British Rail sanity options : 1948 - 2000

[Nick P]

I would say that selling off all the land piecemeal was a poor idea. Keeping route formations intact and actually looking ahead to the possibility of population growth would serve a lot of places today quite well. Passing them on to councils for bridleways and cycle routes would be nice - at the very least mothballing the lines and stations would be a start.

Ending goods services at all the (lesser) stations would free up a lot of space that could be sold off or used for better car parking.
Was the Red Star and related parcels service a good idea, a profit or a loss?
Going for containers earlier instead of the labour intensive loading and unloading of goods vans would save a fair bit.
Reducing stations to bare bones with minimal staff and selling off the attached houses or renting them to railway staff.

 

[jsb]

To a certain extent yes; steam locomotives are very specialised and maintenance heavy creatures. But the existing railway industry is built around that to start with.

I'd say that for the WCML/ECML, they are "fairly" self contained routes at the southern end, and electric locomotives require very little maintenance compared to steam, and even to diesel. I agree you want them to be stored in a nice separate facility - but there are plenty of areas to build electric-orientated depots at London and other areas. Given they don't require fuelling and are quick to start up (compared especially to steam), there's no requirement to have them right next to the terminal station - they can be a little way away (although not to far as you don't want to be running them back and forth for 40 minutes just to stable them!). But because diesel and electric require so little maintenance compared to steam, and thus fewer diesel/electric locos are needed, you need less maintenance areas, so there should be plenty of space to have separate areas. Pretty much every UK city had large rail areas which have been lost since the 1960s in the city centre for goods yards, locomotive servicing and/or train stabling.

For diesel, you don't want to build and then not use granted, but if heavier diesel facilities are built in non-London cities, there are ample other routes the locomotives can be used on when there first use case is done (and only lighter/refuelling points around London). Ie. diesel depot at Manchester can be used by WCML diesels to start with, and then being reassigned to Transpennine services. At Glasgow/Edinburgh, locomotives can be reassigned from WCMl/ECML operations to run Scotrail longer distance routes.

The mains issue is that they don't actually save money without cutting the steam support infrastructure and manpower, the diesel and electric locomotives cost more to buy than steam, they are just mostly far cheaper to support and run? Running them overlapping for a long time simply doesn't lead to savings quickly?

 

[Devvy]

The mains issue is that they don't actually save money without cutting the steam support infrastructure and manpower, the diesel and electric locomotives cost more to buy than steam, they are just mostly far cheaper to support and run? Running them overlapping for a long time simply doesn't lead to savings quickly?

If you have 20 steam locomotives at a depot, and you cut half of them (to be replaced by diesel traction), then only half the depot is required, half the coal is used, and roughly speaking half the staff required. Steam locomotives required a ton of maintenance; (forgive me I can't find the exact quote in the books at the moment), but it said that something like 7-9 people were involved with servicing a steam locomotive overnight. Several cleaners to clean soot etc from various parts, yard drivers to move it to coal stores and back, people to put coal and water in, people to get the fire going and the boiler warm before the driver/fireman turns up, and some other tasks which slip my mind. Incredibly labour-intensive, and that's before the driver and fireman get involved.

Diesel locomotives slashed all that. Maintenance (including greasing parts for smooth running, which is similar to that required also on steam hence not mentioned above) is far simpler, refuelling can be done at greater range with a de facto long hose pipe, and the start up process is far quicker on a morning. So there's considerable savings to be made in employees even if you can't completely eliminate steam, and that'll be compounded with even more savings when steam can be completely eliminated from a depot.

 

[trash80]

Not set an end of steam deadline and then have to build hundreds of inferior / soon to be unneeded anyway due to Beeching diesel locomotives.
Instead built no more than 2 competing prototypes for the 3 (later 5) power classifications and access them over an extended period. Then build the winners enmasse. If it means steam continued into the early-mid 1970s then so be it, it was what happened on the Continent in many places anyway.

Maybe the money saved could have maintained a rolling programme of electrification after WCML so you'd have the ECML and GWML done by 1980...

