HitD: “Lord, why do you send me your toughest battles?! 😭😭😭😫” Jesus: “dude, it’s just a video about the BR Moder- oh! Sorry about that! You’ll be fine…I hope. Good luck!”
The one good thing about BR ordering a stupid amount of different diesels is that it definitely makes train simulators capturing the era have a lot of variety
Or... as someone who plays Locomotion a ton, have the ability to roleplay as British Railways with various locos ported from MSTS to LoMo by Walter1940 (he literally ported almost every single BR diesel and electric loco's into that game)
Diesel Manufacturers: "Hello Sir, we have made the diesels you asked for. Which one would you like us to build more of?" BR: "Yes" DM: "yes, Sir but whi-" BR: "YES!"
I would love for you - maybe as an April Fools project - to do something like this, but for the Island of Sodor, explaining the BR era as if it were real. The mental image of some sort of skit where Sir Hatt laughs the BR execs out of the room over Dieselization is hilarious.
I'd like a semi-serious April Fool on the Class 54 'Super Deltics', treating them as if they actually existed, and having them chock full of all the minor, niggly faults that don't impinge on the availability figure too much, all delivered in Darkness's most serious tone (as though British Railways has broken him, and he'll never be happy again!). That would be fun!
@@robertwilloughby8050 Why not both? Do an April Fool's video where he speaks about Sodor, but he goes over how all the accidents would treat the Fat Controller's railway in real life (only acting like it really happened.)
In NSW, the Crookwell line was the last line to be dieselized. The working timetable had this inscription on the top “The locomotive shall be equipped with an electric headlight”. This statement was shown for many years of diesel service. The line is closed now but there were some attempts to run a tourist railway. I had this mental image of the driver being admonished by a Fat Controller type who is trying to verify that the locomotive indeed had an electric headlight.
The New South Wales Railways made the same mistake in ordering lots of diesel yard shunters at a time when containerisation was imminent. In 1970-71 they started replacing their 19 Class steam locos of 1877 vintage with 73 Class diesels. Problem was that the need for these diesels would be short lived. They should have known as LCLs (less than a container load) containers were already coming into use by that time. The 73s were much shorter lived than the 19 Class; withdrawals commented in 1987. Many were sold to Queensland sugar cane companies for conversion to 610 mm (2 ft) gauge. (The 19 Class started off life as main line freight locos in 1877, and one was still being used on the main line on light goods in Newcastle in 1968).
BR not the only railway to order untested locomotives: WAGR ordered a fleet of 48 X class locos. The X has the same engine as the BR 28 class D57 - the CO-BO locomotive. The 28s were scrapped (one survived) after 11 years - due to the unreliable engine. WAGR persisted with theirs and got them running reliably after numerous changes to parts of the engines. The X class remained in service until 1988.
I am the same age as British Railways, lived on a main line out of London and worked for BR three times, starting on them when the railways were obliged to carry anything they were offered. I saw the diesels coming in and then the electrics that finally replaced them and reflected at the time on why the heck did they bother with the diesel interregnum on my own line when many steam engines were barely eight years old. This video is, to me, a very accurate summary!
I think the 'successful' diesels such as the Class 08 and 20 (both English Electric engines) have been a real success and many of them are still working today!
I think the BoCo fanfiction makes a reference to the Class 28's unreliability; ironically in the Railway Series BoCo is the one diesel that visits Sodor that doesn't break down!
As far as the marshalling yards are concerned, you are a little bit off. Containerization didn't even have its first experiments until the 1960s and really didn't take off until the 1980s and 1990s. One of the big things that American railroads were doing at the time was the building of "hump" yards to classify freight. In short, a hump yard has a small artificial hill where cars are pushed up and then roll down via gravity. People in an observation tower would set the switches so that the car would go to the appropriate track for it's next train. So, most likely, British Rail was thinking along these lines. In the post WWII era, it was more likely the diversion of goods from train to truck. Since, even today, trucks are more economical for runs of 500 miles or less, this was a big problem in Great Britain where there just weren't many long-haul runs. So, simply, there wasn't a lot of freight to classify.
