The Train Now Standing ...

Earlier this week, I watched a video about the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Great Western Railway.  Filming took place in 1985, just a week before the closure was announced of its great engineering works at Swindon.  All that remains of that today is a network of streets of uniform houses, purpose-built in the 1830-'40s to accommodate the great numbers it had employed.

The presentation included many stories of whole generations whose lives had depended upon and benefited from the success of what many referred to as 'God's Wonderful Railway'.  Sons had joined fathers, just as years later their sons would join them, among the thousands in its workforce.  There were many who had been born in those houses, and had grown up there with no thought other than of following father and grandfather into the engineering shops.

It was said that, despite nationalisation in 1948, the camaraderie & esprit de corps was possibly stronger in 1985 than at the centenary 50 years earlier.  Tales were proudly told of annual outings and free passes for staff, of a workforce that was appreciated and therefore willing to serve.

In the middle of my home county, Norfolk, lies the village of Melton Constable.  In 2011 it had a population of just 618 but a century earlier the number was almost twice that size when it was the centre of the sprawling Midland & Great Northern Railway.  With its four arms reaching north, south, east and west from this complex junction, the M&GN was but one element of a comprehensive network of lines that covered East Anglia from the Wash to the Orwell, and from the east coast to the fens and beyond.

Its demise immediately conjures up the smiling moustachioed image of Dr. Beeching, whose report in the early 1960s led to the closure of half the nation's network.  But in the case of the M&GN the axe preceded this notorious blow to our public transport system, for virtually all of this proud network was closed in March 1959.  A steep decline had begun at the Melton works when the London & North Eastern Railway took it over in 1936 and transferred a lot of work to Doncaster and Stratford.

As at Swindon in the late 1980s, the age of corporate loyalty and service, of 'jobs for life' had gone for ever.

Towards the end of the twentieth century, it was decided to unpick nationalisation, and franchisees were sought to run segments of the railway system.  Could privatisation re-create that atmosphere of a past age?  I think the clue to the answer is in the question.  It was a past age.  Much had been lost in that particular 50-year span.  Technology in all its forms had moved on at a faster pace than ever before, and many who are of an age to remember the immediate post-war years now realise that the life of the 1990s - let alone the present day - was beyond anything they could have imagined in their youth. 

During that interval, as well as a decline in demand caused by a change in industrial and engineering patterns and the increase of road transport both for business and leisure, there had been a dramatic lack of investment in the whole organisation behind that proud lion-and-wheel BR symbol.  In many ways it was allowed to drift forward into the diesel and electric age in just the same way that it had drifted out of steam-power.

Like so much in life, the ever-present trains had become something to take for granted and in great measure no envious thought was given to what had already been lost in the 'sixties, 'seventies and 'eighties.  No one, it seems, had given a thought to the possibility that the falling away of demand had led to reduced earnings, and a lower than necessary level of maintenance.  The system was on its knees by the time private companies were invited to take it on, with all the attendant extra expense of corporate organisation, dividends to shareholders and the level of executive salaries to those running them.

Fast forward a couple of decades and more, and the situation is worse rather than better.  Fares have been pushed up as much as the franchisees can get away with, but even so, there's not enough income to meet the true cost of running the railways.  Yes, there are plush new stations and (more franchises) attractive catering booths at the bigger stations, but many of the smaller ones have become unmanned halts of the very simplest of designs, with nowhere to buy a ticket and no security whatsoever.  

These facilities would require a greater workforce but, as we're seeing at the present time, the workforce they do have are not being paid all that they feel entitled to, given the present increases in living costs and rising inflation.  With their financial hands tied, and a government unable or unwilling - or both - to inject further support, the management are unable to play a realistic part in negotiations to achieve the modernisation that they see is vital to the continued development of the service.

And so, when plans are made to make a certain journey in the coming months, when it would be good to 'Let the train take the strain', my first thought - and that of thousands of other potential passengers - is to the car, and the already clogged motorways.