Alternate British Rails?

After World War II, as part of the incoming Labor government's socialist policies, the rail network of the United Kingdom was nationalized into a public organization called "British Rail". Unfortunately for the Brits, British Rail ended up seriously degrading the quality and quantity of rail service in the UK (which was then further degraded when it was privatized, but never mind that) in many ways. Anywho, as part of my eternal fascination with infrastructure, how could British Rail be improved? In other words, how could it, eg., match the French national rail company SNCF in quality of service?

One obvious thing is to avoid the Beeching Axe. That led to much worse overall service, leading to lower traffic and hence not actually helping much with profitability. An even more radical thing to do is for British Rail to accept that transportation *can't* be profitable[1], like the NHS or National Insurance, so they don't even bother. While there are efficiencies that could be made by reducing service, improving infrastructure, etc. to cut costs, in the end transport will always lose money. Hence, it makes no sense to cut back, since that will be degrading the quality of transport without actually helping the funding situation much.

[1]: Yes, yes, shipping lines, US rail companies, airlines, etc. But they inevitably have hefty direct and indirect public subsidies, for example the tax-funded construction of airports, roads, and seaports. I have serious doubts that any transportation mode which has to fully pay for its own infrastructure can ever be made or at least kept profitable.
 
Without a Beeching Axe type reformation in some form, the railways will likely hemorrhage money even more.

Operating losses only began in 1955.

Change the first Modernization plan that was published in 1954 and started in 1955. It was flawed and made a large number of assumptions about future traffic patterns, operations and locomotive design/usage.

The move towards modern traction was always the way to go, but there were a number of stodgy and experimental designs that proved very costly, and in the end, many of the excellent BR 'Standard' designs had their service lives cut short.

The many failings of the plan can be found in the follow review that was published in 1959 "BTC Re-appraisal of the Plan for the Modernization and Re-equipment of British Railways".
 
Signalling infrastructure, in-cab signalling to allow passenger train speeds of greater than 125mph. This will allow class 91 trains to run to their designed 140mph from 1990 and follow-on tilting trains running even faster, perhaps to the 155mph envisaged for the APT.

I don't know about frieght rail, Britain seems small enough that a truck could drive the length of Britain in a day, from destination to destination. In contrast the double handling at each end of a rail journey wouldn't outwiegh the cheaper transit cost of rail. Perhaps if frieght rail used electric locos rather than diesel and road user taxes were high enough to discourage long truck journeys this equation would change.
 
In other words, how could it, eg., match the French national rail company SNCF in quality of service?

SNCF is near-profitable by the simple expedience of investing in the main lines between big cities but nearly abandoning the countryside. The density of population in most of the rural France is much lower than in UK (except maybe further north) so they probably didn't have a lot of choice. But for a valid comparison you would need to look at Germany or Switzerland instead, which IMO have a population structure more similar to UK than France.
 
(which was then further degraded when it was privatized, but never mind that)
Actually, this is the most important thing. Rails (just like motorways and airports) need gov't funding to be kept steady. All successful rail companies ar at least partly state-owned.
 
According to Wiki, which I assume is maintained by anal-retentive railfans, the British rail system has 20% more services than France even though France has almost twice the track miles.

As for subsidies, if roads and airports/ATC get any funding other than from user fees and taxes then they are subsidised and if its good enough for road and air then its good enough for rail. Personally I'd be using the power of subsidies to shape transport behaviour, giving each type the best chance within its niche.

A specific example of something which perhaps should have survivied the Beeching Axe is the Great Central Main line, which has since been discussed as a potential High Speed 2 line to match High Speed 1 going through the Chunnel.
 
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The problem with Beeching is that he did the following things wrong:

-> Cut branch lines, but still assumed people would get on a train if they had to drive 10 miles to the station.

-> Cut profitable lines because they were in the out of the way places (Devon, Highlands) but kept unprofitable lines in the South-East

-> Didn't think Long-term.