 

[jsb]

If you have 20 steam locomotives at a depot, and you cut half of them (to be replaced by diesel traction), then only half the depot is required, half the coal is used, and roughly speaking half the staff required. Steam locomotives required a ton of maintenance; (forgive me I can't find the exact quote in the books at the moment), but it said that something like 7-9 people were involved with servicing a steam locomotive overnight. Several cleaners to clean soot etc from various parts, yard drivers to move it to coal stores and back, people to put coal and water in, people to get the fire going and the boiler warm before the driver/fireman turns up, and some other tasks which slip my mind. Incredibly labour-intensive, and that's before the driver and fireman get involved.

Diesel locomotives slashed all that. Maintenance (including greasing parts for smooth running, which is similar to that required also on steam hence not mentioned above) is far simpler, refuelling can be done at greater range with a de facto long hose pipe, and the start up process is far quicker on a morning. So there's considerable savings to be made in employees even if you can't completely eliminate steam, and that'll be compounded with even more savings when steam can be completely eliminated from a depot.

Is the problem that you can have 1/2 a turntable or 1/2 a water tower for example, so you end up paying to maintain a lot of items that you only need for the steam trains, that cut the savings of the conversion to D&E?

 

[Devvy]

Is the problem that you can have 1/2 a turntable or 1/2 a water tower for example, so you end up paying to maintain a lot of items that you only need for the steam trains, that cut the savings of the conversion to D&E?

Granted, some of the infrastructure like turntables, the actual coal pits, water towers, maintenance "things", will be needed however many steam locomotives you have. But my point is that even if you only switch half the locomotives to diesel straight away, there are still decent cost-savings to be demonstrated, even if they aren't as much as they could be when everything is swapped over.

For what it's worth, I think switching everything to diesel or electric is for the best, but there's no point in scrapping working steam stuff just for the sake of scrapping it, and it'll take a while to produce so many diesel/electric locomotives.

 

[focus9912]

Is the problem that you can have 1/2 a turntable or 1/2 a water tower for example, so you end up paying to maintain a lot of items that you only need for the steam trains, that cut the savings of the conversion to D&E?

One question that I would like to ask is how was the withdrawal of steam locos carried out IOTL (and perhaps ITTL), because I was wonder if there is further cost saving in withdrawing steam on depot by depot basis (considering the relatively high amount of TMD), meaning there wouldn't be any depot that have a mixture of both steam and non steam locos? Or would the cost saving were too marginal in this case...

P/s:Speaking of steam withdrawals...

Steam operation of passenger services to end by 1975-76 and freight services by 1980. Worth noting for comparison that West Germany did not replace steam until 1977.

One possible (albeit extremely minor) curveball that would be thrown into maintaining steam to these particular dates would be the implementation of TOPS numbering system (which was done in 1973 IOTL) which in turn could limit the possible amount of steam locos operating to around 1000 using the IOTL numbering system by that point...but considering the reduced amount of different diesel designs being produced, perhaps there would be additional class allocation numbers for steam locomotives....

 

[jsb]

Start work on developing range of diesel locomotives and multiple units earlier than IOTL and centralise development rather than devolve it to the regions. This would have ensured that tried and tested locomotives and rolling stock were available for service from the mid and late 1950s and would have butterflied the unsuccessful or non-standard classes i.e. the Western Region diesel hydraulics and the Class 17, 21, 22, 23 and 28 locomotives.

but considering the reduced amount of different diesel designs being produced,

One real issue might be the Korean War rearmament drive? English Electric for example would have been busy with many defence orders, and it built maybe some of the best early diesel locomotives. That and with hindsight not simply ordering like for like replacements of the steam sizes but going for fewer numbers of types but generally larger as a DE can unlike a steam engine run under power and not waste as much fuel and having a large run of a standard good type would be more important to saving money? Things like the class 23 with only 10 units should never have been built, as supporting anything with such a small production run will cost lost of money, and yet the 309 Class 37 built at almost the same time 1960-65 still have some of them running now in less demanding jobs.

