The Tragic Fall of Britain's Once Great Railways
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ก.ย. 2024
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The Rise and Fall of Britain's Railways
In this video today I look back at the history of train travel in Britian. From the early days of steam and iron, to the Beeching cuts of the 1960s, to the compeition of the car and moterway.
Often I am left with either crazily expenzie train tickets, trains that don't turn up and are replaced by busses, or train that are so full you spend an hour cramped together like at a concert.
With the push towards ditching our diesel vehicles, you would think that the trains should be made a luxury, an experience that is far better than fueling up your car and hitting the roads...but it's not. It is still cheaper to drive.
There are many reasons for our defunct and neglected trains and railways, and I try to cover as many as I can as I visit a range of locations all affected by the downfall of train travel in the last 100 years.
Also, do let me know your thoughts on the new governments promsise to re nationilise the trains. Is it a good thing? Or is it just pub talk?
#trains #railways #broken #britian #railway #transport
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Can't you see the Hippocracy of your sponsor for them to give you 5% Because of how expensive train tickets are surely they must Be making a lot of money from it as well Otherwise they wouldn't be a Company.
The only way to get cheap tickets these days seems to be to book well in advance.
I hope its better than trainline
England is spending too much money on other countries when it is so poor An eye watering amount is being given to countries to fight wars Why? They should be trying to broker a peace deal and getting wealthy countries to negotiate with the world's war lords
This is 21st century britain for you! Overpriced and no value at all!
You can add - no vision, no real plan for the future, no visionary politicians, no creative spark anymore, no engineering prowess, no manufacturing base etc. Very sad that we threw all these things away.....and for what??
No different to other developed countries.
I beg to differ @@stevo728822
@@robtyman4281globalisation, apparently.
Good hairdo.👌
Almost Beatles Let it Be era
It's heading for Edd China territory.
And Johnny Bravo 😀
It suits him way better like this rather than short/shaved 👍
😂😂 All this great info and it's all about the hair! But you're right, great hair! 💈🧒
You have to be very carefull booking trains on the web, I just tried Nottingham to Oban on 1st november using nationalrail and it was £141.60 .. Tried thetrainline and it said there were no trains on the 1st but there were on the 2nd for £71.99. I tried mytrainpal and it was £65.30 but the strange thing was is that it was a 7 minute earlier train from a different nottingham platform but arrived at the same time as the £141.60 train. The whole system is rigged to rip you off, and this needs to stop so people can trust them again.
I also found Trainline to be misleading. Not everyone has a readily accessible station but I always buy my tickets at Swansea station and the staff will go out of their way to find the best and cheapest route.
Is "mytrainpal" different to "TrainPal"?
I used to love travelling by train - I still could if they had comfortable, soft seats - but due to injury, I can't physically tolerate the ironing board seats. There must be thousands of other people in the same situation. Obviously no thought for 'inclusion'. Old train carriages were like living rooms. I'm so glad that I experienced them. Windows you could open, heaters you could control, pictures, sofas to sit on, reading lights... Modern trains are vile, uncomfortable, soulless tubes.
yeah & covered in decades of old ash smoke with cigarette butts all over the place. On top of the the trains stank like an NCP car park stairwell. British Railways where Shit.
@@simonamos5426Yep, litter everywhere and stank of pish and puke.
@@simonamos5426 were*
And the constant repetitive mind numbing tortuous tannoy announcements..
What a miserable lot you are 😢
I constantly shrug my shoulders in disbelief of how much the British have sold out on everything and destroyed their economy and public services due to failed austerity yet still continue to think more of the same is the solution
1980s Thatcher sold everything! Lots of us knew it was wrong!
But it was a very greedy time, and now we pay for it.
You mean the politicians, same in every country, I don't trust any of them they all act out of self interest.
It's the fault of successive governments who just come in and sell off the nations assets to make a quick few quid. Thatcher was the worst, then Major who sold off the railways. Even Thatcher knew selling the railways was a bad idea. She sold off everything but.
You shall own nothing and be happy so keep on being a sub 😮😮😮
I was watching some old news shows which was before the beeching act had bee announced and it was complaining that a lot of branch lines time tables had been changed so that they no longer lined up with mainline trains. There was a quite large campaign before the beeching act to just have the timetables line up again. But if they did that a lot of beechings cuts wouldn't make sense, as ridership would be higher. Although to be fair a lot of his cuts already made no sense at all. Cutting off the centre and north of Wales from the south. Even very weird things like Blackpool was to have one of it's stations Cut, the council said can you do the other instead and he said yes. Now if the cuts were anyway logical on what planet can you just change the line in a heartbeat. It's just such obvious corruption. The fact that road constructors such as Earnst Marple were involved in the cuts just seals the deal.