He was probably right that the system needed streamlining somewhat, but I think he went to far.
 
As mentioned above, Beveridge failed to assess the profitability of the rail network as a network rather than a set of individual lines, so didn't recognise that the branch lines essentially operated as loss leaders that drove business to the profitable mainlines.
 
Instead on focussing just on British Rail, maybe we should also look at what would have happend when the railroad hadn't been privatised.
 
What about a channel tunnel decades earlier, it was decided in 1955 that defence objections were no longer valid and an abortive start was made in 1974.
 
Instead on focussing just on British Rail, maybe we should also look at what would have happend when the railroad hadn't been privatised.

That's a bit out of scope. While it certainly would be an interesting WI, I am interested here in how BR could have been better run (perhaps so much better run that even the Thatcherites would be forced to admit nationalization was a good thing ;))

As mentioned above, Beveridge failed to assess the profitability of the rail network as a network rather than a set of individual lines, so didn't recognise that the branch lines essentially operated as loss leaders that drove business to the profitable mainlines.

Exactly! And consider the competitor, roads. No one sane was talking about making a profit on roads. At best, with tolls, you might be able to reduce the costs of maintenance a bit (and anyways there weren't very many toll roads built for a long while afterwards). Rail had to face a concern (profitability) that it's main competitor, roads, did not. That's hardly fair competition.

What about a channel tunnel decades earlier, it was decided in 1955 that defence objections were no longer valid and an abortive start was made in 1974.

From what I recall, digging Chunnel was quite tricky even with 1980s/1990s tech. I'm not sure how feasible an earlier build would be. Still an interesting thing, and would go along with the early post-war "Europeanization" felt by a lot in Britain (the fact that both Winston Churchill and George Orwell advocated European union of some sort should tell you something).

Actually, this is the most important thing. Rails (just like motorways and airports) need gov't funding to be kept steady. All successful rail companies ar at least partly state-owned.

Again, exactly. Even the American rail companies, which to my knowledge are profitable, received hefty subsidies while they were building their infrastructure. They even bilked themselves more government money and land (look up the Credit Mobilier scandal, for one example). The formation of Amtrak was another sort of subsidy, since it meant that they could concentrate entirely on freight, which is highly profitable in the US for a number of reasons. The positioning of the major coal mining areas of the US, in particular, is very conducive to profitable rail shipment.

Signalling infrastructure, in-cab signalling to allow passenger train speeds of greater than 125mph. This will allow class 91 trains to run to their designed 140mph from 1990 and follow-on tilting trains running even faster, perhaps to the 155mph envisaged for the APT.

I don't know about frieght rail, Britain seems small enough that a truck could drive the length of Britain in a day, from destination to destination. In contrast the double handling at each end of a rail journey wouldn't outwiegh the cheaper transit cost of rail. Perhaps if frieght rail used electric locos rather than diesel and road user taxes were high enough to discourage long truck journeys this equation would change.

There are certainly cargoes that would benefit from rail shipment in Britain. Anything bulky and massive, like coal or gravel, for instance. With containerization, rail becomes more practical as a means of transporting less industrial goods--and that began as early as the 1950s. If BR realized that intermodal transport would be a Big Deal, that could do a lot. Of course, such a thing would work much better with imports--with taking things shipped to Britain, placing them directly on a train, and then taking them wherever. That could certainly be competitive with roads.
 
I get the impression that the Great Central Main line, which was closed by Beeching would have been a national asset if it had survived. It seems to get a mention in a number of articles as a better alignment for fast trains. So WI instead of it getting the chop it is kept open for long distance trains, and feeds onto the WCML in the midlands after a fast, straight run through the south midlands? For long distances this could really pay off with short journey times.
 
Not sure how profitable it would be, but I think it'd be awesome, if there was a main track travelling to the very tip of Scotland, to the very south of England, to the very East and the very West.

Like a giant rail-road cross. And then everything else branched of that.
 
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