you expect Beeching etc to do it 60 years ago.

[@Northernlightshow]

The revolution didn’t come until BR sectorisation and the outdated “big four” style regions which had too much autonomy, was diluted. Ironically Network Rail regions today are similar to the old regions with franchises, especially of the ones radiating out of London, geographically are similar to the old regions. Great video

[@gerogyzurkov2259]

Except for today's rail companies don't own the track. The Japanese which used a similar Private system also but does give them to control the tracks. Look how efficient it is in comparison.

[@jimtaylor294]

@@gerogyzurkov2259 Aye. The JNR to JR transition is what arguably the de-nationalization of BR should have been.

[@Northernlightshow]

@@gerogyzurkov2259 It's interesting that John Welsby, the last BR Chief Executive, said the BRB weren't per-say against privatisation. The Government never asked BRB how the railway was run leading up to privatisation. It should have been privatised but either back to a regional "big four" plc arrangement or a more devious SNCF or DB arrangement which was to meet the EU's rail directives, not like in the UK where it was done by the book. Now we are free of the wretched EU, I'd go for a regional private companies (the big six maybe?), but with regional political stakeholders, who can part fund local services.

[@gerogyzurkov2259]

@@Northernlightshow IMO Government should of saved the Big Four after WW2. Give them incentives like money for fleets in exchange for paying back, brand new state of the art electric trains, and infrastructure. Government should hold them to serve the public, make them to hold them on quality standards of service in exchange partly fund some of the projects as a subsidiary. We know that LMS and LNER had their own plans of electricfication of their lines just before ww2 so the government so should help fund them without interference. And them pay back the government for it. Like the Twainese HST did. That's one plan I can think of.

[@lzh4950]

@@gerogyzurkov2259 Different rail operators in Japan share tracks too but in a more piecemeal approach e.g. most of Tokyo's metro's lines are each connected to the tracks of a different commuter rail operator (>10 in Tokyo alone e.g. _Keio, Tobu, Seibu, Tokyu_ , operating 1-4 lines each), with trains offering direct connection from the commuter rail to the metro lines & vice-versa. 1 of the lines even connected to the subway of neighbouring Yokohama city's subway (via the _Denentoshi_ line), and _Odakyu_ even operating long-distance trains from the _Enoshima_ seaside & _Hakone_ countryside all the way into some of the metro's underground subway stations ( _Hibiya_ line IIRC)

[@paulwlynch]

Another thoroughly enjoyable video and a pleasure to view on a Saturday morning with a nice coffee.

[@saltspringrailway3683]

or tea

[@alejandrayalanbowman367]

The biggest continuing problem was the government (i.e. politicians) holding the purse strings while keeping a tight lead on any real modernisation. If the government had given as much to BR then, as it does now to private operators, BR would have been a world leader.

[@runoflife87]

A very interesting movie, thanks a lot. The USSR also had its railways modernisation plan succeed in the late 50's. But it also had its flaws heavily relying on DMUs and passenger locomotives import from Hungary and the CSSR.

[@Dennis-vh8tz]

DMU's have their benefits. Having power in more smaller units allows more flexibility in dividing it up, and if a unit breaks down it has less impact on the overall system.

[@detroitdieselseries5071]

Not to mention they had to design their own locomotives after the Americans banned all exports to the Soviet Union which included locomotives like the Little Joe’s electric locomotives they ordered at the end of WWII and never made it to Russia

[@Dennis-vh8tz]

​@@detroitdieselseries5071 Also, diesel locomotives could be used anywhere in the country as soon as they were built. In contrast electric locomotives would've been useless until the tracks had been electrified, and could easily have ended up rusting away in storage while track electrification was mired in complications, for example: they might have need to build new power plants and upgrade their transmission infrastructure first.

[@TalesOfWar]

@@detroitdieselseries5071 Russia also used their own gauge, purposely to avoid someone just rolling in to invade them with their fancy trains. So they had to use rolling stock that conformed to that standard which meant it wasn't just a case of being able to buy something off the shelf from outside of the Soviet Union. They'd need to be modified in some way to work on their tracks.

[@xeniakucher7721]

Whilst at the same time Hungary's plans for modernising its railways failed for being forced to buy equipment from Comecon countries instead of excellent machines like the Nohabs. The Hungarian made equipment wasn't bad, but I think they weren't particularly suitable for Soviet needs.

[@reggiesmith3866]

Just as the railways were being modernised new motorways and larger more powerful lorries were appearing and a huge amount of freight traffic moved onto the roads, leaving new state of the art marshalling yards without traffic.

[@johnkeepin7527]

Yes, but it wasn’t just the railway industry that had to change after the major shipping transfer to the International Standards Organisation (ISO) containers. The brand name ‘Freightliner’ came to life, and loads of docks closed down, with newly located ones opening up etc. New opportunities for sure, but significant costs as well.

[@reggiesmith3866]

@@johnkeepin7527 Very true.

[@DaveSCameron]

If these are narrated by yourself then I can only thank you and applaud your talent, such rich yet succinct fare is priceless, thanks again...

[@MrTudwud]

What about all the money pumped into roads? Marples? The investment outside of rail travel was immense resulting in lorries dominating the roads and the subsequent loss of freight to BR. Air Travel may have affected long distance domestic rail routes but sensible fares could have helped BR offset the time factor (although getting to the airport, checking in, the flight, getting out of the airport and getting to the destination time was always ignored). As for branch lines, the car and local bus services (many that completely disappeared after the lines were taken up) did for them. It wasn't just video that killed the radio star, it was Marples and the roads that killed BR.

[@DavidShepheard]

Yep. There is a lot of anti-rail propaganda that mentions the cost of things like Crossrail and HS2, but the massive amount of money that has been set aside for future road building is rarely mentioned. You are very right with the domestic air-travel. One problem with ticket prices, is that our rail network is at capacity, but if we can put in a high-speed rail network, unlock capacity on our existing mainlines and make changing between branchlines, mainlines and high-speed trains as easy and pleasant as possible, we can encourage people to shift to going on holiday by train and radically cut down on the domestic flights.

[@MattyP62618]

Very good video, think you've sumerised perfectly why BR failed & really glad you mentioned Ernest Marples, he doesn't get enough blame for the failure in my opinion. No strategic vision & playing politics, that's what ruined the UK's railways

[@alejandrayalanbowman367]

and lining his own pocket!