My dad worked on the railway, have great memories traveling up and down the country in the guards cabin lol...loved the trains when I was younger...dont get to use them anymore...Great video david...always a great video ❤
That sounds like winning the childhood lottery 👌
Pure MAGIC that must have been! 👍
£18 Billion for Crossrail, and £85 Billion for HS1.5, is why we cannot have nice things in this country….. 😢
Because we are northerners, the Northern workers that built the industrial Revolution, the mines, the mills, the trains, shipyards all built this countries wealth but that wealth is spent solely in London. London is the best public transport on earth, FACT!! Constantly getting new underground lines, brand new buses, oyster cards etc etc.. here it's impossible to get in or out from our towns to our cities due to layabout northern rail workers and their unions always blaming owners because £2000 a week isn't enough pay for these glorified tram drivers
literally feel bad for non londoners atp
Leigh no station anymore to it's city Manchester.. Wigan is the northern stop on the London to Glasgow line, passengers get of hoping to get to Manchester or Liverpool but guess what, northern rail don't wanna work today, why should they when they get a basic of £1200 a week and full sick pay. Yes successive governments have always not give a stuff about the north and "sir" pension robber starmer is exactly the same. We have Burnham and his Scouse counterpart plus loads of useless MPs like Lisa pie arse nandy who do absolutely nothing at all but feather their own nests by buying 2nd properties in London that we pay for, only to sell them for millions when they retire. Best, easiest way to make money except for working for northern rail that is
@@CheesenpickleAslef is a strong union = good wages. But you lie about £2000pw
@@Cheesenpicklestop whingin toryboy
For a start, restriction C1 pretty much scuppers double decker trains in the UK. As for the "privatisation "model" - there was NO model - the railway was simply split into numerous entities, TOCs (too many of them); ROSCOs (too many of them); Freight Companies etc. As for Network Rail (now supposedly state owned) responsible for 100+ PRIVATE Companies. Bus Companies, Water Companies, Pop Music Companies playing at trains. Ridiculous fare anomolies/hyper expensive/little competition between TOCs and timetabling that forgot the art of "connections" because the TOCs were incompatible. There was a model that we could have followed, that of the Swiss that operate under the guise of "Swiss Federal Railways" but the operators are private companies that work closely together to produce a timetable that works, connections that work and a fare structure that is "fair". British Rail privatisation was a disaster from the start.
Japan is another example of privatisation done properly. If you regulate it well, it can work.
I lived in the UK in the 80s and I loved British Rail. It was cheap, generally always on time, and a wonderful way to get around the country. I went back in 2007 after privatization and I was completely lost. So many different train companies and different times and I just ended up saying fuck it, got on a train from Peterborough to London, and I guess I was on the right train, I don't know, but nobody busted me. I miss the old days of British Rail, especially the 125s.
Your hair looks great grown out.
Superb video. ❤ 🚆
Come now. It might have been one network but it was cheap because the taxpayer paid for it. Nothing is free. The unions held the government hostage so the subsidy was massive. And the network reminded me of a U.K. barely out of WW2. It was dirty, late, poor catering (comedians didn’t make fun of BR pies and sandwiches for no reason). Cheap was about the only thing one could say about it.
@@xr6lad Coming from a place with no rail service, it was wonderful. You can look at anything and find fault or you can marvel at something you never had. And I was working so yes, I paid in.
What about the rolling stock? I remember the carriages with individual compartments and wide, comfy, sprung seats. The train I get now from Wolverhampton to Wallsall has hard, narrow seats that won't fit two grown men side by side. About as comfortable as a builder's crew bus.
they jacked the compartmental trains for womens safety
Brilliant. As an old bugger I remember all the railway closures. And it wasn't just closures that caused the problems. At the same time, even on lines that stayed open, they closed loads of the stations. I come from rural Kent. Our local station was a massive goods yard. We had a station master that lived in a big house that was part of the station. There was a signalman. And several guys in the goods yard. Then you had the delivery guys that picked up from the goods yard. The station master had a lovely garden. And there were always hanging flower baskets. You sat in the waiting room in front of a coal fire. And there were working toilets. Next minute, nothing. All gone. Station shut. Goods yard closed. All the jobs gone. And most of the trains no longer stopped at that station. This is a main line to London. But you could only get the odd train that stopped. One of the worst government decisions ever. And governments are known for stupid decisions.
