Theres a great film by Ken Loach called The Navigators all about a group of track workers going through the privatisation of BR and the tragic consequences it brings.
I worked in Railtrack's PR department when that ad was made and I still cannot work out why it was made no idea who the target audience was. A waste of money. Nice shots nice music awful company.
Nobody at Railtrack gave a stuff. The adverts were still effectively paid for by.the poor saps who had to travel by train.........made them look caring and fabulous.....blowing their own trumpet and not costing them a penny really.
Ah, Railtrack. A company that were greedy and incompetent with fatal consequences . No wonder they went belly up. The words Ladbroke Grove and Hatfield spring to mind immediately.
That said in Ladbroke Grove Thames Trains not properly training Driver Michael Hodder didn't help. However Railtrack did have a role to play in Ladbroke Grove.
Welcome to the tories. They've just about gutted the country selling off everything. It's 2022, our rail infrastructure is crumbling and is laughing stock compared to Europe, yet we're paying more and more. Yet another legacy of lady Thatcher.
Yes and ironically it was Hatfield that brought Railtrack down, even though Ladbroke Grove which happened some months prior was much worse and fatal. Hatfield had a significant impact on the national rail network, such as speed restrictions. Freight operator EWS was cancelling up to 400 trains per week as a result, whilst estimates put Freightliner's resultant losses at £1 million per month. The cost to the entire UK economy of the disruption was estimated at £6 million per day. Even to this day Hatfield is pretty much on every railwayman's and boss's dilemma
Surely the creation of Railtrack (for which read let accountants run the railway) must have been one of the most disastrous policies since, er, well the Poll Tax (in fact during the parliamentary debates somebody said rail privatisation would be Poll Tax on wheels). But what's even more amazing is that people were daft enough to buy Railtrack shares! Unless they were counting on getting rid of the trains as soon as possible and building office blocks on those valuable city centre station sites.
For an extended version of this video, take a look at 'Railtrack - The Heart of the Railway'. 'Railtrack Great Western - Signalling the Way' may also be of interest.
No. BREL wouldn't have been sold to Daimler (adtranz, Bombardier). Swallow would most likely be gone by now and would have been replaced with a modern version the blue grey yellow IC livery. (blame the modern art of retro-ising everything) HST's would have been replaced by now. The IC250 would be in operation on the wcml (or a variation of it). The railways as a whole would be better off.
The Jononator we would have seen many trains. The network southeast class 168,171, 341,342,371,381,471 A new type of sprinter for rr or Scotrail and the intercity 250 project with class 93 locos and mk5 stock. We would have seen the class 88 an ac version of the class 58. And the class 48. Lots of exciting stuff planned but never came to be
I think it would be even more haphazard than it is now. Love or hate it, every single successive government from 1970's onwards starved BR of any meaningful funds, made them beg to spend their own money, cancelled development cycles, blocked ATP, removed subsidy, berated BR at every opportunity, closed services, discontinued lines, cut costs to the bone. If it had continued in public ownership today, it would be in deep trouble or be shuttered and privatised, just as it is now. We are 11 years into a government that has stripped, pared back, cancelled and destroyed public services since their inception, and dangle the carrot of 'Building Back Better' and investing in the services that they cancelled in the hope of winning continued favour from the electorate.
@X1rules1 The problems start when you privatise track maintenance and management, because a company that has shareholders to satisfy has other priorities than passenger safety. Although I have to add that safety hasn't been up to good standards during the days of BR either, resulting in many deadly accidents,Clapham Junction crash for instance. Now, Sweden's Railways, as far as I know, are far from as old and extensive as Britain's railnetwork, for that reason I think it's tricky to compare them
This is incredible! Although some of the shots here are taken directly from British Rail's Concerto Ad in 1989...this remains very respectable marketing. Anyone have any idea on the name of this music?
@Trainmaster189 No, it wasn't. And and many people agree it should come back - look up bring back british rail on fb Railtrack was re-nationalized (in all but name) in 2001 when Railtrack collapsed owing to its debt...it is now called Network Rail and is owned by the Government.
How can you look at British Rails Concerto and say shots taken directly from that into Railtracks? Most of the BR ad was filmed from a helicopter... most of Railtracks was filmed from static cameras or on trains with just a handful of aerials. Both good - but BR's wins my vote. Both music scores great too - but again BR's is classic - Railtrack's dates more to it's time. Production values are better on BR's too - much tighter editing and use of depth of field. And BR's packs more into less time.
Pfft. Railtrack was most efficient at moving money away from maintenance budgets and into the pockets of major shareholders. Such a shambles, that even New Labour felt compelled to de-privatise them (not the same thing as re-nationalising).
@hstscotsman The railways now get more government money than they did before. If anything, the government should take its hands off and let them fend for themselves like everyone else.
@hstscotsman Can't blame them can you though? Privatisation of BT, BG, Steel etc all worked really well (considering they'd become useless in the 1970s). John Major probably thought the formula would work for railways too.
no the grayrigg derailment happened in 2007 railtrack was liquidated in 2002 with all assets transfered to network rail. however their business practices did cause accidents like hatfield where badly maintained track disintergrated while a intercity train was passing over it and potters bar where a set of points fell apart while a train was going over it
"dont look at the trains"....erm you know i'd rather look at the trains than look at track thats broken or not fixed onto sleepers at all. "look at what they travel on" broken rails, "around 10,000miles of " broken rail. "look at what they travel over" broken bridges, "40,000 BROKEN bridges and viaducts......and railway is in their blood...more like the blood is on the railway. what a laugh i like ripping piss with this ad to freinds. decent ad though if it wernt for the incidents that is.
This is what you get when you put safety critical infrastructure into the hands of companies and sub-contractors of sub-contractors that couldn't give a shit about workmanship or safety, just profits for their shareholders.
I have another thing to say that British Rail wasn't that bad in the 1990's before it breaks apart. As an American, British Rail is one of my favorite railways in the world and I should say that British Rail should come back so there's no more competition in the nation's railway lines (except for High Speed 1). Does Railtrack still exist in Britain today?
@@TheDankEngineer It was the but of jokes because it was an easy target and universally known and understood. The current rail operators aren't subject to jokes because they'd take legal action in a way BR never did. Also BR developed some very good trains; the HST and the 225 are still giving good service. They also had the APT ready to go only to have the government pull the plug.