It was the same after the first war, a lot of trucks became available for next to nothing and people and companies bought them, the Canals died off fairly quickly after the first world war and not as a lot think because of Railways but because of the trucks! jump forward to the aftermath of WWII and again a lot of cheap truck/lorries become available, this led to the demise of a lot of rail freight, why wait for a train and have to haul your goods to the final destination when a Haulier will deliver it to your door next day?
You know what? You should make a full length documentary on Richard Jensen and the steam locomotives he “preserved”, and your main source should be “A Passion for Steam” by Trackside Photographer.
Only just discovered this channel, there were some solid points in this but misses some key details: The UK rail network in it's entire history never really made any money, any appearances of it returning hefty dividends were often bourne out of 1840s railway mania scams made by the likes of George Hudson. They history of UK railways in the 19th century is very similar to big tech companies of today. Once the bubble finally burst, is why you initially got grouping and the big 4 with hopes that amalgamations will offset loss making networks. However the losses continued but the railways had long established themselves as indispensable to UK industry, which is why we got BR. I'd argue that the government wanting to make the UK railways profitable over modern was the biggest mistake of the modernisation plan. The main reason for the unreliability of UK diesels was its restrictive loading gauge, we'd been experimenting with diesel/petrol prototypes since the beginning of the 20th century, however the countries with the earliest successes in dieselisation, (Germany and the US) also had the most generous loading gauges. By the early 50s there simply wasn't the technology for small yet powerful enough engines that could fit into the loading gauge, up to the task of powering big express and freight (that's why the earliest diesels such as railcars and the 08s were the earliest successful diesels because they performed jobs which didn't require massively powerful engines.) Our railways required something more proprietary rather than off the shelf. Why we still manufactured steam so late was, that the UK railway network was completely exhausted from the war, we needed new rolling stock immediately, depending on what was at the time relatively unproven technology within our restrictive loading gauge would've been foolish, so we stuck with what worked. For more info on this I'd recommend the TH-cam channel Gareth Dennis and Tanya Jacksons book on British Rail or Charles Lofts book Last Trains.
Not convinced about the loading gauge being connected with unreliability: the NZR's loading gauge is a fair amount smaller than British railways and yet the 1953 model G12 from '55 with 1425hp were achieving over a 90% availability rate. Of course these were lesser power than the 16CSVT, however the EE 12SVT of contemporary vintage were considerably more unreliable than the G12's 567C. The 6SRKT and 6CSRKT were more reliable than the 12SVT, however they weren't in the same league availability wise. With, again, a smaller loading than Britain.
Lots of state owned industries made profits. British Airways, British Gas, British Telecom, Central Electricity Generating Board and I could go on. The industries that lost money were basket cases before they were nationalised like coal and railways. They were declining industries and no amount of money or effort was going to save them.
And all of this is why modelling the railways in the 1950's/60's is still so popular in the UK. You can run almost any combination of locos and it existed somewhere on the network.
Now I'll give you a laugh, the real issue with freight was that the British Government after the first world war had kick started the Road Haulage industry, but during the last war, the railways were the only means of transporting goods in bulk that was needed. It means that the freight issue was not a new problem. The second factor was that many companies owned their own wagons, and merely had the wagons moved. Actually modulisation was on the books for sea freight reasons. But not the current container freight.
What BR should have done -Actually modernizing the system by rebuilding certain curves and making the system more suitable for higher speed operation, rather than dressing up the old Victorian era network with modern equipment. -Built freight yards for container freight -gotten rid of the Railway and canal traffic act the minute BR was formed. -Taken Diesel introduction more steadily without the railway and canal act. As in, testing out the what would have been the original 174 and decided which FTs they liked the best, then slowly increase the orders. -Have the orders of diesels take the trends in growth of local and branch line services.
Politics in the 1930s had hampered entrepreneurship under Grouping. The Depression hit 'distressed areas' such as the North East and South Wales, where the coal industry had to be protected- hence the bias to perpetuating steam traction, beating speed records with 'Mallard' etc. But there was plenty of entrepreneurial spirit in regions whose economies boomed: think of Herbert Walker's Southern Electric or the magnificent public transit in London under Lord Ashfield and Frank Pick. The LMS was experimenting with mainline diesels and the GWR with railcars well before World War Two. Gresley's and Bulleid's streamlining was a technology that looked beyond steam. War and socialist theorizing about the efficiency of state ownership smothered innovation. A Big Four freed of anachronistic common-carrier obligations would probably have met the challenges from road and air more adroitly than a BR toiling under the bureaucratic supervision of a British Transport Commission and a Ministry of Transport. After all, before 1939 the Four were already guarding their flanks by investing in bus lines and air passenger services.