70 % of the UK rail network is FOREIGN OWNED so all that profit goes OVERSEAS!
In France mostly
Most of the network is owned by Network Rail which is a UK government owned body.
The railways are owned and managed by Network Rail as already said. Some of the franchises were foreign owned, but these were renationalised and then given back to the franchisees in the form of a management contract.
So no, the railway network is not foreign owned.
Nope. Most are on management contracts with 'profit' going to Department of Transport.
Hull trains and Lumo happen to be owned by First Group, with profits staying in the UK
Some trains in Germany are owned by a British company.
Lol yes, your content might be 'boring' but it does document an incredible period of history. I'm not even British and your ancestors went to war with mine, but fuck me you guys did a number on technology and we should all be grateful. Rule Britannia and keep making these videos dude.
I wander lonely as a train
Abandoned on a disused track..
Where darkest tunnels still remain
But locomotives won't be back..
In eerie silence, on I wend..
A tiny speck of light I see..
But oh, these tunnels never end
And now it's really haunting me! 😱
Quick footsteps make a creepy sound..
What following? A living dead?
I pluck up courage.. turn around..
_Relief!_ It's just my faithful *TED!* 💚🐶
(Loved the vid, David!👍)
Haha, brilliant as always! 🤣 My comments seem to get deleted from this channel. Hope this one doesn't 🤷🏻♀️
@@Magic-Florence I can see your comment, Flo.. thanks so much, it means a lot!
I get comments deleted regularly by YT.. and have no idea why!
You think labour will fix the railway's you living in dream world. 50 years of underinvestment can't be fix in 4 years . Whatever they try and tell you
It can if you have dedication, but this Government and dedication in the same sentence, is an oxymoron
Better to start improving it than doing nothing and supporting foreign owned private rail companies.
The young people of Britain have no hope in labour
The young people of great Britain have literally known no other government than conservatives and coalition. Where does their sense of hopelessness come from@@LondonMoneyCashEnterprise
Its cheaper to get a flight to majorca than getting on a f=£%_g train
But you still need in many cases to use a train or transport to get to the airport it leaves from!
And the airlines are private businesses, unlike the trains.
The Victorians and edwardians gave us an awesome railway infrastructure and we destroyed it with the 50s-60s cuts then there on in to the 90s.all gone.and looks at were we are today.keep up with the vids👍
It was all destroyed by a man who had financial interest in building roads, so of course Ernest Marples would instruct Dr Beeching to close down many railway lines.
We do need HS2 in full. It's a project that has been both poorly managed and poorly promoted, however for the wider capacity benefits it will bring to the network, allowing for far more local and freight services to be ran in the place of express trains which will be moved onto the new line, it is desperately needed. The WCML is pretty much at capacity and suffers from several bottlenecks which will be relieved by the construction of HS2 in full. Costs should certainly have been managed better, but the premature cancellation of the project was incredibly short-sighted.
HS2 phase 2b might go ahead to Crewe, which takes in Trent Valley bottleneck I believe. As long as we don't call it HS2.
No we don't. Britain isn't that big and doesn't have multiple impassable mountain ranges e.g. France.
Bullshit, you are clearly a politician or someone getting a back hander out of it, probably both because hs2 only goes to and from efficient lines, it helps NOBODY OUTSIDE OF LONDON
@@stephenscales353 that was the problem in Kent, huge mountain ranges but we still got HS1
The whole experience is a total nightmare in this day and age, if you get a train that's relatively on time that's a good start but the chances are it will be crowded, you overspent for the privilege and you are sharing your time with complete and utter wankers who are either shouting into their phone complete shite for 20 minutes or worse still have to listen to some loser playing tiktok videos or rap through their phones loudspeaker!
It's become unbearable for me now!
sadly true. Society has lost all manners
pls dont use AI images
yeah they really need to connect forster square to the interchange so trains can flow through properly to manchester
He lost me in the first 60 seconds. A Brit with a story about U.K. railways using stock footage from US railways when we have a wealth of stock footage available of U.K. railways is just sloppy and lazy.
Agreed, don't need AI slop in one of my favourite channels. Personally will straight up just stop watching if they keep getting used, which would be a shame.