[@MattyP62618]

@@alejandrayalanbowman367 indeed. He was good mates with Eddie Stobart after all....

[@neilwilkinson8062]

As has been mentioned, nationalisation and directed government involvement should have enabled the creation of a truly National Network, that was best able to serve the UK. Sadly, individual political and personal interests, took charge. Beeching came in, with good intentions, but had to bow to Ernest Marples. And the very short sighted idea, that a handful of Motorways and a tweaking of the Trunk Road network, would serve the nations transport needs for decades to come.

[@jimtaylor294]

IMO - and that of most of the UK public in 1948 - the Railways should never have been nationalized at all; rather just state funded back onto their feet. Labour put ideology before logic or public opinion; and the nation paid the price. Japan is a case in point of how effective private sector rail is after an unprofitable period of nationalization, while is Brit's are still trying to recover from the mistakes of the long dead BR, and ever stupid politicians.

[@alejandrayalanbowman367]

@@neilwilkinson8062 and put more money into Marples' pocket

[@timsully8958]

A pretty fair assessment of the trials and tribulations surrounding the railway industry at the time. The facelift analogy is spot on and symptomatic of what has blighted UK industry as a whole: it is all about making sure everything looks good by covering up tge bad bits, saying how things will improve without being specific as to exactly how, making sure the right people are paid off so they can all make profit from the public purse, and making sure they have someone to blame at ground level if it goes wrong to distract from the fact that it was actually down to their own incompetence or greed. Marples was a legitimised crook. These days he'd be called an entrepreneur.

[@alanthefisher]

Great video and the thesis at the end can be echoed through alot of railroads throughout history.

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

The original power classifications for diesel locomotives were Type A (upto 1000hp), Type B (1001hp to 1499hp) and Tupe C (2000+ hp). Theses clSsifications later became Types 1 to 5, with A becoming 1, B becoming 2 and C becoming 4. Type 3 was for locomotives of 1500 to 1999hp and Thpe 5 for those with more than 3000hp. The reasons for multiple classes within each power type wasn't just to test out various powerplants and transmission types. Take the Class 33, when the SR was looking for a locomotive they needed one that could go anywhere in the region with enough power to provide an electric train supply. We proposed their Class 37, but the Civil Engineers determined that too little of the region's tracks could copy with the axle load of this class of locomotive, whilst the BRCW design, based on their Type 2 designs, could transverse virtually the entire route mileage on the region. The Modernisation Plan called for small batches of locomotives for testing, it with s change of political emphasis the testing plan went out if the window and large numbers of unsuitable locomotives were built. The Western region looked at diesel hydraulics as the Germans had several designs that provided high power in relative lightweight engines. However manufacturing changes made the British built engines less reliable than the original Getmsn ones. At the time that the decision was made it was not clear which was better hydraulic transmission or electric transmission. In the end the decision to go for electric train heating and the cost of converting the diesel hydraulics put an end to the argument.

[@muir8009]

I was just going to add the type A, B and C but you're a jump ahead of me there :) I always feel one of the telling things about the plan was the preponderance of low powered units ordered, this kind of supplied mute evidence of the lack of foresight as to traffic changes that were already starting to crystallize. yes one could say the advantage of hindsight etc, just there's enough examples from around the world from that period where the plans were successfully brought to fruition. A lot of it I feel was exactly as pointed out here, the clean slate and we need this rail infrastructure from the ruins of bombed out Europe. the poor British unfortunately had neither the clean slate nor the perceived need to throw vast sums at an extant and relatively unscathed infrastructure. One could add the British Railways modernisation plan failure was fairly small fry (relatively) compared with the collapse of the national coal board which is almost terrifying reading. good comment. ooh and just to add the German hydraulics operated on a very different railway system with different operating requirements: by that I believe the V200 was to operate at 50% throttle 75% of the time whereas the warship was around 100% 75% of the time, the Germans tending to favour lightweight train formations with lots of horsepower.

[@obelic71]

The irony the entire class 77 1500VDC did run longer as NS1500 on the Dutch railnetwork then on the UK network.

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

That's because they were non-standard in the UK, when the number of passenger routes from Sheffield to Manchester were reduced their reason for existence disappeared. There was no need to convert them to AC as we already had enough AC locos in service or on order.

[@obelic71]

@@neiloflongbeck5705 Thanks always wonderd why those young locomotives were obsolete so soon in the UK. They ran mostly in the intercity network the route the Hague -Venlo v.v. 3 of the class survived scraping NS1501 BR27003 in the Netherlands in NS livery NS1502 BR27000 in the UK at the Midland Railway Butterley in BR livery NS1505 BR27001 in the Uk at the Manchester museum of Science and Industry in NS livery

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

@@obelic71 at least they had a productive working life here and in the Nerherlsnds, unlike the NER EE1, which was built by the NER for their plan to electrify the ECML from York to Berwick. This locomotive only worked tesh trains on the line from Shildon to Eramus yard, Midddlesbrough. It survived until 1950. The NER had a railway Museum in York not far from the NRM is today, where an EM1 is preserved.

[@obelic71]

@@neiloflongbeck5705 every nation has its white elephants/cockups in enginering. We build a special roadcrossing free high speed/capacity freightline from rotterdam to the border with Germany. The line laid unused for 10 years because there were no locomotives available who had the new european ermts signaling system installed on the line. Thats not all. Germany delayed the upgrade from the border to the interior to a speed/capacity line already for 30 years! the old local brancheline in Germany who is connected to the freightline is litterly driven to smithereens by heavy and frequent freightrains from Rotterdam. The curved 1track line needs every 6 months new rails due to the traffic. so afteral they spend more money in upkeeping the line then upgrading it. With a little luck the German parts will be ready 40 years after the Dutch part. Politicians and enginering don't mix togheter

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

@@obelic71 the reason the NER didn't get to put the wires up was a slight argument with Germany entering Belgium in August 1914. And then came the grouping in 1923 and the plan was dropped for the time being. The line to Shildon returned to steam operation when its equipment wasckife expired because coal was so cheap.

[@willbreckinridge8010]

I just think its interesting how the last mainline steam locomotives in the US were withdrawn in 1960, when the last BR 9F class engines were being built.

[@256byteram]

I find the parallels of Britain's rail network and Australia's roll out of the National Broadband Network to be laughably similar.