 

[BlueTrousers]

Is the problem that you can have 1/2 a turntable or 1/2 a water tower for example, so you end up paying to maintain a lot of items that you only need for the steam trains, that cut the savings of the conversion to D&E?

Which is why, if you're phasing out steam traction in favour of something modern, the efficient way to do it is by regions. Switch a region wholesale from steam to diesel or electric, as appropriate. Move the best steam locomotives to another region where they've not been replaced yet. Scrap the worst ones from both regions. Repeat as required until all steam locomotives are gone from the network permanently.

Yes, all, and gone. Anyone proposing to run a 1920s train on a modern railway should be given the same response as someone proposing to fly a 1920s aeroplane in and out of Heathrow. Just because 4472 is the same size as a modern train, doesn't mean it's any more up-to-date than an H.P.42.

I would say that selling off all the land piecemeal was a poor idea. Keeping route formations intact and actually looking ahead to the possibility of population growth would serve a lot of places today quite well. Passing them on to councils for bridleways and cycle routes would be nice - at the very least mothballing the lines and stations would be a start.

This gets into the question of what we mean by a 'sanity option'. British Railways was fundamentally expected to run the railway at a profit year-on-year, with the profit being returned to the owner - i.e., the government. Planning for population growth wasn't profitable. Gifting land to local authorities wasn't profitable. Selling it off was profitable - and just as importantly, got the Board off the hook for maintaining it. In some cases they'd probably be happy to sell it for a pound, just to get rid of maintenance costs, in preference to mothballing anything.

If you want to change that, you need to change the attitude around what a nationalised railway is supposed to do from Day One. Rail subsidies weren't accepted as necessary until 1968, and even then only where British Railways couldn't be expected to cross-subsidise a particular route from its profits.

So what would I do? First off, recognise that nationalisation is coming. Plan for it from 1943 or so - keep the Railways Executive Committe going. Publish a Modernisation Plan in 1948 or 1949. Nothing in OTL's 1955 Plan was news. Dieselise low traffic areas. Electrify the busiest lines - it'll take a few years to get going, so go for 25 kV AC off the bat. Bring in railcars where practical and appropriate. Rationalise services - get an Operational Research expert in to do what Beeching did but in the early 1950s, and with full data. Bring in liner trains, intercity services, and all that jazz. Shut all the useless lines as soon as practical, and get rid of them properly. Use the evidence from the OR report to target investment in the most productive areas, and demonstrate to the government that you're spending their money well. There's a lot to unpack here. I could (and perhaps should) do a full-fledged TL on it.

 

[MKD]

I would like to see wagon control and tracking brought in much earlier to increase productivity and usage - we have all see stories of wagons " lost" for weeks on end
I would like to see standard coaching stock, DMU/EMU and locomotives agreed on sooner.

1948.

Steam is a dead end, there's no point developing a whole new range of standardised steam locomotives. Put the majority of resources into Diesel and electric locos.

Don't pull down the Euston Arch in an act of cultural vandalism by developers.

I think steam was still required but perhaps not in the number built as standards. I would say take the best of the 4 regional locomotives ( Basically those built at Darlington or Doncaster ;-) ) and build some of those before moving over to diesel/electric at a planned and considered rate.

- Hit the WR (former GWR) hard, and force it to standardise with the rest of BR

Agree. Agree 100% ! Bloody Western. Stop trying to be special and just use the same locomotives as everyone else

Correspondingly, rather than doing loads of small batches of locomotives in the 1950s/1960s, standardise on a few locomotive types, and do large manufacturing batches for them after finding a reliable design. It might not be a perfect fit for everyone,

Agree. Just build decent solid EE /Brush locomotives. Class 20/37/55 and a class 47. There is still going to be wastage as the UK industrial landscape changes post war but there will be less wastage than under the modernisation plan.

I would add class 08 shunters and maybe a class 31.

I would also build more of them in Darlington.

- Electrification needs a more wide scale roll out early on.

Agree - it also needs a standard 25kv all purpose electrical locomotive.