Ffffffs he does his best for us! Be grateful for the content and stop complaining
@@xr6ladYou are the worst complainer of them all. Stop it or go elsewhere fffffs
Was suprised you didnt end up in Crewe Railway heritage centre, the privatization really did a number on the town, used to have one of the biggest railway works I remember going to their open days
At a similar time to the beeching cuts. France and Japan had the same issue as the UK. What they did was invest in their railways and they are some of the best in the world. We cut our and they got worse.
Beeching did more lasting damage to the UK than Hitler and he was trying haha.
France doesn't have the best railways, the tgv lines and paris' network are fantastic but other regional routes are slow and awful frequency, Britain's regional railways are much better but that's is mostly due to pop density
@@pr5134 I said some of the best in the world, not the best and it is a lot better than the UK. Britians regional railways are terrible anywhere out of London's commuter belt. Constant cancellations, late trains, poor frequency, uncomfortable, extremely overcrowded and expensive. You go on platform 14 - 15 Manchester Piccadilly at rush hour and tell me that is okay. It is the most hectic, overcrowded platform I have ever seen. They have to have staff holding people back for safety it gets so full, constant tannoy announcements trying to sort out the crowds and trains will get so full you have to squeeze yourself into a little corner and that will sometimes be the train after yours as you couldn't fit on the other one.
Allied bombers did a good job on the French network, meaning the rebuild was from scratch, while even at war's end the UK network was Victorian and dilapidated after 5 years of war. Post war nationalisation had to happen because private owners of networks could not raise capital for a refurb'. Then along comes Dr. Beeching.
@@michaelwilliams3232 they didn't rebuild from scratch at all. In Japan even after a nuclear bomb the railway was running the next day. The investment Japan and France did at this time was new high speed networks i.e. Shinkansen and there some improvement works to the old systems.
I always enjoy your video thank you from New Zealand keep up the good work.
It wasn’t necessarily Beeching’s fault. He was following a Government brief. Transport Secretary Ernest Marples was the villain. The one who owned a road construction company - funny that!
Thanks for the vid
And the irony is I’m travelling by train today. Well possibly, maybe or something depending on whether it is a train or replacement
Either way I need to get to Birmingham
Has the same problem last Thursday, ended up chatting to a nice Chinese lady, she said UK trains were a massive shock!
Think your trains suck? come to the USA and count your blessings.
Mate, grow a spine.
I think that the trains were longer in North Wales, in the 1970's and 1980's. Although there were only 3 trains a day direct to London then. Now the trains are newer, but just as dirty. There are about 9 direct trains a day, although you can still take a train, and connect to a train to London Euston every half hour.
Under British Rail, the local train from Manchester, would consist of 3 or 4 DMUs, each of 2 carriages. From 1990 onwards, you are lucky if you have more than 2 carriages on a train.
Under Richard Branson, the journey time to London, from Colwyn Bay, was reduced by half an hour, but it went back up to 3 hours, as Virgin Trains reduced the delays that they were having.
The trains are smaller, and more expensive than they have ever been.
Beeching was an accountant, had no understanding of trains or their value to communities. His boss was Marples, minister of transport, who had a handy investment sideline in building motorways.
He actually wasn’t. He was an engineer and physicist
@@markmoran916 and a number cruncher. His methodolgy was to count daily users. Thanks for the correction.
He preferes the coach to a train? I know they are expensive, but I would still get the train and not the coach to London from 'up north'. Great video as always. Love the interviews.
The irony is Bradford interchange and Bradford forster square stations are only Half a mile apart, they are near perfectly aligned that they could be connected giving Bradford a "Through Station", but no doubt there would be no will to do so or lack of funding for "essential infastructure" but Hundreds of Millions of Pounds can be wasted on vanity projects.
City's gone
The old platform is at the back of the Midland Hotel. Hotel guests could get their luggage taken directly to their room by the railway porters.
@@stephenscales353 it's a pipedream
I use the train quite often as I live in Edinburgh but my parents are back in Newcastle where I'm from, and for a fairly short distance, a return ticket is about £60, whilst a friend of mine got a return ticket from Edinburgh to Glasgow the other day for £6.
Your code doesn’t work
Sorting it now thanks
i find it rather funny how all the stock footage you used to describe the “golden age” of british railways showed exclusively trains from other countries
It’s lazy and sloppy.
@@xr6ladTurnip does his best to bring us these FREE uploads! He definitely isn't "sloppy" - he works on a budget, I am sure!