[@raypitts4880]

same ancestors same ideas same problems

[@TalesOfWar]

Oh, that was fucked up too, just not quite the same way. In the 80's BT wanted to roll out fibre across the entire nation. End to end, rip out the copper lines and replace with fibre. We built factories and thousands of miles of the stuff, then Maggie decided nah, it isn't fair that BT has this power, because poor private companies can't compete! So she split it up, privatised it all and the plan never went ahead. Guess where most of the cables ended up? South Korea. Yes, the same South Korea that has the fastest, most robust telecoms network in the world! Their government saw what we were doing and thought how amazing it was and actually went ahead with it. This was also happening in the US with AT&T rolling it all out, but they got split up by government too because of monopolisation "issues". I'm sure it had nothing to do with our respective governments being somewhat right leaning and preferring private enterprise to "socialist" ideals. No siree!

[@souvikrc4499]

@@TalesOfWar AT&T was never owned by the govermnent, it was a private monopoly.

[@samuelfarris1949]

A reminder on a huge scale, that putting a corporate business's top decisions in the hands of people who did not have related experience in running the business itself, may not necessarily be the best move. A full evaluation of the matters and issues surrounding the operational sector of the railways was never truly justified; only the existing financial ends were really considered. Pushing the scheme for replacing steam locomotives with modern traction, while not necessarily a bad move in principle, came at expense of not testing diesel prototypes properly in a vain attempt to get Britain's railways ahead of their mainland European competitors, who ironically kept steam locomotives in active service for a little longer until diesels were fully-proven, in showing a modern image. Acts like hastily destroying the original arch at Euston station, closing down rural railway lines just because they were not making a profit as it was; you get the idea. Regards, Samuel Farris.

[@Dill_Pickle1997]

Man, Victor Tanzig really did his research for his series

[@titanicbigship]

hi

[@soundseeker63]

They may have been disasterous from a financial standpoint but, from a spotter's point of view, the multitude of early diesel classes made things very interesting indeed! Ditto those early electic classes. To be fair to BR, they did all they could with their very limited funds. And, over the longer term, they did accomplish many, if not all of their original aims, for example electrification of the ECML, GEML and MML. And of course they came up with the HST, one of the best diesel express trains of all time.

[@jkirk888]

Fascinating, and some beautiful footage of engines and rolling stock.

[@pinioncorp]

Great video. I'm always impressed by the quality and enjoy your soothing voice.

[@the21stcenturytrolleydodge31]

I really like the idea of BR operating the southern railway in the US like there is a derailed car in a trains connsist and the engineer just says with a Southern/English accent "I say old chap it looks like our wagons fell in the drink I tell you what"

[@graham76man]

I reckon that the big problem was that the railways were nationalised in 1948. This brought them under government control, who quite frankly have no idea how to run anything! Had the big four continued they would have developed their own systems and the Beeching cuts would have never happened. Though the rail unions wanted the changed, little did they realise that thousands of jobs would be lost, for if you are running railway lines to the same place by two different companies, that becomes a waste of money with only one provider. All the big four had plans in place after the war and they would have sourced from the own workshops the locos to build. I doubt they would have invested in marshalling yards and since they were private companies they would have been able to argue with the government about what they had to provide, just like the private road companies. Of course the later privatisation did nothing for the rail network, as it was just a selling off of the assets and Network Rail, who control the tracks, just control the railway system now. The franchise system not allowing for development and massive expensive new rail systems just an opportunity for someone to make money on ill thought out ways of moving people around. With the promise that any place having a new system will somehow have massive growth as result.

[@scottturner5655]

Superb video 10/10 as someone who takes interest in the modernisation plan in my spare time the entire video is factual and doesn’t miss a beat ! Not a single correction needed well done !

[@mpersad]

Really excellent and informative video Ruairidh. I so admire your use of archive film and other media to illustrate your work. Well done!

[@Nivshin53]

I don't know what was more interesting - this excellent visual analysis or the comments that it raised. Being the world's first, we had a Rail Network that had developed on the back of Victorian Enterprise rather than something that was properly conceived and planned - and it reality with a 100 plus years experience behind in 1945, it would have been better to start all over again - but of course we were in no position in which to undertake such a task. The decision on Steam Traction in in 1950 was based upon sound economics at the time - Labour was cheap, coal was plentiful and Oil was expensive! It was not the direction that Riddles wanted to go in, but in his development of Standard Locomotives (especially the 9F) he made a good fist of things. Beeching was a 1960's solution to a 1960's problem but was deficient in one key area - he made recommendations on what was to be closed - but did not offer a plan on how to close down what was still a major publicly-owned asset. Had a number of lines been mothballed for 10 years (as per France) before demolition, it may have allowed for a true assessment of value to be made; allowed for any demographic changes; and permitted alternative and more cost-effective operating modes to be developed etc. Excellent piece of work Ruairidh!

[@rsc9520]

Excellent documentary! Thanks Ruairidh, I really enjoy your thorough, well prepared videos.

[@rmscelticlines3374]

This was a great video! Loves it from the beginning to the end

[@williamchick6649]

Very interesting video even though I’m not a train person though I do like travelling by trains I had always wondered what had cause the problems on the Rail network in this country, When it comes down to it we have spent to little money at the wrong time or we have spent too much money at the wrong time, “it’s no way to run a railway”.

[@FallenPhoenix86]

From the sounds of it pretty much exactly the same things that killed ship building and aviation... incompetent bureaucratic meddling and chronic underfunding.

[@jimtaylor294]

Pretty much. Many believe the government lie that the BAC TSR-2 project failed due to overambition; when in reality it was the MoS's micromanagement of the project that put it years behind shedule, put the costs up and ensured that BAC had to test the aircraft many miles from any of the factories, despite a perfectly good runway being available at Warton.

[@noahkidd3359]

@@FallenPhoenix86 Damn right. But what's interesting is that the privatization of BR involved the exact same cocktail of incompetent bureaucratic meddling. The British government engages in massive and systemic intervention in the privatized rail industry to the extent that the nationalized rail industry may have suffered less from government intervention than the privatized rail industry does now.

[@nicklacerte7134]

Fantastic video. So many different models to keep track of. Thad have been a nightmare for the maintenance yards for sure

[@TheFrogfather1]

This has to be one of the best researched and presented channels on KZbin. While most people know about the Beeching cuts it's fascinating to learn about the circumstances that led to them.

