Thatcher Survives-So Does British Rail
- Thread starter SadSprinter
- Start date
Maybe I missed it, but are you really sure about 155mph on the ECML? Speeds above 125mph have been prohibited ever since Intercity started toying with above 125mph speeds with the IC225; the speed is simply too fast for drivers to be reliably able to follow track side signals as shown by Shinkansen trials and experiences; this means that the entire ECML needs resignalling to enable in-cab signals for the IC250 top speed? Also York station and south-of-Newcastle are considerable bottlenecks - York is basically a mandatory stop, even for expresses, due to track geometry unless you build a bypass line, and south-of-Newcastle is a bendy double-track only unless you've reactivated the Leamside Line?
Enjoying the story though
Sorry I should have made that part clearer- I assumed that what would happen would the same upgrade to upgrade the West Coast to 155mph will be given to the East Coast-which if they really wanted to would be easier to do so in theory anyway because the ECML is much straighter. I thought this would be done in the early 2000s, not anytime soon, so plenty of time for it to be cancelled-lol. BR wanted Intercity 250 to be a design for replacing the 125s and 225s so in this timeline where the optimism and dynamism of British Rail in the 80s dosen't completely die a death, I thought this could be a plausible outcome.
In OTL, BR really wanted to do something about Cross Country, but using MK3s on Birmingham and Norwich services would stretch the amount of MK3s and DVTs avaliable, so it could have been possible Intercity had purchased more class 93s for the ECML to split the 225 fleet between the two lines.
Why didn't they just order more class 93's for the Birmingham services? I thought they would get more bang for their buck speeding up the ECML than using high performance trains on routes that would require medium performace (in comparison) trains. E.g the 225s.
Very interesting update.
Somehow I cannot see Maggie walking over leaving the EU like this- unless Dennis, and age where a factor. Rifkind obviously caught her at a ‘low’ point with little fight left. Parkinson is going to be hurt by this too- I guess he’d lose his cabinet job and/or seat.
Somehow I cannot see Maggie walking over leaving the EU like this- unless Dennis, and age where a factor. Rifkind obviously caught her at a ‘low’ point with little fight left. Parkinson is going to be hurt by this too- I guess he’d lose his cabinet job and/or seat.
I think by the 90s, Maggie was older, more irritable and had next to no time at all for the EU. I did some research on her European attitudes at the time and one Tory MP claimed in the 90s Maggie decided it was time we left the EU then. I don't think she'd care much more for the job of PM after '92 or even after '90. Wouldn't be surprised if the added stress would cause health issues for her if she was PM till '93 in real life.
Anyway, long live Portillo!
BR was already planning timetables for Channel Tunnel services. InterCity was looking to plug into the wider-European network.
I think that BR would want a direct Channel Tunnel Rail Link. As to whether it would still eventually go to St. Pancras would depend on what sort of finance is available in TTL.
EDIT: Have checked and St. Pancras was identified as the terminal by 1994.
I don’t think so, a lot of the “what ifs” for the Channel Tunnel date back from before privatisation in our timeline so what we know for sure in our timeline could have happened, would be the limit of what would happen in this timeline.
However Michael Portillo as Prime Minster raises a lot of questions because we need to know his attitude and support in his own party. That is something I’m currently working out myself which is why the next post is taking so long. As far as I can tell the CTRL was dogged in politics which in turn affected Thamesljnk, so the next post will be a tricky one.
Then of course there is Crossrail, narrowly defeated in a select committee...apprently in OTL Portillo wasn’t impressed with Crossrail and wanted it to fail, so not great when he’s currently the PM.
Going back to HS1, As far as my research goes, Waterloo was off the cards as long ago as 1989. It was an underground cavern at kings cross that was the biggest contender.
Fletch
Kicked
This just isn't going to happen though. The Government only signed up to the ERM in the latter days of Thatchers Premiership. Withdrawing after entering would have been rightly seen as a national humiliation. She would also need the support of the Cabinet for withdrawal in the weaker post-election position she would be in. As such, Britain could not withdraw under Thatcher, even if she wanted to. As such, you cannot handwave away Black Wednesday. It would be happening in ttl.