According to ORR Data Portal, in the quarter from April to June 2024, 70.1% of station stops in Great Britain arrived on time, or within one minute of the scheduled time. 87.4% of trains arrived at their final destination on time, or within five minutes of the scheduled time. 3.5% of trains were canceled, with full cancellations counted as one and partial cancellations counted as half. The network is also at full capacity.
This is what happens when you put overpriviledged petrol-heads in control of traffic, who have never used a train in their life.
As far as I know Beeching also had relatives in the concrete business who profited massively from road building.
I’m all for the re nationalisation, though I don’t have a huge amount of faith in the government at least with the, being responsible their votes are tied to it more tangibly. With a private company the bosses don’t care if you complain, as long as the money keeps coming in the are fine.
The Private Franchise contracts are still running & they wont be renewed when the current tenders expire. So it hasnt been "Renationalised" yet. Plus even when it has been nationalised then the Rolling stock will still be private rolling stock companies as they are the only ones that can supply the funding for the new rolling stock you have running around anyway.
Really enjoy the down to earth, honest presentation of you videos, which is why it's disappointing to see a blatantly AI generated image used in this one, especially without a disclaimer when discussing historical facts. Maybe it was an honest oversight, and it's up to you what you want to do with your videos but I'd rather no image at all than an AI generated one.
Interesting story but somewhat lessened by showing US and Indian trains when talking about the UK train issues. Surely there is footage of UK trains whether steam, diesel or electric that would have added a sense of realism to the video.
Fair point. Issue is paying for it. I have access to a whole range of stock footage and it costs me about £9 a month...I literally can't afford to pay for a lot of it. British Pathe charge hundreds of pounds for a few seconds of footage.
But I am with you, it would add a sense of realism. Maybe one day if Wandering Turnip can seriously monitise to documentary game...but for now these will have to do.
I appriciate all feedback and comments though so nice one
In the summer i did a train trip with my mum to see a friend it was 3 different trains on 3 different networks oh and we also had a delay on our way there when we did go out for a day one stop along we couldn't get to due to some delays on the line
Crack on mate... Iove watching, love what you cover. Cheers 👍
Nationalise railways! Cheaper to get plane tickets!
The irony of airlines being private too…
Honestly it’s mad! My sister lives in Glasgow. It’s frequently cheaper for her to fly than use the train. Once she even flew via Amsterdam and it was cheaper.
Sadly ticket prices won't reduce. ☹️
@@thathurt without shareholders, bidding wars and economies of scale it would be cheaper.
@@Alex-cw3rz No, it would be more expensive.
Thanks
I love your work. It’s so uplifting!
A lovely gesture
FFS just nationalise it already.
nah, they should have scrapped HS2 earlier and used the money to fix our pothole riddled roads.
@@ASBO_LUTELYscrew the roads. We need public transport, with the price of driving lessons, less and less people are going to be driving.
ERNEST MARPLES PUT THE BOOT N ON THE RAILWAYS TORY TRANSPORT MINISTER.
Beeching could not have known the population would be increased by 20 million through immigration. Bradford might have crap railways, but you can get direct flights from Leeds/Bradford to multiple destinations in Pakistan
I realised how crazy Britain's railway history was when the Beeching Cuts happened. And they chose to shut down the Great Central Main Line. At the time it was the latest Main Line. All that engineering and beautiful railway stations and viaducts just GONE and demolished for good. And now they want to build HS2. Some of it is now being built ON the old Great Central Main Line.
Overall I'm like common? make your mind up.
Gosh, definitely don’t miss the days when I had to travel into Glasgow City Centre for work. Delays, cancellations, bus rail replacements and overcrowding!! 😡
Another Gem of a video and a subject I am sure you could get much more mileage (pun intended) out of it. I am from Grimsby and back in the day, there was direct trains to London. They were affordable and comfortable so people could go for a day in the capital. Not anymore. In 2015, I needed to get a passport and looked into going to London for a same day one. It cost an arm and a leg. My other options were Peterborough (what was I gonna do for four hours there??!!), Liverpool (same astronomical price as the capital) and Durham. I ended up going to the latter.
I have just been to Japan and the bullet trains are in a different league. Clean and spacious with staff that have pride in their jobs. Will we ever get back to that? I don't think so. As somebody has mentioned most of our rail network is run by foreign companies. I was told that they use the profits in the UK to subsidise the trains in the companies' countries. The rest of Europe must be laughing at us. Or, should I say we at the laughing 'stock' of Europe.