[@jamesbutler6253]

Exactly! I live in Sweden. Europeans are amazed that GB, for such a small country, still doesn't have a full electric network as in much bigger countries like Sweden, Germany and France.

[@TalesOfWar]

Sweden is far more spread out with not very much between most of it. The UK also built its railways while its towns and cities were growing exponentially during the Industrial Revolution. Vast swathes of the country were literally not planned, just built where and when it needed to be built. It's insane to think how rapidly things grew, but if you look at maps of places like Manchester before the 1800's and then again from the 1850's onwards you see just how fast and densely things changed. Lines had to be built between buildings or around the edges of them which is why they wind all over the place, then things got built next to them shortly after. A line that was in the middle of nowhere finds itself as a small or medium sized down a decade or so later. The UK also has more length of track than Sweden. Just. It was 1/3 more before the early 60's.

[@parkerproductions4546]

Very informative video! I always wondered where the rot had set in. One other thing that contributed to BR's mess was the 1955 National Rail Strike. ASLEF (Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen) demanded a pay rise equivalent to the price of a packet of cigarettes. Passengers and freight customers were forced to switch from rail to roads and most never came back.

[@roundel52]

Excellent documentary. Probably the best of yours I've watched.

[@volvo480]

1:40 Restructuring railway networks in The Netherlands after the war was quite easy, many simply weren't rebuilt... Most what was left of rural branch lines, none of which carried passenger traffic, was closed in 1972. Main line structure was much more coherent anyway as the railways were fully nationalised in 1938 while technically the networks have merged in 1917 already. Before the war electrification and moving from steam to diesel was already in full force, the last steam locomotive was decommissioned in 1958. (And Holland is a province of The Netherlands, not a country. I thought it was only Americans who couldn't tell the difference but apparently British can't too. 😕 )

[@zacm.2342]

Not that we can't tell the difference, it's just not pointed out. I've just said The Netherlands for a while now, but I wasn't sure of the difference (think it must've been made clear to me at some point though).

[@ThomasDinsdale]

I know the diffrence but it doesn't help when your tourism board has the url as 'holland.com' and you national airline's inflight magazine is called 'holland herald' just saying

[@devon896]

A very good documentary, essentially we are still paying to trying to sort out the mess from Podt WW2 railways 80 years on.

[@Dog.soldier1950]

In the USA we had a “rationization” in the early 70’s with branch lines sold off to “short lines” with less overhead and bureaucracy. It mostly worked but passenger service is still anemic

[@souvikrc4499]

And the passenger rail networks were nationalized into Amtrak in 1971.

[@RobSchofield]

A great analysis - also one of the best explanations of the locomotive Classes I've seen. Finally I understand! Great work. How about a similar analysis of the success of high-speed inter-city trains?

[@geoffkew6070]

interesting analysis of a problem that is still costing millions of pounds in resolution today, thank you

[@Shark30006]

The LMS, LNER, Great Western Railway, and the Southern Railway became British Railways and replaced steam engines with diesel and electric engines. The Big Four became British Railways except for the Vale of Rheidol Railway. The Vale of Rheidol Railway was the sole operating railway for steam locomotives. The Vale of Rheidol Railway was lucky to operate steam locomotives under British Railways until it became privatized and became operational onward.

[@grahamariss2111]

Very good. One point you missed is that the Railways in Britain had been struggling with falling freight and rural passenger traffic since the end of the first war. Whilst we tend to think of the interwar years as the golden age of Britain's railways with things like the race to the North. But the reality was an industry with negative cash flow and marginal profitability which led to a massive under investment in the infrastructure of the railways the equivalent today of £60 billion. Also the Ernest Marples villainy in the matter is mostly an urban myth, the UK Motorway Building program was commissioned years before he became a transport minister and was triggered the UK road network struggling with the increase road traffic that was increasing exponentially since the start of the 50s with so many ex service people having learnt to drive in the war. Also whilst he closed lines that were not in the Beaching plans for closure he also kept many more lines open. I would also note that these lines he did close were not replaced by new road projects, and also whilst he was minister he championed the Beaching plans electrification and Intercity Services which were in direct conflict with the Motorways. We should also question if it is so bad that a Transport Minister knows about road construction and that nobody questions Barbara Castle's transport minister 65 to 68 sponsorship as an MP by the Railway Union's as a conflict of interest. Her decision not to press for changes in working practice at the expense of modernisation and electrification of the railways almost certainly did more damage to the railways than Beaching and Marple combined by putting the railways into a permanent state of slow decline.

[@matthewcatsey]

I think that the beeching cuts did a lot of damage by closing many branch lines that fed into the main lines. Even if the lines had to be closed, the railway alignment should've been kept free of development, so that when there is case for reopening then that can be done easily.

[@grahamariss2111]

@@matthewcatsey I have heard this claim by opponents to Beaching that the closing of the Branchlines reduced traff8cs on the Mainlines because they lost the traffic feed from the Branchlines. But what this argument misses is that the success of Beaching is the Intercity services of regular express services running at regular times and consistent speeds throughout the day. This was just not possible Pre Beeching because of the amount of slow moving traffic from the Branchlines that was taking up space on the Mainlines. This is why in those pre Beeching days you see very few true express services and instead a varied variety of services and speeds to utilise the train paths around the Branchline traffic that interfaced with it.

[@matthewcatsey]

@@grahamariss2111 Your argument doesn't make sense. Branch line trains can be reconfigured to terminate at junction stations, and even provide timed connections with any main line trains that stop there. Examples of connecting branch lines include the St. Ives line - the train running on that branch does not interfere with intercity operations. Same goes for the Marston Vale line, St Albans Abbey line, and the branch to Bromley North. They all have trains that shuttle along the branch line, providing relatively frequent services, and DO NOT interfere with faster main line trains. This could've been done with the 1st gen DMUs that BR had, rather than closing down the branch line. Your argument also doesn't address why didn't BR retain the right of way of closed lines, so that should there be a case for reopening in the future, it can be done easily. So why is that? Why do you support Beeching and Marples by the way? Are you in any way related to them?

[@SuperMikado282]

The reason most of these branch lines closed was because the public wanted to own cars and have the freedom that gave them. Lots of branch line stations were a good distance from the communities they were supposed to serve. When they were built there was often opposition to them from landowners.