So even if she somehow survives the leadership crisis. Survives millions of people protesting against her and a mass complain of non-compliance against Poll-Tax payment and wins even the most seats in a hung Parliament, which of itself was bad and given her approval ratings were through the floor. Combine this with discontent which would be raised by her staying on under such circumstances and losing what was a hefty majority, you would have one of two outcomes. Both of which are grim for her.
- The first is she is forced out as soon as Black Wednesday happens.
- The second is she destroys the Tory Party in a defeat worse that 1997 OTL. I wouldn't be surprised if the Lib Dems come close to catching the Tories in such a scenario(th more divisive she is, the more tactical voting against the Tories. This would be more true than iotl 1992, but by 1997 it would be at fever pitch).
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Black Wednesday would not happen because-
-Thatcher wins her leadership election and comes back with a vengeance. Brushing so close with death she makes sure to solidify her power and thus the 1991 cabinet reshuffle would be a chance to surround herself around many “dries” as possible.
-In OTL, Thatcher begged Major to lower interest rates in 1991. She was incredibly concerned about the state of the economy and would not have let ERM membership harm the British economy (especially with her low approval ratings)
-The fact that she goes against Brussels and keeps interest rates low which calms the economy, assumes that the Germans would get cold feet about the ERM and the Euro and it’s her election pledge in 1992 for an orderly exit from the ERM. Remember the Tories were clever in how they presented her attack on Maastricht and made her look like the Falklands era “Iron Lady” once more, and her backing of the Intercity 250 train project won her votes along the North West corridor, while Labour’s campaign was mainly is assumed to be drowned out from the fire and fury of Thatcher-so to speak.
Fletch
Kicked
If you want a Thatcher-wank, just be upfront about it.
Yes, she called for many things after she had resigned, but these were without and outside the confines of both being Prime Minister and Cabinet Government. She was not Queen-Empress.
I'm sorry but the leader of an openly divided party, where the country is calling for her head(see the Poll Tax riots, a policy she was angry at John Major abolishing), who has narrowly secured her leadership. You have her retaining said policy(which polled nationally at around 4% approval), somehow engineer to do the biggest U-Turn on Europe since we decided to send the small boats to Dunkirk and win the election. You would need a major event for her to be able to get Cabinet approval for exiting the ERM. Short of Black Wednesday happening, you don't have it.
Has she through some miracle held on to 1992, somehow gained a plurality of the seats, that timebomb would have been waiting. Even if she privately had doubts, it was not in her gift to change policy without the Chancellor and possibly Foreign Secretary resigning triggering another Leadership Election which she surely would have lost.
It's your timeline, so just go with it but Thatcher pledging to leave the ERM is nonsense.
You think after a decade in office, she never had the Cabinet she desired? Who do you propose? Peter Tapsell? Winston Churchill Jr. or Teddy Taylor? You would think after narrowly retaining the leadership which you could have lost, you would attempt to calm the waters before any drastic actions?
Britain only signed up for the ERM in October 1990. You honestly think the woman famous for being dogged in maintaining policy positions to the extent of holding steady in the early eighties whilst unemployment in the UK went through the roof as a direct result of the changes she was bringing in would do the biggest flip-flop in the matter of months? This is patently absurd. Especially as she would risk further Cabinet resignations she just could not afford. That you are refusing to accept the fact that had she won, she would be wounded is at the heart of this I think.
Yes, she called for many things after she had resigned, but these were without and outside the confines of both being Prime Minister and Cabinet Government. She was not Queen-Empress.
Which is so much rubbish considering the UK only joined 19 months earlier.
I'm sorry but the leader of an openly divided party, where the country is calling for her head(see the Poll Tax riots, a policy she was angry at John Major abolishing), who has narrowly secured her leadership. You have her retaining said policy(which polled nationally at around 4% approval), somehow engineer to do the biggest U-Turn on Europe since we decided to send the small boats to Dunkirk and win the election. You would need a major event for her to be able to get Cabinet approval for exiting the ERM. Short of Black Wednesday happening, you don't have it.
