As most of you know the running of the UK's railways- with the exception of Northern Ireland- will be taken over by a state owned body around 23/24. What are your hopes for this new way to run the railways?
Mine are: Retention of various colour schemes; not just 4 with a few variants and Fully funded to it's need.
Mostly for logical and affordable ticket prices and to get those damn ironing boards out of the trains and put actual seats in them.
It's the Tories and they've launched it with a patronising and ultimately meaningless poll on where to put the HQ so my hopes are low. The positive is that the disasters of the past 25 years might begin to be eroded, but again - it requires funding and ambition. State ownership means nothing if they're managing the system into decline (and looking at NPR and HS2 (RIP) that's a genuine worry), so I'll start believing in it when they announce proper new funding.
Only hope is they don't end up with the same mess as the rest of the government funded corporate type messes... The main problem is where they get the money from, and given how much they tax drivers I can't see them wanting any less for train users
How many here are old enough to remember British Rail (as an adult, not through the golden haze of childhood memories)? I am, and what I recall is "old, shabby, dingy and usually late." I'm not confident that BR v 2.0 would be much different.
Another Government Glamour project if you ask me. Same as NPR and HS2. Although I'm very cynical towards this government, so I may be biased. I'm more concerned for Scotland and Wales. How does GBR operate here? Do they just replace Network Rail or will Westminister use it to wrestle back parts of the devolved power over Transportation. Will the progress that the ScotRail Alliance and Transport for Wales have made be claimed by GBR? Or will GBR's only services in the two countries be InterCity or Cross-Border services? That's provided it does anything, considering it's basically just "we don't like giving out contracts, so we're now running the trains... with private companies operating them." I don't want to be political (though as ARuscoe says, it's hard not to with nationalised industries) but i wouldn't ever trust a Tory government to nationalise anything right, nevermind this one led by Boris.
Also br performed best with Chris green. We simply need someone like him to be transport Secretary. Moreover, it would help of the government left rail alone.
The best solution would have been to spin off the BR regions, complete with trackage and infrastructure, and BR Railfreight, as completely independent publicly-traded joint-stock companies: reconstitute the Big Four era, as it were. The existing private-public hybrid, neither fish nor flesh, was a 'compromise' which satisfies no-one, least of all the riding public.
Holyrood (the Scottish parliament for those who don't know) have said GBR won't be in Scotland (apart from Cross-Border trains excluding Caledonian Sleeper because it's a Scottish franchise) because it completely undermines devolution. "The Scottish Government cannot make laws in reserved areas and there has been a convention that the UK Parliament will not legislate in devolved areas without the consent of Holyrood." (quote from here) the parts I've highlighted are what Holyrood is using to stop GBR and keep ScotRail. I don't know as much about how the Welsh are dealing with GBR but the rules on devolution are the same. I can't really explain this without bring politics up but I have tried to be as neutral as possible and avoiding my own personal opinion.
I believe Network Rail will stay as it currently is, iirc the "Williams-Shapps plan for rail" has stated that the rail infrastructure and train operating company's should be left seperate. It has been said that the infrastructure should never become privately owned after the failing of Railtrack.
Well that's a relief then. Considering the contempt currently shown towards the National (Devolved) governments by the UK Gov't it's good to see Holyrood saying no to London.
As someone who isn't from the UK, and won't have the (dis?)pleasure of riding trains there, I'm mostly interested in what liveries the trains will have. Also, what effect it will have on content in TSW in the coming years.
Not sure how this would be "the best solution". I don't know any railway in the world that runs properly on a large scale without funding from government, so to completely detach would mean huge cuts to services that are in any way loss making (ie most of them) or huge price hikes on the main lines to fund the loss making feeders. Sounds like Dr Beeching all over again From what I know the only system in the UK to even break even is LUL, and that's not including the Overground which still needs subsidies
Being not too well versed in the technical side, I just hope they have variation in livery between the different routes. It’d be grand if they could work out some deals to let passenger contractors still control the design and naming of the different franchises. Then again, without getting too much into politics, given the controversy surrounding Boris Johnson, it’s hard to say whether the Conservatives will remain in power long enough for the plan to go through.
All the trains are going to be the same livery because it's "confusing" having multiple different livery's. I think trains should be different livery's even only slightly as this looks better and is easier for people to find the right train, for example ScotRail is blue where LNER is white which makes it so easy to be ably to tell people (in Edinburgh as an example) the white one goes to London the Blue one runs in Scotland, it helps my mum get the right train without having to text me all the time.
Costs much less to have trains all in the same livery. The major cost of a new franchise is changing all the colours, posters etc from the old provider. Millions of pounds wasted changing the seats from one green to a slightly different green...
Page 14 of the Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail the bit I've highlighted has been said by many rail professionals to mean that there will only be one livery, can't find exact quotes because I don't know how to use Twitter properly but it has been said. Another thing from page 33
On the flip side, it avoids the old BR attitude, which was "leave the old stuff for years or decades without refurbishment." Paint and upholstery have to be renewed on a regular basis, whether it's the same color as before or not. That is, unless for nostalgia's sake you find "dirty and threadbare" was part of 1970s charm.
Just thinking here - what happens with MerseyRail? Will it continue as usual under Merseytravel or will London integrate it? It's kinda halfway between ScotRail/TfW and the rest of them.
There was very little charming about the UK in the Seventies unless you lived in a particular subset of society... Almost everyone else was fairly miserable But I believe that the rules and regulations would now say that certain things would need to be done to make things safe, if not comfortable
The Logo is Hecking Awful https://trademarks.ipo.gov.uk/ipo-tmowner/page/search?id=1122140&domain=1&app=0&mark=UK00003742053
What people forget about BR, and why they were such a bad experience for passengers, is that for at least half their existence they were being underfunded either through preferring road infrastructure or deliberate managed decline. As mentioned above, there was no need for it to be as bad as it was in the mid/late 80s, and to avoid that repeating it just needs to be well funded. Spend what they spend on the roads and that will be a nice start.
I hope that GBR will operate as its own company and that the government will not have too much control over it.
Surely youd think they would bring back the old logo and stuff for nostalgia right? It would actually drive up excitement and memories, but no it's just the logo but with a bunch of LOVE stuck onto it and the word 'great', are they trying to jinx it?
They've overlaid the Union Jack onto it, probably trying to make it a nationalist or "more British" thing... fails spectacularly of course, but someone obviously thought "How do we make sure people know this is about Britain?"
True, but then countries have flags, anthems etc etc. I'm sure the PEOPLE don't care much, but the people "running the country" seem to care
One thing I was hoping for, but not overly confident of because of the name they chose, was that the union jack would be kept out of the logo. It makes the railway look like a tacky holiday souvenir. Anyone with half an eye on UK politics over the last decade could have easily predicted the name “Great British Railways’ and a logo that incorporated the flag. I’m afraid it was all too predictable. Having said that I think the way they have combined the old BR logo and the patriotic battle rag in the design is quite clever.
As a non-Brit who doesn't have a vested interest in British politics and no axe to grind, looking at it from a design perspective I think the logo is predictable, but okay. I think the Union Jack is a great design as such, and since the original BR "double arrow" already harkens to that shape IMO (surely not a coincidence?). And I think it makes sense to use national colors on the design for a national service. To be fair, the Network Southeast in your avatar already used those "patriotic" colors though, and that was back in the late 80s I think?