[@Trainman10715]

that footage at the beginning of the old woodhead tunnles in use and woodhead 3 under construction was brilliant

[@androo4519]

There's enough in this subject for a 20-part series at least but this is a great overview. The sad thing is that the failures continue and the mistakes made in the past can't in many cases be corrected.

[@wewillrockyou1986]

Nice to see someone cover this in a video. Quite a while back, finishing high school I wrote a paper on this, basically arguing that the modernisation plans had set BR up for failure and made the Beeching cuts inevitable. I would summarise that the excessively political goals and rules put in place, noncommittal action on many issues, and overly "traditional" approach of the management were the biggest overall factors leading to the failures of that time. I also would argue that many of these issues persist to this day in the British railway system.

[@andrewwenzel3600]

Fast forward to 2021 and things have only slightly improved. East Coast, Great Western and about half of the Midland mainline have finally been electrified and some bottlenecks ironed out. HS2 should be a big help to sorting out the rest of the North to South mainlines but that won't be ready for ~10 years assuming it doesn't get cancelled by the Nimbys

[@bluevan12]

If Nimbys had existed at the time of the last mainline the Great Central, HS2 would be even more of a pipedream. The trouble with nimbys is that they don't give a shit about the environment in general but only how its effects their quality of life and the value of their house.

[@andrewwenzel3600]

@@bluevan12 agreed, a large amount of it is hypocrisy from middle and upper class land owners who use environmentalism as an excuse to disrupt anything that may effect their bank balance and the value of their land.

[@qjtvaddict]

Stop listening to nimby

[@SuperMikado282]

@@bluevan12 Exactly....this is why it took so long to build the high speed link from the Channel tunnel into London.

[@TalesOfWar]

@@bluevan12 Ironically, good transport links RAISE property prices. I imagine this will only continue given more and more of the younger generations simply don't own vehicles and choose public transport. It's a generational thing, they'll eventually die and we can progress.

[@TheByard]

My father was employed by a large construction contractor and in the late 1950s carried out tunnelling works on the main line track between Hadley Woods and Potter Bar Herts. Sever tunnel were constructed along side the existing tunnel to double the tracks to two one each line. The next project was to enlarge a section of tunnel from Chalk Farm to wards Kings Cross for electrification, I only sat Kings Cross as you mentioned the roof had to be raised. The tunnel was used for empty carriages going into the terminal, I have since seen a KZbin video that this was closed soon after completion. I followed my father into tunnelling and have worked on a number of rail and metro tunnels around the world, namely Denmark, Canada, Taiwan on rail projects and Cairo, London, Kuala Lumper on metro (Tube) lines. Between these I also worked on road, cable, and wastewater tunnels. Thanks for posting your videos and jogging my memory.

[@vicinglis3736]

As always very enjoyable , thank you. Did you do an item on White moor marshalling yard at March Cambs,, did I miss it ?

[@stephenpegum9776]

This was a superb video - cheers. I'm old enough to remember when steam trains were replaced by diesels and some of pictures in this video brought back many memories of my youth ! 😎👍👍

[@flippop101]

Excellent, well written and researched. First class!

[@lawrencelewis8105]

You should have mentioned that Marples owned a road building company. Quite a conflict of interest to have him as transport minister.

[@railfreightdrivergallagherGBRf]

Him as Transport Minister is like Keith Richards being Health Minister!!!

[@lawrencelewis8105]

@@railfreightdrivergallagherGBRf I don't know if that's a good comparison- doctors are always amazed at how Keith keeps keeping on with all the abuse he's done to himself. But I see what you mean.

[@fourtoes412]

Civil servants and railways do not mix!

[@MrJimheeren]

Yes, they do, just not in jolly old England, to many upper class nitwits. The rest of Europe had engineers as their directors of the railways

[@fourtoes412]

@@MrJimheeren Exactly when engineers and not civil servants run railways they thrive!!!

[@MrJimheeren]

@@fourtoes412 they where still civil servants. They worked for us and the government

[@jst7714]

Interesting video but at :54 that's definitely the USA's Southern RR rondel. I actually live in the South and it's still seen occasionally!

[@jacobwalker6092]

Same! My grandpa worked for Southern and NS

[@lapiswake6583]

And still, the Midland Mainline electrification isn't yet live, and doesn't go as far as Leicester. The Chiltern Mainline won't get electrified in the foreseeable future, and still the government cuts back electrification of the Great Western routes to Cardiff and also the transpennine routes in the north

[@johnkeepin7527]

It’s electric from London to Cardiff, but not Bristol. Awkward relatively short gaps as well - such as Westerleigh Jc to Bromsgrove. If that were ‘filled in’, it could be electric all the way from Cardiff to Glasgow etc, and of course Cardiff to Bristol.

[@Garylpool1]

How can the government find billions of pounds to spend on Crossrail and find more billions when it runs over cost. To rub salt into the wound they are already talking about expanding Crossrail and this is before the original Crossrail is fully open! No wonder people who live north of the capital feel we have a two tier railway with everything being spent down south and up north have to put up with cuts to expansion plans, Pacer trains that are well beyond their life span and 'new' trains that most are second hand cast offs from down south.

[@jozg44]

