British Rail: A New History

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Certainly not the one engineered by George Stephenson – one of the first was laid down at Wollaton, near Nottingham, open by 1610, long before Stephenson's birth in 1781. Having some awareness of UK history and politics alongside a hint of business acumen is a major benefit when reading through. This history lesson is complemented by two picture sections that show the evolution of logos, national marketing, and staff uniforms. What could have been a very dry subject was detailed in a manner which kept me interested in the main.

The rushed sell-off that ensued dismantled an organisation that had, after half a century of existence, created a workable structure that had delivered a much improved service. If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. Some of the best parts of his book come in the sidelights, as when he describes the special trains laid on for hop pickers (along with the unfortunate consequences), or when he explains the use of slip coaches – carriages detached from a rake at speed and allowed to drift into a station under their own momentum, letting the rest of the train proceed without stopping. At the same time Wolmar notes that even with nationalisation the privatisation era fiefdoms of individual area managers were allowed to live on which hobbled many attempts at reform.It goes a long way to dispel the popular image of British Rail in politics and the media as a bloated state run agency, providing poor service and value for money. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Its awkward name – part throwback to BR, part patriotic boosterism in the Boris Johnson mould, part aspiration – speaks to the uncertainty facing Britain’s railways. Important events like the 1923 Amalgamation, when the majority of railway businesses joined the GWR, LMSR, or LNER, as well as nationalization and privatization, are placed in their historical perspective.

Today, 25 years after the privatisation, the Conservative government has quietly conceded that privatisation was a failed and damaging move and the Johnson government proposed what is effectively re-nationalisation for parts of the network. For two decades after the war, BR persisted with expensive, polluting and labour-intensive steam locomotives, not wishing to go to war with the trade unions in either the rail or coal sectors. Whichever one, his videos of passing locomotives (or more often of himself, with the odd snort of a diesel engine in the background) have garnered tens of millions of views. I was hoping for character studies of the major players, the political and financial machinations, the feuds but Maggs has stuck to chronicling it seems every construction and evolution.I expecting a very different book from what is undoubtedly a comprehensive history of the construction, engineering and major events in the Railway. Much of the first part of the book is centered around the events surrounding the two major plans for British Railways: the Modernization Plan and the Reshaping of British Railways. Although it praises the changes made over the years, the author points out where they have fallen short. Pivotal moments including the Amalgamation of 1923 when most railway companies became part of the GWR, LMSR, or LNER, nationalization and privatization are set in their historical context.

T wo years ago, Mick Lynch, a red-in-tooth-and-crankshaft trade unionist, might have seemed the last of a dying breed. Despite the flawed “Modernization Plan,” which had undermined confidence in railway management and its abilities to deliver a modern railway, management faced an ongoing struggle against a growing deficit through rising staff costs as well as increasing competition from cars and lorries.His successor, Robert Reid, had a direct line to the secretary of state for transport, with whom he went shooting, and was on first-name terms with Denis Thatcher. The pandemic decimated passenger numbers and revenue, while the one blue-riband project, High Speed Two, has become a political plaything, its route being sliced and diced according to the exigencies of Parliamentary arithmetic on any given day. Furthermore, if those who decide the allocations of the real and unreal are cruel, mad or colossally wrong, what then?

As Wolmar notes that the railways recovered owes much to the deviousness and scheming of railway managers who were not beyond pulling a fast one while the Treasury was distracted, the story of the West Coast electrification programme (which essentially turned around British Rails fortunes) being a case in point. One of the greatest railway historians in the nation, Colin Maggs, covers more than 400 years of British railroad history in this book. The rise and fall of the state-owned British Rail, from "the greatest expert on British trains" Christian WolmarYou think you know British Rail. I started to become aware of news events and politics around John Major's Tory government as the various franchises took over the running of the railway, so it was interesting to read the whole history that led to that decision. Some of these proved effective, but the surplus was never enough to pay for the loss-making parts of BR’s business.Finance is provided by PayPal Credit (a trading name of PayPal UK Ltd, Whittaker House, Whittaker Avenue, Richmond-Upon-Thames, Surrey, United Kingdom, TW9 1EH).