BTC/BR was also being hamstrung in the 1950s by the government preventing them from raising prices to cover rising costs which lead to the deficit of 1962 which the Beeching Plan was intended to reduce.
Yeah, and it didn't help that Beeching's _boss_ was the epitome of 'conflict of interest' in the first place. To quote/paraphrase the Stories of Sodor, Beeching was doing what British Parliament told him to do: fix British Rail. The problem is that they didn't know that Beeching's boss was a bad actor and went behind Beeching's back to rip the rails up and replace them with roads.
@@neiloflongbeck5705 not really. Maples still had a vested interest in the company, and it isn't uncommon in these sort of situations that the sale of stocks is a fiction...
In our defence, British rail couldn't start a modernization plan until it did because of WW2. Whilst France and Germany and other European countries rebuilt war damaged railways to modern standards because they had been damaged, the UK was broke but had a functional network, so the modernization plan, if it could of been implemented earlier, could of worked, but we didn't have that luxury. Hell, we didn't finish paying back the lend lease to America until about 2005. Also, I recall a conversation me and my Dad had about this once and, with hindsight being 20/20, he suggested that if BR had kept steam on the main line and concentrated dieselization on the branch lined to start then we could of had a fuller and more reliable network than we have today. Keep up the excellent videos.
We ended up just repairing the network constantly to keep war traffic moving. Diesels were only quite new meanwhile electrics had been well tested by the big 4. Although they could of atleast electrified kings cross without redoing the roof.
@@sandletters39 LNER never had any major interest in diesels same with NER before it. Electrics however NER and LNER had great interest with Tyneside having a 3rd rail network and Gresley making the EM 1 that would become the Class 76 for the woodhead route.
@@davidty2006 They certainly had some brief interest in the Armstrong Whitworth 1Co1 diesel experiment of 1933. The NER however planned to electrify the York to Newcastle leg of the East Coast Main Line but WW1 intervened everything.
@@sandletters39 oof that section wouldn't be electrified till the class 91's arrived in the late 80's. Only if the durham coast line that i live on was electrified as well mainly for diversion reasons....
Well at least most of the diesels were either rebuilt and proved very more reliable as their steam predecessors, (Class 14s, Class 22s, Class 24s, Class 35s, Class 40s, Class 42s and Class 52s) or had been modified into working for long living careers, such as (Class 20s, 37s, 47s, 55s and 66s)
Great video. As is the case with many things in life...haste makes waste. British Railways was in such a hurry to modernize ASAP, that they ended up with a plethora of fairly useless diesel motive power. I know some people are calling for the nationalization of the American freight railroads; I get the feeling that it'd be like British Railways, but even worse.
Another great video on the folly of British Rail! It's nice to see that you're working on more documentary styled videos that go in depth about the economics of railroading around the world in addition to your top 5 lists.
well anyone who actaully understands anything and knows that he did what had to be done wouldnt hiss. they accept, like beeching did, that the world had moved on and a lot of those lines had to go
You should look to explain the breakdown of what all the derivatives of design used in the modernisation plan. The Diesel Hydraulics, the Diesel Electrics, 3rd rail, pantograph and their distribution. Another great "What if" idea supported... that of bypassing mass dieselisation, doing a like for like upgrade of antiquated steam replacement - eg. The Ex-Midland Railway 1252 class with Ivatt Prairie tanks (or BR Standard 2MT), in a pragmatic way of possibly replacing three 19th century era engines with two new... even three new for seven old... imagine seeing a fleet of Standard Class 8 in Royal Blue livery with the Double Arrow logo up until the 1980's.
While the comments on the structure of freight handling sound reasonable, they don’t take account of the related changes in shipping. The advent of the International Standards Organisation (ISO) containers and the major changes in the shipping industry, closure of docks and relocation thereof took place in parallel. They were not forecast correctly in the 1950s.