A good video on a complex subject. One other factor that is worth mentioning with regard to the plethora of diesel types was that that part of the Modernisation Plan was extremely rushed. The idea behind those original 174 orders for diesels was that they would be from a deliberately diverse range of manufacturers, representing a deliberately diverse range of technological and design approaches. After evaluation in service the best features of all would be worked up into a new set of BR standard loco designs, to be built by the manufacturers which had proven themselves up to the job. Unfortunately the mounting financial losses, dwindling traffic share and declining public image of BR meant that the BTC decided to both accelerate and expand dieselisation - instead of the Standard steam locos seeing out their lives until electrification took over the majority of the network, diesel would be rapidly introduced to replace steam on a rapid region-by-region programme over the course of the 1960s. Those original 174 orders were expanded before the first of the new locos had even been delivered, let alone tested, and before some of those original pilot-order types had entered service the BTC went headlong into dieselisation. There was no data and no time to produce a handful of standard types incorporating proven features, so anything that any manufacturer had in hand - good, bad, proven, unproven, conventional, innovative, from an established loco builder or from a new entrant to the business - was ordered in large quantities. BR suceeded in its aim of ridding itself of steam traction within a decade, but it did so by acquiring an overly diverse loco fleet with lots of incompatible technology, a fair portion of which just weren't up to the job in terms of performance or reliability. The headlong rush to diesel also meant that there was no time to take stock of the rapidly-changing traffic patterns in the late 1950s or the fallout from the Beeching Axe, which meant that many of BR's new locos were either entirely redundant or severely lacking for what the network needed in the late 60s and 70s, when the days of relatively light, slow mixed goods/trip workings were over and the system was reliant on either very heavy bulk freight trains or fast container/unit load trains. Neither of which the thousands of Type 1 and Type 2 locos acquired could really handle without resorting to expensive multiple working. The botching of the Modernisation Plan also dealt a serious blow to the British locomotive building industry, since instead of a steady flow of new-build orders at a moderate rate over the course of 15-20 years, BR pushed through thousands of orders in a relatively short timeframe. For reasons of both the rate these new locos were required and the political desire to spread orders around between firms in different parts of the country, no one firm truely got a massive windfall that it could have used to secure its long term future, but all got enough to get them through the 1960s. Then, with the Modernisation Plan (as it was) complete, BR essentially stopped buying new locos entirely in the 1970s and wouldn't order large batches of new ones until the mid 1980s. And when these were required BR had its own in-house workshops to do the work. The private builders were left out in the cold. Many of them had had to decline orders from the export market to handle BR work in the 1960s, leaving previously loyal customers no choice but to go to American, Japanese, Russian or German firms and they so no reason to go back when the British builders' order books were empty.

[@aaronjamesf1]

Really interesting piece of content - thank you for creating it!

[@williamcrann155]

These documentaries are always superb!

[@hoagy_ytfc]

Cracking shot of the eastern end of Standedge Tunnel at 1:19

[@gregwarner3753]

Excellent report. The British Rail problems illustrate the old adage: The cheapskate pays the most. They started with confusing and contradictatory goals, developed absurd plans, hired a financially compromised reformer and wound up with a unsatisfactory system that cost far more than necessary. What did they expect? We did much of the same in the US. We effectively eliminated rail travel in favor of the far less efficient air and road transport. We spent many billions on expressways. The result is we need a car to get from our center city headquarters to the airport and from the airport to the surburban factory or rural mine or farm. Except for a few city/surburban rail lines commuters are stuck in traffic jams. This is the expected result of using transportation to solve much more short sighted goals.

[@roystudds1944]

Really interesting video and commentary. Thanks. Roy.

[@chrislaarman7532]

Adding my two cents from the Netherlands (that tended to look west, at least on the topic of rail transport): I think that the perceived failure may have older roots. The "grouping" had its counterpart here in 1920 (preliminary phase in 1890, judicial completion in 1938), the policy to phase out steam had started by 1930, the equivalent of the Axe fell around 1936, the first electric locomotives were budgeted in 1940 (but EMUs and "ESUs" were already common), and steam officially ended here in January 1958. And wooden coaches were on their phase-out in the 1930s after some equivalent disaster as that British one. Germany also had its "grouping" in 1920, and had its steam locomotives standardised (after the Prussian example) from 1925 on. Germany had its steam locos developped by private companies, and they all(?) participated in building the designs by one of them. Germany had also started larger scale electrification in the 1930s, expanding from Bavaria and from a region that became Polish after WW2. West-Germany then started electrification at a pace that would limit (not eliminate!) the need for mainline diesels - and so the steam era there ended in 1977 with the equivalents of the 9F on the heavy iron ore hauls from the ports in the Northwest. The German "Axe" may have roughly coincided with Beeching's, and (to my inadequate knowledge) in a similar way. In the former GDR, electrification had to be undone at first, and the Axe may have fallen there in the 1990s. A major difference that strikes me when comparing tracks in Britain and in Germany is the layout of railway junctions: in Germany mostly with fly-overs, in Britain level-crossings. Here in the Netherlands (mostly flat, with a weak soil) railway fly-overs and dive-unders have become popular from the 1970s on, I think. It may well have been a requirement for offering high-frequency services. The latest fashion in Dutch railroads seems the redisgn of station areas with as few sets of points as deemed possible. As Network Rail and our ProRail seem to be friends, this may spill over to Britain.

[@marc1790e]

Great video and explanation!.... here in Queensland, Australia I can clearly see the same mentality and poor management leading to our current and continued terrible network.,

[@kevinbarry71]

Very interesting; as an American with virtually no knowledge of the British rail system; it is amazing to think this was actually done. By which I mean attempted. Far too many different types and varieties, Britain isn't nearly big enough of a country to support that mess. Extremely inefficient. Of course, long distance rail in the United States fell apart after the war as well. Certainly for passenger service. Airplanes and cars took the passengers; and trucks of course took most of the cargo. However railroads have made a comeback at least as far as moving certain freight. They are more efficient for bulk cargoe. It seems to me there is a certain parallel between what was happening in the British rail industry and what was happening with the British automotive industry. Far too many small undercapitalized players chasing a small market

[@roberthuron9160]

You forgot one main element- public subsidies of various alternative modes. British Rail was required to make a profit(like Amtrak),but it's competitors were subsidized out of the public purse! The truckers had no burdens of building the highways,and the airlines had the airports also built from the public purse,which ironically the railroads contributed! The same happened with the Highway Trust Fund in the US,and NOW,every one is waking up to the fact that public transport is in horrible condition! The bankers made their mints off of the public misery,and one percent,can still run away,from the destruction they caused 😑! History repeats,and the real culprits never get named,so they can do their scams again and again,ad infinitum! Thank you for your attention 👍!

[@matthewcatsey]

Let's not forget that after privatisation there has been massive growth in passenger numbers - as a result of newer, faster EMUs.

[@traingamer2037]

While listening to this video, it made me notice a similarity between BR's attempt at modernization went as smoothly as US railroads trying to remain competitive with road and air competition while still under the influence of the Interstate Commerce Act

[@AllensTrains]

I didn't know that different classes of loco represented different power ratings, so that's something I have learned. You might like to make a video in the same vein about OO gauge trains - how Hornby Dublo failed to modernise and got taken over by Tri-ang, how that too got into financial trouble and became Tri-ang-Hornby. In the case of Hornby Dublo a similar mistake was made in trying to maintain compatibility with old clockwork layouts by continuing with 3-rail rather than switching to the more modern 2-rail. Thanks for uploading.