Has she through some miracle held on to 1992, somehow gained a plurality of the seats, that timebomb would have been waiting. Even if she privately had doubts, it was not in her gift to change policy without the Chancellor and possibly Foreign Secretary resigning triggering another Leadership Election which she surely would have lost.
It's your timeline, so just go with it but Thatcher pledging to leave the ERM is nonsense.
Fletch
Kicked
I didn't say it isn't.
I was just saying that I very much doubt it could happen and explaining why. Sorry if I came across as a bit of a dick, it wasn't intended. At the end of the day, so long as you are happy with it, that is the important thing. I would add that there are a number of works of AH which are questionable if you look to much into the history but are fantastic reads such as Fatherland.
As long as you are enjoying it, that is the main thing.
Carry on!
Devvy
Donor
To strike a middle tone; people will always see problems in your timelines (often rightly!), and give feedback.
Take it and embrace it unless it’s mean, and carry on writing if you enjoy it.
Yes there are parts I find implausible here too, but I still enjoy the overall timeline and reading your ideas.
Take it and embrace it unless it’s mean, and carry on writing if you enjoy it.
Yes there are parts I find implausible here too, but I still enjoy the overall timeline and reading your ideas.
March 1993- Slow Progress for BR
Here’s just a quick update on what’s happening with BR so far, before we get into the drama of Portillo’s premiership.
March 1993
The first of the brand new Class 471 Main Line Networker units eased into the station on the 10th March. 13 minutes late due to a broken down train at Herne Hill. 471 001 and 472 002 coupled together, were the first units to be handed over to Network South East at Hither Green, and had operated a press run from Ramsgate to London Victoria. The train carried Thanet and Medway MPs, NSE and BR personnel and Secretary of State for transport John McGregor. A large press team was also waiting at the station, including dozens of Network South East staff to greet the new train and its passengers. At Ramsgate that morning, a bottle of champagne was popped open as a red curtain was unveiled revealing the name “City of Canterbury” for 471-001. While sister unit 471-002 was named “Duke of Kent”.
The 471s design was reminiscent to the class 158 “Express Sprinter” units; what with the narrowing bottom half of the cab front, the horizontal headlights and the gangway door to connect between units. It was striking in its design, but not popular with its passengers and was condemned by one Kent MP as “creepy”.
Nevertheless, when the passengers decanted, Chris Green took a walk through the two new units, grinning, this train was practically here because of his work. He sat in one of the awkward first class compartments, that had huge executive style first class seats with the three slanted red grey and blue polygons of Network South East proudly adorned the headrests. A last minute feature was the addition of a single power socket in the first class compartment, which the BR design team thought a City commuter may want a facility to charge his mobile phone. A morning newspaper was left next to him, and the newly polished vinyl smell still clung to the train. He later wrote in a letter to Sir Bob Ried-“the boys at York did a great job.” Although he couldn’t help lament the floor plates, by the train’s doors, now read “ABB Transportation”, not “BREL.” The 471 units would enter squadron service that autumn, while the sister class 381 Universal Networkers would enter service early next year, replacing slam door stock on semi fast services and working in tandem with the 471s on express routes. Being built at York, the 471s had the same DC Brush traction motors the original class 465/1 Kent Link Networkers had, albeit a specifically redesigned package for reaching 100 mph top speeds. 471-003 was to be delivered the next week, but NSE management were impatient-their next project would be the design of the 371 “Express Networker” designed for the long distance Thameslink route, the future of which was still uncertain. After the press run, 471-001 and 417-002 backed into Grovesnor Carriage sidings, waiting to complete final testing before their first passenger earning runs.
200 miles north of London Victoria station, at GEC’s Preston works, the traction packages and cooling equipment for the Class 93 high speed electric locomotives were being painstakingly put together. It was a political decision, to give the Intercity 250 contract to GEC, to avoid the closure of the under utilised Preston works after the contentious 1992 election the previous year. The body shell of 93 001, the fastest train ever built in Britain, was complete, and sat in its works at Crewe on the shop floor in awaiting its final assembly, before being put on high speed trials up and down the East Coast Mainline.