When steam is discarded from a route, roll it down to ever smaller routes and branches.

Agree - although I want to see DMU used more on branch lines to see if costs can be cut

Be a bit more flexible and future-minded with regards to closing routes.

not sure this is possible - money had to be saved. It should have bene saved sooner.

While this is going to be unpopular Beaching's axe should have fallen earlier,

Agree - However that surely relies upon a move to diesel ASAP. The main saving must surely be in man power.

 

[The History Man]

One thought is whether a decision by British Railways to adopt the Gas Producer Combustion System (GPCS) and the Kylpor and Lempor exhaust systems developed by Argentinan engineer Livio Porta might have extended the lifespan of steam traction by increasing its efficiency and reducing running costs. Money saved could have been invested in electrification which would have made BR less vulnerable to oil price rises in the early/mid-1970s.

However, I recognise one problem is that it was a case of "not invented here". The perennial curse of British industry.

 

[BlueTrousers]

Agree. Agree 100% ! Bloody Western. Stop trying to be special and just use the same locomotives as everyone else

Agree. Just build decent solid EE /Brush locomotives. Class 20/37/55 and a class 47. There is still going to be wastage as the UK industrial landscape changes post war but there will be less wastage than under the modernisation plan.

One of the key bits of my ATL is that in 1950-1951, BR orders a proper trial dieselisation of that portion of the Great Western past Newton Abbot. This was something that the GWR was quite keen to do early on, because it was so expensive to get locomotive coal into that part of its network, and a plan had been drawn up that required two types of locomotive - sixty-four 2,000 hp main line locos, and fifty-two 1,200 hp ones for lighter work.

In my ATL, the 2,000hp is an all English Electric design resembling 10203 or a Class 40, and the 1,200hp Sulzer-Crompton loco is basically a Class 33 with the earlier, lower-rated version of the 8LDA28. Evolved versions of those two become BR's two standard locomotives. Some rationalisation of BR's own locomotive works, but the standard designs get built at all of them.

East Coast electrification to Northampton (yes, that was proposed!), Cambridge, Leeds and York begins around the same time. North of York, the LNER's 1947 proposal for diesel locomotives goes ahead, with pairs of them taking trains up to Newcastle, Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

Oh, and the Southern had plans to electrify everything east of Weymouth and Salisbury on the third-rail system, with diesels going west from Salisbury. I say have at it.

 

[Fir Street]

Old Oak Common As a Passenger Station

Old Oak Terminus For HS2 - Google My Maps

Possible terminus for the New High Speed Line to Birmingham and Manchester.

www.google.com

have london over ground start much earlier ( 19 80's)

London Overground - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[fastmongrel]

Go back to 1900 and then not have two World Wars. WWI and WWII trashed Britains railways.

 

[Giant Man Eating Rabbits]

Would building just one big central station at Farringdon help like they originally wanted to in the 1850's but were stopped?

I was thinking of building an entirely new station at Farringdon post 1950's and replacing all the other terminus stations Euston, Piccadilly, Kings Cross etc (although they'd still be a stations at these sites with two up and down lines), possibly called London Central or even London Elizabeth.

Would that be possible?
Would it work?

 

[HexWargamer]

UK Government decides if thay want to provide a 'service to the people' (like the NHS) or if rail passenger/freight is a business that should pay it's own way.

If the first, finance it all from taxes. So citizens travel free, freight (assuming Government wants rail freight for political reasons) gets charged at whatever rate the beaucrats decide (I would suggest rates be capped at tonagge/mile rate as average of commercial road transport cost).

If the second, then face the fact that politicians can't successfully run a p*ss-up in a brewery, let alone a business that makes money. So privatise the lot of them and allow them to operate in the free market. When they discover that passenger fares have to be set above Taxi rates and UK is too small for rail freight to be cost effective V's road freight, and they all go bust, turn the rights-of-way into freeways.