[@bigslydoc]

The whole thing was a little bit crazy. Some of the diesels lasted hardly any longer or were even withdrawn before the steam locomotives they were supposed to replace. As your identify in this excellent short form documentary, the track work needed to be fixed first not the motive power. Steam could have easily continued for a further 15 years and gradually been wound down region by region as electrification and route improvement was rolled out. The Merchant Navies and light Bulleid Pacifics, the Peppercorn A1 and A2, Thompson B1s, the LMS Duchesses, rebuilt Royal Scots and later Black Fives plus the BR Standards could have lasted into the 70s or 80s. The U.K. is still suffering from this decision as essentially the network is STILL the Victorian era one just a bit tarted up.

[@RediscoveringLostRailways]

Fascinating - thank you 🙂

[@SirKenchalot]

Very interesting as ever, thanks. It's such a shame to think of what could have been.

[@Clivestravelandtrains]

A very good summary not compromised too much by the benefit of hindsight. Ruairidh correctly talks about the shortage of money, which was always a problem for BR with the annual pressure to "cut budgets". Added to that was the Regional mind-set, inherited from the 4 big companies, whose management and staff were largely the same as before. Each Region wanted to be "better than the others" with the Scottish Region being much of a lost cause.

[@logotrikes]

As the man said, Britain was virtually in ruins and nearly bankrupted by the war, and needlessly saddled with lend-lease obligations from the US. Germany by contrast was flooded with cash to get them back on their feet. The US could easily have forgiven the debt, or made it more palatable, but chose not to. No wonder we were still on rationing into the early 50's. BR could have postponed and rethought modernisation well into the 70's to get a better return on steam traction investment, but they were in a rush to compete with the rest of Europe's modernisation plans. And Marples should have been sacked as transport minister long before he had damaged rail infrastructure to the point where he could run his bunch of lorries without competition. Why he wasn't investigated for conflict of interest long before he was is a mystery to me. I know this issue is/was vastly more complex than most of us think, but being a steam traction lover I would be in favour of steam traction and the retention of branch lines. In other words, no Beeching Axe. A pipe dream sadly because Beeching was mostly right, only his axe did too much damage, and we're the poorer for it...

[@raypitts4880]

not many years ago we finaly paid the last of our debt to the us. sorry interest i mean

[@logotrikes]

@@raypitts4880 Thanks Ray, good to know...

[@Trainlover1995]

0:53 Wrong Southern Railway logo. There was, once upon a time, a Southern Railway here in America. It merged with the Norfolk and Western and Norfolk Southern in the early 80s to form a larger Norfolk Southern that is now one of our version of the Big Four (along with Union Pacific, BNSF, and CSX).

[@TalesOfWar]

Which makes things even more confusing as Norfolk in the UK is also in the south haha (south east to be more specific).

[@russellgxy2905]

Hmmm...let's see how much of this I remember or know -Building of the BR Standard range, check -The '55 and '57 Plans to improve the infrastructure when it really just renewed the old infrastructure instead of upgrading to modern standards (looking at you marshaling yards), check - Much of the new rolling stock being near redundant for their intended purposes, check - The rushed dieselization, which almost 1000 steamers (not even counting the perpetuated designs) out of work with not even 15 years of work for most, check - Said dieselization being largely tailored specifically to regions, a slight step back from the Standards, with a lot of incompatibility, as unreliability that would give them careers just as short as the steamers they were meant to replace, or even shorter, check - Richard Beeching, check - The government (or at least a high-decision individual) being actively anti-rail, thus spreading the carnage of the Axe even further, check - A bloated roster of locomotives with either no work to do or less track to use, double-check Yep, everything seems to check out here. As bad as a lot of railroads were hit during the 1960's and 70's here in the States, Britain arguably had it worse

[@matthewcatsey]

"Britain arguably had it worse".... except that they now have much better passenger services running at more frequent intervals, passenger numbers post-privatisation have been increasing, reaching levels comparable to the heyday of the big four, and that is in spite of privatisation. Did they actually have it worse?

[@knuckles1206]

@@matthewcatsey yes, just not now

[@russellgxy2905]

@@matthewcatsey For the period from the late-50's to early-70's, yeah Britain had it worse off. I'm thinking more on the freight side of things, since Britain moved to containerization and dropped carload/less-than-carload freight _much_ quicker than the US, because there was still a widespread need for individual customer based traffic (still is to an extent). So while railroads were trying to improve the way they handled freight, BR was still mostly working off of traffic trends and patterns that were common before WWII

[@matthewcatsey]

@@russellgxy2905 Whilst UK freight is worse than the US, this is arguably because of the much smaller size of the country. On the other hand, passenger use on the railways is much better, and the privatisation has led to more passengers than ever before than any previous period. I'll gladly point you to the statistics on rail passenger usage: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_Great_Britain#/media/File:GBR_rail_passengers_by_year_1830-2015.png. It is interesting that privatisation has led to passenger growth here, which is why there have been calls to privatise Amtrak.

[@ronalddevine9587]

We had similar problems here in the USA. Steam locomotives built during the war were vastly superior to diesels, but in an effort to appear modernized, were run to ruination. Only difference here was private corporations vs government. Pity neither of us saw what highways and airlines would do.

[@TalesOfWar]

They knew exactly what roads and airlines would do, and that's the point. They actively encouraged their use and the destruction of the rail networks in both countries in favour of the car. In the US it was largely down to lobbying by the auto and tyre makers and in the UK politicians had rather dubious conflicts of interest with road building companies. The Secretary of Transport mentioned in this video actually owned such a company!

[@lennoxschannel7484]

But at least, EMD was the reason why diesels were more successful than the steamers they were replacing and had less frequent breakdowns than the early ones in BR.

[@stnicholas54]

Informative and very interesting. Thank you.

[@matthewalbery8827]

Fantastic to have images of each class of loco, great research! Would you agree that rail can be characterised as a constant trade off between operations and maintenance, upgrades and expansion?Whilst the industry is scored by its strategic outputs the inputs are determined by lower level decisions.

[@Scots_Diesel]

Another great short documentary using lots of British Transport Films footage mixed with well a written and researched script, an excellent, if unintended tribute to the great fim makers at British Transport Films.

