A return to a single railway

Moving on to RAIL 823’s Open Access letter from A J Slatter, who says he doubts if anybody sensible would wish to go back to the dark days of the 1970s and 1980s, except for left-wing members of the Labour Party and the railway unions.

I willingly confess I would. I’m a Heathite Tory, far from left-wing, and think the railway unions are dinosaurs. But I recognise the huge progress that British Rail made throughout its last decades, ending up with a commercial InterCity Sector that offered us many things today’s railways do not.

Remember spacious Mk 2 and Mk 3 seating, many trains offering full meals to both classes, and the ‘InterCity Shuttle’ whereby there was always a train in the platform with the buffet open for service as people joined?

Ditto, Network SouthEast offered quality services consistently.

And yes, a few operators today emulate BR’s late standards, but we can but guess how superb BR would have been 22 years on, had it remained.

Don’t forget privatisation gave us Connex, Thames Trains and (more recently) Govia Thameslink and Arriva CrossCountry. Industry Insider reminded us in the same issue how excellent rolling stock once was in Kent - seats aligned with windows on trains with buffet cars and proper First Class seating.

I have never wanted nationalisation, but BR was a corporation like the BBC, run by professionals without Government interference. How much we have lost since those days, with civil servants now in charge of the ever-pointless franchises.

It’s today’s railway which is effectively nationalised. I want a single, verticallyintegrated British Rail plc.