I wanted to travel by train to the BP Pulse Venue, Great I thought - going up, 3 trains an hour - yippee. Then I looked at coming back, granted this is on a Saturday night. The last train home is 23:30 and then the next is 8:47 on Sunday. What is the point? Car Parking is only £2 more and I don't have to walk home in the early hours and if anyone thinks staying at the local Genting hotel its £374 a night!
it is cheaper for me to fly Slovakia and back compared to a train ticket from London to Brighton. Imagine wanting to go on a family day out, horrendous.
£22.70 for a off peak return London-Brighton on the day ticket. Try getting that on the day for a plane ticket..
sod the planet eh ?
1960s Beeching cuts instead of investing and building up. Meaning a run down system was ripe for privatisation 20 years later. :( Like this video.
Scotland and Wales nationalised their trains, time for England to do that too
And they are no better.
@@stevo728822They’re putting in more effort than us, which have the Department For Transport here in England fucking it up
Keep turnipin(!!!)
I feel like there's such a disconnect between the Britain we are now and the Britain we were. I don't feel like the stock of people we have now could even achieve half of what they did even if there was the will to do it. Just a different class of people. It feels dishonourable in a way to talk of their achievements as "we" because they feel like just a completely different calibre of person.
I watched a video by bald and bankrupt recently where he used the train in India & it made me actually appreciate how good ours still is. It may not be the best, but it's in no way shape or form the worst 😂
Scarborough to Whitby: 15 miles by road, 4 hours by train. Thanks Beeching.
That must be when the Fleetwood line closed? Also Blackpool central station was the largest station 16 platforms, to close in the 60s.
Anyone who believes a politician is a fool
We’ve got new Turnip Hair !
Great video, always loved travelling by train, however it’s become expensive and oftentimes extremely difficult.
“Great” is a geographical term like Great Yarmouth, Great Grimsby, Greater London and Greater Manchester.
i was in the RN late 70s to mid 80s and relied on trains but they were terrible and so unreliable it needed privatisation and im not political but in reality can we put a high speed service on a small island just a good reliable service would be good
Check the Spain RENFE (our national train service), delays every single day, trains which don't show up, no explanations on what's going on. Inside, well, people smoking, no security service.
We are told to use public transport, but it's falling to pieces.
As somebody mentions on your video, I have also changed to using the bus (yes it takes longer) but there are no people smoking, it is quieter, you fell safer and the driver is seen so you feel a bit more calm.
Spanish raiways are great - stop whingin!
valid comment mjci, Tories wanted rid of the guard here,fortunately defeated
Interesting fact britain spends more on subsidies now to private rail companies than it spent when it owned British Rail.
Rubbish
@@stevo728822It’s objectively true. Look it up. The train operating companies have received several government subsidiaries that British Rail would never get before privatisation.
You can look it up.
I'm 56 and it's sad that your films hold a mirror up to what this country is becoming
4:01 - Class 195 sets off, the volume of the sales pitch increases 😂😂
Labour's approach to re-nationalisation is half-assed, they wont be nationalising the rolling stock which makes up a HUGE amount of the costs when it comes to rail expenditure
Labour are now no different to the Tories. Everything is better privatized apparently. The only thing they are doing is not re-tendering the franchises. By the time that's complete will probably be back to Tories. Labour are only doing cost it won't cost anything.
Glad to see you again
Labour have no plans to nationalise the rolling stock and the freight trains, which are the majority of the trains in the UK
Because that would cost money, whilst not renewing franchises costs nothing. They won't borrow because apparently the failed austerity route is the only way to fix the economy. Plus labour are just now Tories light so its the same old neo liberal economics, privatised profits and nationalised losses.
Because Freight trains are owned and operated by private companies. Whereas passengers services expect Hull Trains, Lumo, Grand Central and Eurostar are "Management Contracts" operated by private companies on behalf of Department of Transport.
What's thebpoint of train pal app, if the trains aren't running 😅
I've used Trainpal for all my journey for years and it's excellent - apart from it's missing a lot of obvious splits (eg Oxford to Leamington Spa) that used to work. I do like the regular discounts eg was 4% off everything a couple of weeks ago.
Worth getting Trainsplit also. These two often throw up different options/costs
The man behind Beeching was Earnst Marple MP. Have a guess what his family business was....................road building!