Still Intercity 250 wasn’t going to be any gain without pain. As had happened a few years earlier in 1991, many West Coast Mainline Intercity services were diverted into nearby London St Pancras in order to allow the Trent Valley Line and the London to Rugby section to be straightened out for 155 mph running. A new depot at Willesden was to be open by the end of the year to take the first trains stabled there, although official Intercity plans was that any early IC250 stock would be maintained at either Crewe or Bounds Green in the interim. Efforts to sell the technology abroad proved to be unsuccessful for British Rail. The American operator Amtrak was in BR’s sights to sell IC250 as a design for the new generation of high speed trains for the Northeast Corridor which, like the West Coast Mainline, would be an old Victorian railway upgraded to high speed standards. However, without a working train BR couldn’t drum the interest it needed, but that will all change in 12 months time.
March 1993
The first of the brand new Class 471 Main Line Networker units eased into the station on the 10th March. 13 minutes late due to a broken down train at Herne Hill. 471 001 and 472 002 coupled together, were the first units to be handed over to Network South East at Hither Green, and had operated a press run from Ramsgate to London Victoria. The train carried Thanet and Medway MPs, NSE and BR personnel and Secretary of State for transport John McGregor. A large press team was also waiting at the station, including dozens of Network South East staff to greet the new train and its passengers. At Ramsgate that morning, a bottle of champagne was popped open as a red curtain was unveiled revealing the name “City of Canterbury” for 471-001. While sister unit 471-002 was named “Duke of Kent”.
The 471s design was reminiscent to the class 158 “Express Sprinter” units; what with the narrowing bottom half of the cab front, the horizontal headlights and the gangway door to connect between units. It was striking in its design, but not popular with its passengers and was condemned by one Kent MP as “creepy”.
Nevertheless, when the passengers decanted, Chris Green took a walk through the two new units, grinning, this train was practically here because of his work. He sat in one of the awkward first class compartments, that had huge executive style first class seats with the three slanted red grey and blue polygons of Network South East proudly adorned the headrests. A last minute feature was the addition of a single power socket in the first class compartment, which the BR design team thought a City commuter may want a facility to charge his mobile phone. A morning newspaper was left next to him, and the newly polished vinyl smell still clung to the train. He later wrote in a letter to Sir Bob Ried-“the boys at York did a great job.” Although he couldn’t help lament the floor plates, by the train’s doors, now read “ABB Transportation”, not “BREL.” The 471 units would enter squadron service that autumn, while the sister class 381 Universal Networkers would enter service early next year, replacing slam door stock on semi fast services and working in tandem with the 471s on express routes. Being built at York, the 471s had the same DC Brush traction motors the original class 465/1 Kent Link Networkers had, albeit a specifically redesigned package for reaching 100 mph top speeds. 471-003 was to be delivered the next week, but NSE management were impatient-their next project would be the design of the 371 “Express Networker” designed for the long distance Thameslink route, the future of which was still uncertain. After the press run, 471-001 and 417-002 backed into Grovesnor Carriage sidings, waiting to complete final testing before their first passenger earning runs.
200 miles north of London Victoria station, at GEC’s Preston works, the traction packages and cooling equipment for the Class 93 high speed electric locomotives were being painstakingly put together. It was a political decision, to give the Intercity 250 contract to GEC, to avoid the closure of the under utilised Preston works after the contentious 1992 election the previous year. The body shell of 93 001, the fastest train ever built in Britain, was complete, and sat in its works at Crewe on the shop floor in awaiting its final assembly, before being put on high speed trials up and down the East Coast Mainline.