[@andrewtaylor5984]

Britain was the only major nation, other than the USA to go in for diesels in a big way. After the end of the Second World War, the Southern Railway planned to electrify almost their entire system, but nationalisation prevented this. In 1947, the Government gave the LNER authority to complete the Woodhead electrification, including the building of a tunnel just over three miles long. (The old tunnels were single track with insufficient clearance for the overhead and supports.) This was completed in 1954 at 1750 volts d. c.. Next year, the modernisation plan was announced; the lines from Euston to Liverpool and Manchester, including the Birmingham loop were to be electrified, as was the King's Cross to Leeds line, with a possible extension to York. The main lines from Liverpool Street, and local lines in London were to be electrified, although part of the Cambridge Main Line was excluded. Also to be electrified were the lines through Glasgow Queen Street Low Level to their various destinations, and a number of lines south of the Clyde. Everything else was to be diesel. The Euston electrification overspent by millions, so the King's Cross electrification was cancelled. British Railways ordered 174 pilot scheme diesel locos from a number of builders; some were successful, others were not. Some of the unsuccessful types barely lasted ten years, and were withdrawn even before steam had been eliminated. The initial plan was to abolish steam by about 1972, but some senior railman realised that, if so, there would have to be a sizeable reserve of stock, meaning that steam would have to be retained till c1985. Main line locos normally had a life of 25 to 30 years, secondary locos and shunting locos could have a longer life. The normal rate of depreciation is usually taken as 25% for accountancy purposes. What BR did was to sell steam locos to scrap dealers for far less than their written down value, in order to eliminate steam quickly, and the last steam train ran in 1968. Meanwhile, other aspects of the system were not being modernised. Most of the East Coast Main Line was manually signalled in 1968, even at the London end. BR also spent millions on projects which were rarely used, such as the Bletchley flyover. Then came Beeching, who demanded that he received his ICI salary of £24000. His predecessor earned £10000, and that was big money in 1961. Beeching shut large parts of the network, preventing thousands from travelling by train, and he had no accountancy qualifications whatsoever. He also sold off railway land for far less than its commercial value, and sold rolling stock to scrap dealers for less than its written down value. Another waste of money was transfer of lines from one region to another. To take one example, the Western Region completely resignalled Birmingham Snow Hill in 1960. In 1963, all GW lines north of Banbury were transferred to the London Midland Region, who promptly announced that when the Euston electrification was complete, Snow Hill would be closed. BR lost a great deal of freight in 1955 after a strike; not only did this lead to loss of freight traffic, but also one could easily obtain a lorry and an HGV licence.

[@WilliamHBaird-eq2hp]

What a terrific video! Thank you!

[@gurditrehal3348]

Great video This is certainly better than a lot of documentaries I watch. I hear people say we should re-nationalise the railway network because the current privatised system is crap but I always wondered that our railways are just so dated that, regardless of it being privatised or nationalised, it will always have problems. I suppose this video makes it clear that poor management and a lack of thinking ahead broughts several additional problems in the mid-20th century to an already problematic Victorian-era railway.

[@breakaleg10]

The same thing happened in Sweden at roughly the same time, with car makers having representatives on the board discussing the future of railways, which only resulted in many smaller lines being closed down, replaced by buses which were later abolished too

[@lzh4950]

Reminds me of the somewhat backward step where Singapore ended rail cargo transport in 2011 when the long-distance rail line into Singapore operated by neighboring Malaysia's KTM was cut back from downtown Tg Pagar railway station to Woodlands Train checkpoint (~27km away at the 2 countries' Causeway Int'l border crossing), & the latter was too small to handle cargo. The reason for this cutback was that Singapore felt it's sovereignty was undermined in the earlier arrangement (with Malaysian immigration also being cleared at Tg Pagar railway station instead of at the int'l border. In an apparent act of protest, Singapore then made outbound passengers alight at the border to clear Singapore immigration) ever since it was expelled from Malaysia in 1965 (the rail line was built back when the 2 countries were both British Crown Colonies). This probably has come to bite us when queues of cargo vehicles entering Singapore from Malaysia built up earlier this year after the former mandated all their drivers to be tested for CoViD-19 before entry, with 3500 chickens reportedly dying from heatstroke in the queue as well (probably because food & water weren't prepared for them, as the journey into Singapore usually takes less time). Probably to address this challenge, the Singapore government has offered these drivers more priority for vaccination. Perhaps another transitional measure could be to create a 'neutral' zone at the border crossing (e.g. Tuas Checkpoint is beside an abandoned village formerly used as a TV filming set & for army training) where Malaysian cargo vehicle drivers can deposit their goods to be picked up later by Singaporean drivers, without having to enter the country & be tested. Then a longer-term measure might be to have more cargo transported by rail instead (since less drivers are needed, & thus less swab testing also)

[@RedDagger]

Great video, I don't agree with the ending remarks but it was a great video to watch nonetheless

[@darrensmith6999]

Brilliant content as always! Thank You (:

[@GreenJimll]

Good video. And now we're likely to have to go through it all over again if, post pandemic, rail travel patterns are permanently changed. We may find railways need to shift more attention onto freight and leisure travel rather than the peak period commuters and business meeting travel.

[@edshed6009]

What an excellent indictment of the classic British bean counting culture.

[@iankemp1131]

Very interesting summary, amazing what is packed into 15 minutes! Naturally there could be argument about various points of detail but the broad thrust is clear. It's a telling point that it was expected to achieve profitability by 1962, which was wishful thinking. In fact almost no railway worldwide is profitable when investment is included (nor are roads) - but they are valuable!

[@bobcannell7603]

Austria electrified all their branch lines to provide a cheap, comfortable, easy to maintain, rail bus, alternative to wiggly mountain side roads. But Austrian politicians seem to want to serve their voters rather than themselves alone

[@tomtalk24]

What else could Austria do post war? Britain had only just crawled out of the ashes after being bombed to shit.

[@MarceloBenoit-trenes]

But no, not all the branch lines were electrified in Austria. That was in Switzerland.

[@TalesOfWar]

@@MarceloBenoit-trenes Who could afford it because that's where all the money was kept safe, and they got a windfall when the Nazi's lost and didn't have to pay them back.

[@MarceloBenoit-trenes]

@@TalesOfWar the issue was that hydraulic power was cheaper than coal... and was generated there.