😂
WT... Nice video 👍🏿... I live in Birmingham and the only reason why I came to Birmingham is because of the train... One day from work from Birmingham to Northampton I went to get the train home and I went to the station at 6pm in Birmingham and I got home I got home to Northampton at 1am in the morning... Normally it takes 59 minutes... So I decided I need to get a house in Birmingham....
I live in Northampton and have had similar experiences 😂.
Great topic 😊
Bro why’d you get rid of the thumbnail with the derelict house? It screams British ingenuity
I try many different thumbnails…and it wasn’t a house it was an abandoned train station 😂
I’m so old I remember when “train” stations were called “railway” stations. #CulturalImperialism
PS I love the subtle irony of your video using foreign stock footage to illustrate the history of Britain’s railways. 😂
PPS Look up former Minister of Transport and road builder Ernest Marples and then ask yourself if Beeching really was to blame . . .
i find trainpal has become very unreliable now, it used to provide really good discounts but it just isnt the same
Never heard of it, always use Trainline.
Replacement bus service - shocking, no other country in the world needs to do engineering work only us 🙄
so when is it convenient to you for the engineering work ?
Ted is really audacious to walk right in the tunnels !
this ones right up my street
or on the right track....
@@RobinDS-m1g right on the level lol
As long as you have the railways being run for the benefit of the shareholders - & the passenger coming 2nd ~ you will never have major improvements to the network. I live in Portugal ~ where the network is owned by the people & they are on time, clean & cheap. Turn up prices: Fast trains pay more, than local trains = Simple! Online prices: Discounted on fast trains only.
❤❤❤Ted ❤❤❤
Great vlog 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
British trains, the most expensive and worst trains on the planet. That's 2 wins there!
why ?
I took London to Leicester this summer and I was surprised that it was about $100 for a roundtrip. Granted it was nonstop and took about an hour. Now I understand why that was the case. As you pointed out, the local trains from Leicester to the surrounding towns were less frequent and stopped often but all in all I didn't mind. Thinking of staying in Leeds next summer to explore Liverpool, Manchester, and York. Not sure if Leeds is the best place to stay for that zone, but I think it will be the best value for the region. If anyone thinks otherwise, please let me know.
A lot of people in England don't have £100 or $100 spare lol.
Leeds have less beggars than Manchester,York have the least mate
If you stay in Sheffield you can do all those things as easily and comparable cost, but you are also minutes away from the peak district. It depends how well you value a town center over access to a national park. Leeds has retained theirs much better than Sheffield. Leeds to MCR on the Victoria line is a nice journey, but so is Sheffield to MCR through the peaks. Typically the slower routes will take in the more attractive journeys
@@thathurt yeah I thought it was expensive and I wondered how anybody commuting for work could justify it. Maybe it's cheaper with a monthly pass or something.
@@rodneyhull9764 yeah plus York is expensive. I'm looking for relatively cheap lodging like a found in Leicester so I think it's a tossup between Sheffield and Leeds.
I absolutely do not wish to condone or stand up for the current rail network and delivery companies, but I do think it's worth pointing out that the suspension of trains from Hebden Bridge to Manchester was as a result of the replacement of the railway bridge over the M62 at Castleton. These were planned and scheduled essential infrastructure works. As I say, I'm no apologist for the various agencies, just think it's worth pointing out from the perspective of full disclosure.
While I know nothing about commuting ,or Northern trains, please may I add a small positive comment.
I use a scandinavian train often while visiting a family memeber. The trains are punctual but on the occasional time that one doesn't go on the original route ,I have found there are no staff to help. At one large station a lady with a wheel chair was stuck on a lower platform ,a non funtioning lift and the train she needed on the upper level.
A second positive is that British railway travellers will allways help an elderly lady who finds the 'gap' and height difficult. I rarely get that help in Copenhagen
I do agree that we should invest in the train services if only to help get cars off the roads.
UK Guards on trains are some of the most helpful people Ive come across
@@rodneyhull9764 I agree.The GWR from Swansea to Paddinton is excellent and the connection to Heathrow is fast and efficient with very helpful staff. Also, Transport for Wales services are good..
There is definitely a need to replace some of the lines that Beeching axed particularly to the South West .
Privatisation has never and will never work
Private companies built the railways
@@JesterEric and a lot of those companies when broke very quickly
I think Euston gives Bradford a run for its money for most depressing, but for different reasons. It's just a concrete box with a poorly designed concourse, most of which is a massive ad display where they used to have the train times. Now they're just in the middle on one side so everyone clumps up making it a dangerous place when its super busy... which it is most of the time.