Still Intercity 250 wasn’t going to be any gain without pain. As had happened a few years earlier in 1991, many West Coast Mainline Intercity services were diverted into nearby London St Pancras in order to allow the Trent Valley Line and the London to Rugby section to be straightened out for 155 mph running. A new depot at Willesden was to be open by the end of the year to take the first trains stabled there, although official Intercity plans was that any early IC250 stock would be maintained at either Crewe or Bounds Green in the interim. Efforts to sell the technology abroad proved to be unsuccessful for British Rail. The American operator Amtrak was in BR’s sights to sell IC250 as a design for the new generation of high speed trains for the Northeast Corridor which, like the West Coast Mainline, would be an old Victorian railway upgraded to high speed standards. However, without a working train BR couldn’t drum the interest it needed, but that will all change in 12 months time.
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Don’t forget to add The Man in the High Castle to that list!
Yes some parts are implausible, I don’t think BR would buy Class 93s for the ECML before the mouldings for the original batch are even made, so I think I’ll revise that. But thank you, there’s a lot more to come
If the Tories lose the next election, will he have a "Portillo moment"?
Will Portillo have a ‘Battletrain’ instead of a ‘Battlebus’ ITTL. And will it breakdown at Doncaster like in an ATL on this site.
Well part of the reason for the Portillo Moment was general apathy for the Tories in OTL. However the reasons that irritated Enfield so much they’d dethrone their own MP such as the bad state of the economy in the early 90s and the constant infighting over Europe wouldn’t exist as much as in my timeline. So it’s possible, with their own MP as PM that Enfield would keep Portillo.
However I don’t think it’s going to go well for him somehow, judging by his experiences in OTL, but that’s for the next post...
However I don’t think it’s going to go well for him somehow, judging by his experiences in OTL, but that’s for the next post...
Part 5: 1993 Independent Article- Blukhead Revisited
Bulkhead Revisited-The Ongoing Channel Tunnel Rail Link Saga
The Channel Tunnel Rail Link, the largest infrastructure project since the Second World War, has crept a step further from reality this morning after plans for the construction of the high-speed rail route to the Channel Tunnel have been shelved, the Independent has learned.
British Rail’s original route, that would take the line through South London to a subterranean station at Kings Cross was rejected last year owing to the route passing through numerous marginal seats. However, British Rail has announced that as of yet, no real alternative to the route has been given and as far as it knows, the only plan it has is one that has been rejected.
However sources in British Rail and from the Transport Secretary-John McGregor confirm the CTRL route is being revised to facilitate a better connection to the soon to be upgraded West Coast Mainline. Allowing direct high speed trains from Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow to Europe. In Parliament this morning, McGregor stated-“the project is going ahead, British Rail knows the project is going ahead, the French know the project is going ahead, but we’re waiting on planners to find the best route to take trains to the North of England and onto Scotland.”
However, sources in the Treasury blame the stall in the CTRL on British Rail for underestimating cost forecasts for the under construction Intercity 250 upgrade on the West Coast Mainline, designed to upgrade the London to Scotland route to take faster trains up to 155 mph, will need a further £150,000 worth of public funds to complete the project. Draining any spare funds from completing the CTRL.
HAS THE PROJECT REACHED ITS PORTILOO?
The Channel Tunnel Rail Link Could also be the first casualty from the fallout of this January’s Conservative Leadership election. The Independent learns that the newly appointed Prime Minister-Michael Portillo is obstructing the project being built with public funds, in accordance to the legal text set out in the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Act 1987 passed under his predesscor-Margret Thatcher, making it unlawful to find the project with taxpayers money. Former Enviroment Secretary and defacto opponent to the Thatcherite wing of the party-Michael Heseltine stated “it just shows the country deserves more than the tired, old thinking of my party”, fuelling speculations that Heseltine may be contemplating a Conservative breakaway party or an internal centrist movement within the party, after the onslaught of this years Tory leadership competition-described as the “bloodiest in recent history” by Cecil Parkinson.
The Network South East Kent Coast sub-sector managing director shed a more positive tone on the CTRL delay, stating “the delay to the CTRL is undoubtedly disappointing, but passengers will see journey improvements from this year with newer, faster and more comfortable trains running to the Kent towns.”
With the new Prime Minister in a precarious position in his own government, public funds being diverted to British Rail’s pet Intercity 250 project and no consensus or will in finalising it’s routing, it seems the Channel Tunnel Rail Link will remain a pipe dream for some time.