Very interesting video and fascinating to hear your take on the Modernisation Plan. Overall i think you're pretty accurate but it is worth noting a few things, firstly as you say some diesel locos were successful, in fact some class 20, 37, 47 and 50 are still in active service today as well as some Class 08, many locos were awful and you listed some of the most famous ones. However, in their defence (well a little bit), most, if not all diesel locos were stabled and maintained alongside steam locos, the dirt and grime was not a good environment for diesel locos which required a much cleaner environment for effective maintenance and hence the best chance of decent reliability. Lastly, you appear to be astonished at how badly the whole thing was managed by Government, you have to be aware of the horrendous corruption in place in UK government at that time, this culminated with the Beeching Axe which was driven by Ernest Marples the Transport Minister at that time (Dr Beeching reported to him in effect), Marples had a construction company that specialised in road building so it was in his interest to run down the railways in favour of roads and an expansion of the road network, which is exactly what happened, this is something we are still paying the price for in the UK even now.
One of the interesting post-war deals with British Railways vs the European Railways - BR was not destroyed, so they mostly repaired the damage, which left the UK with permanent way built up to 100 year prior, but it did allow them to get up and running faster than they did in Europe. In Europe tank battles and far more intensive application of explosive ordinance resulted in total destruction in places, so the lines were redesigned during the rebuild, resulting in a system today which is capable of supporting a much higher point to point maximum speed - the result is that something like the Channel Tunnel train could run at over 200kph through France, ran slower through the tunnel, because of the pressure wave, but then had to slow to a snail pace through Kent with the very winding tracks, that just don't allow safe high speed workings.
For one it didn't help that the Tory Government of the day were lobbying for the roads, especially Ernest Marples who owned a Road Building company, indeed the politics in it!
@@davidty2006 yeah the tories tend to be with the things that the people need, like the roads back then which appeard to be the future of transport until the 1980s when everyone realised they would become too full, and oil today that no country can exist without
I really appreciate the fairness with which you covered this topic: pointing out the good as well as the bad. Are you going to cover the beeching cuts?
One thing that you don't realise was that the the British government had planned on Nationalizing the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) and the British European Airways (BEA) which they eventually did in 1962 with the creation of British Airways and Road Freight network, and the railways were seen as an easy win..... the Road Freight network wasn't touched after the chaos of managing British Rail.
Oh, my... there's cursed darkness, Dante's Inferno, a one way boat trip in Hades, and then there's... Thank you for this, sincerely hope you manage to sleep sometime before Christmas.
The big mistake was not realising that they could modernise and still use coal, by going for wider electrification. Ultimately, electric trains still run on coal. The Germans saw this and for all its similar issues today with lack of investment, they have a much better system than we do.
Crazy to think that in early 1930s America we would have mainline diesels running along side steam for almost 2 decades, but in Britain it would be years before any real mass produced mainline diesels appeared, and years before they actually became reliable. I’m all for a country building there own technology, but I can’t help but think how much better it could have gone had BR worked out some kind of license agreement with EMD or Alco to build a proven American design domestically in the UK by British companies
Due to the passing of the Clean air Act 1956 which made it illegal and finable offence for a steam locomotive to emit excessive smoke (Section 19) the BTC was forced to rapidly dieselise, meaning they bought a lot of rubbish with their gems.
All of this is another clear example of what happens when you allow pencil pushers, accountants and bean counters, bureaucrats and government public servants to control things by committee. Oh wait, I also forgot, allowing politicians to get involved. They always have party axes to grind.
You forgot to add changing the laws to ensure that killer smogs like we had in 1952 didn't happen again. This pushed the BTC into accelerating the dieselisation and electrification on the railways as Section 19 of the Clean air Act 1956 made it illegal for a steam locomotive to emit excess smoke in the smoke control zones, something happens from time to time.
Ah yes electrification... A process still going on and likely to never be completed AND completely forgetting that we have two electric systems that function here in the UK and have done since the earliest days of electrification.
beeching axe I can say this was a mess closing lines that where heavily used and making money only to be closed on the grounds off been duplicate routs like my local beverley to york line with it closers has made traveling to york a nightmare considering how busy the road get and how many accidents happen each year coursing huge delays am just hoping one day the line will be reopen
Smashing vid as always ..... a nerdish point, there are two shots of non-standard Standard 5's: one with Stephenson's link motion and the other with Caprotti gear.