Also nowhere really gets any investment in England outside of London or Manchester, and even Manchester gets naff all compared to London. We really need an underground network here, and a proper heavy commuter line from Liverpool to Hull, or at least Leeds. A Crossrail of the North as it were. I know that's what Northern Powerhouse Rail (formerly HS3) was going to be, but I don't think that's going to happen any time soon given what the last government did to HS2. HS2 is needed, it just needs to be done by someone competent. The Tories were not. It was originally planned and put forward under the last Labour government.
Britain is a broke country, just like the U.S., Italy and a bunch of other western countries. It literally had a bond crisis for two days before they changed PMs. I don't see any cash infusion with nationalization, so what's the point? And where will everyone go when their taxes are sky high? Lack of rail investment is just a symptom of the creaky 20th Century welfare state where funds are diverted to benefits. The money is there, it just went to someone's food and rent.
Thatcherism / neoliberalism / whatever you want to call it. Sell off everything to your mates and then crank the price up so that you can pay out fat dividends to your mates. We can’t complain though, it’s what the people voted for, consistently
I remember about the Thames Link back in the '90s...It was really so expensive... about 30 quids for a 50 miles track. I think David's dog was a good help in those spooky tunnels.
We invented the steam train and used it to pull iron and we just closed our last blast furnace and no longer make steel in Great Britain. How did our great country let itself be lead by such people with a lack of vision. Lions lead by donkeys indeed.
The Tories were implementing EU Directive 91/440. Which was the forced privatisation of the rail system in the EU. Now, could they have done it better? definitely, but let's not just hate on the Tories. It was the EU that forced it on people. Here's Article 1.
SECTION I Objective and scope
Article 1
The aim of this Directive is to facilitate the adoption of the Community railways to the needs of the Single Market and to increase their efficiency;
-by ensuring the management independance of railway undertakings;
-by separating the management of railway operation and infrastructure from the provision of railway transport services, separation of accounts being compulsory and organizational or institutional separation being optional,
-by improving the financial structure of undertakings,
-by ensuring access to the networks of Member states for international groupings of railway undertakings and for railway undertakings engaged in the international combined transport of goods.
Note that it says "By ensuring the management independence of railway undertakings." This line basically forces the separation of the operation of the railways from the state and into private hands.
The next line separates the railway operators from the track maintenance, and the 4th line allowed none British operators, like Deutsche Bahn, to come in and syphon money out of the UK rail system to other countries.
Other countries formed private rail companies that were wholly owned by the state, these private companies then bought up franchises in the UK. For example, DB in Germany, Abellio (owned by Nederlandse Spoorwegen) in the Netherlands, and SNCF in France.
eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:31991L0440
Excellent episode mate. I agree (how couldn’t you) with the comparison with mainland European train services. Our offering is pitiful while being expensive.
Keep it up!
I occasionally travel Birmingham to Manchester and have defected to using a coach. 30 years ago the train route that carries on beyond Birmingham to Bournemouth was 7 or 8 carriages. Now it's 4 carriages and cramped and overcrowded. Coach takes longer but much more pleasant, a comfortable temperature and half the price. Railways are so slow to react; despite Sunday Trading laws changing 30 years ago we still have a limited, pretty much unchanged service. Nearly 20 years ago pub hours were extended and yet the trains run no later.
Any form of travel in the uk became as miserable as any other form of everyday life, thank god for the Spanish immigration police and my timely escape.
enjoy your loneliness
@@rodneyhull9764 ???, loneliness is for the people who come here , don't learn the language and live in brit enclaves. After holidaying here for 20 years I learned all about the pitfalls, that's why I live in a small town with the locals, learn the language and integrate the Canarians are the most laid back friendly folk, providing that you don't cause trouble, steal, or perform any other type of imported habits. Warm family life and neighbour ing is the norm here. Nobody has much ,including me but what we have is humanity.
I hope you didn't go to Germany during your travels in Europe. Its railways have really fallen over the past few years.
I’m actually going in 2 week so will be interesting to see 👍
Germany's rail still has to fall a lot more until it reaches British depths. The reason for many delays are massive construction and modernisation going on at the moment. It is also a lot cheaper and has better trains.
Hello Turnip, can I ask where you were walking at the beginning of the video? I'm planning a trip to Northern England next year (probably Manchester and Sheffield, mainly), and I'd really love to do a short walk along a canal like that at some point. :)