 

[PMN1]

Is there any opportunity to fix things like the Castlefield corridor, lack of through capacity at Manchester etc

 

[Simon]

The WCML and ECML provide a far better economic case for the APT or whatever kind of updated electric high speed train of future years, and crucially one that isn't so reliant on tilting so can be used whilst tilting mechanisms are 'refined' before rollout on the WCML. The sight of an APT doing 150 mph from London to Yorkshire will be a massive publicity boost (as well as money earner), and be vital in affording enough time for engineering to refine anything.

How much earlier could we potentially drag the introduction of the InterCity 125? As I understand things it was the in-house design favoured by the 'traditionalists', largely packaging together already existing technology. The main question seems to be the engine.

Pretty much every UK city had large rail areas which have been lost since the 1960s in the city centre for goods yards, locomotive servicing and/or train stabling.

That… sounds like a real estate opportunity. Did they do anything with it in our timeline, or was it just sold off to developers?

Passing them on to councils for bridleways and cycle routes would be nice…

Good God no, once you let the cyclists have them you'll practically never get them back again. The amount of fuss they'd kick up and bad press generated when British Rail tried to take back their cycle paths would be immense. Lift the tracks, demolish any structures, but retain ownership of the land and the right to run trains on it into the future – getting legislation passed if necessary to avoid any lawfare.

 

[BlueTrousers]

How much earlier could we potentially drag the introduction of the InterCity 125? As I understand things it was the in-house design favoured by the 'traditionalists', largely packaging together already existing technology. The main question seems to be the engine.

The 1951 Motive Power Report recommended investigating high-speed, lightweight railcars with buffet service to compete with air traffic (including possible future helicopter services!), with a view to providing services between the 'most important provincial cities and London', arriving by midday or early afternoon and returning in the evening, giving several hours for business. The example given was an express train from Plymouth to London. Such trains were also seen as potentially useful for such routes as

• Manchester and/or Birmingham to Dover, Folkestone or Harwich,
• Norwich, Lincoln and Grimsby to the Midlands,
• Hull-Leeds-Liverpool,
• Birmingham-Bristol,
• Bristol-Exeter-Plymouth,
• Birmingham-Southampton,
• The West Coast Main Line to Barrow and Whitehaven, and
• The rather vague 'in Scotland and Wales'.

This line of thought led to the Blue Pullmans, and eventually the HST, but could have been accelerated. I reckon you could get a 100mph (still blisteringly fast by the standards of the 1950s!) HST-analogue in service around 1960, probably with Deltics in the power cars and possibly with hydraulic transmission.

That… sounds like a real estate opportunity. Did they do anything with it in our timeline, or was it just sold off to developers?

Sold it off. I believe that British Rail wasn't allowed to engage in property development. Besides, doing so would require capital, which they could only get by selling off the land.

Good God no, once you let the cyclists have them you'll practically never get them back again. The amount of fuss they'd kick up and bad press generated when British Rail tried to take back their cycle paths would be immense. Lift the tracks, demolish any structures, but retain ownership of the land and the right to run trains on it into the future – getting legislation passed if necessary to avoid any lawfare.

In the mindset of the time, they wouldn't think there was any likelihood of needing to get them back. Just of making as much money as possible by selling off surplus infrastructure that either duplicated another route, or had no hope of making money. Getting legislation to protect their right to run trains on routes they'd closed as not worth running trains on would be a political non-starter.

 

[MKD]

Would building just one big central station at Farringdon help like they originally wanted to in the 1850's but were stopped?

I was thinking of building an entirely new station at Farringdon post 1950's and replacing all the other terminus stations Euston, Piccadilly, Kings Cross etc (although they'd still be a stations at these sites with two up and down lines), possibly called London Central or even London Elizabeth.

Would that be possible?
Would it work?

It might be possible but the station would have to be VAST to accommodate all services to all locations. What might have been better is some governmental control and direction of the early railways to create some joint stations for, say, Euston, Pancras and Kings Cross.

Would the better option be to ensure that all terminus stations are served by one underground line. Lets call it the circle line ;-) it is, to my mind, the lack of connectivity between these stations that is the biggest issue.