Mr. Rational. "Here's my plan we scour the world for successful diesel locomotives and then we produce license copies of them in the UK with a little cosmetic work to make them look British." Mr. Labor Party, "No, we can't afford to pay the licensing fee." Mr. Rational, "Ok. Then have MI6 steal the designs and make significant cosmetic changes to make them look home grown." Mr Labor Party, "lf we do that we might end up with locomotives that work.
During the and late 1960s and 1970s British Rail did standardise on a few classes of diesel locomotives, as part of the National Traction Plan non-standard diesel locomotives were withdrawn from service as new units of the standardised classes were bought into service.
@@Alexander_C69 Yeah,after everybody and his Aunt in engineering with no experience of railways had got himself a government contract for diesel locomotives payed for by the taxpayer.
@@philiprufus4427 All the locomotives were designed by a major engineering industrial company or by BR Workshops, and only the Class 15 was designing by an engineering company with limited expertise in designing locomotives.
@@Alexander_C69 have you heard of the class 08 diesel shunter locomotives that was the most standardised locomotive in the British railway fleet with over 900 of them being made.
British Rail's 1955 Modernization Plan was a nightmare from start to finish, it cos the tax payer millions and delivered very little. Once again to many trying to do their own thing. Perpahps it needed a single figure to over see it all perhaps someone like Sir Nigel Gresley. Having two perhaps three types of diseal engines with interchangeable parts would have been a better idea.
Gresley was experimenting with electrics before BR with the EM 1 for the woodhead route because hills. His prototype EM 1 was used to help the dutch and made the base of the Class 76 then class 77 before those were sold to the dutch after the line's closure. So he did have a bit of influence all be it not much.....
probably wasn’t planned that way but BR was setup to fail and made it ripe for the Beeching Cuts. In Australia, the tendency was to run down a service through neglect and then use the lack of patronage to justify closing lines.
Oil and gas in the north sea wasn't discovered yet. Meanwhile there was county durham (where i live) with every colliery you could ever want.... To the point NER didn't care about coal consumption.
Funny: wouldn't those commanding BR in the 50s have been aware that those efficient electric locomotives would run on power generated by power plants running on the coal that was so readily available?
If it's anything like now, things like the strike and the legislation that hamstrung the railways in the face of road and air competition would have been very nice for the people who made money out of road and air transport (or selling cars) and were connected to those in government.
I personally respect British Rail’s intentions with the modernization plan, but the way they did it was completely wrong. I personally would have done gradual changes, and tested the diesels before using them.
The roads,and airlines were subsidized,and the rails had to make a profit?? As in the US,there was/is no equality before the law,so the railroads and public transport was hamstrung from the start!! Then the bankers,who didn't want to put money,into a supposed dying line of operation,as they were making a killing on highway bonds,and airline/ airport construction! By definition,conflict of interest,and that also added to the political morass! Thank you for your commentary,goes along with some native Brits views!! Thanks again 👍!
BR: WE MUST STANDARDIZE ALL OUR EXISTING STOCK AND STEAM LOCOS MOVING FORWARD IN ORDER TO OPERATE COHESIVELY! Also BR: Let's NOT standardize our diesels that haven't been tested yet! That'll work out fine, right? Of course it will~! Spoiler Alert: It didn't.
They were kinda desperate to dieselize. Diesel and/or electric motive power came to prominence in North America, Australia, and most of Europe well before Britain, so it became something of a point of national pride for the politicians to say they had finally gotten Britain out of the steam era. Of course this incredibly ill-conceived approach to dieselization only further contributed to BR's headaches.
Hi . I watch your videos with great interest. The reason BR is regarded as a failure is too much government meddling in my opinion. While other countries just get on with the job like DB,SNCF etc. British governments have always meddled with railways in uk. This has led to an endless cycle of Nationalise. Privatise. Lack of investment, and poor investment when money is available. This has led to uk railways being a bit of a joke compared to their European counterparts.
Class 08 came from the Class 11 that was built for the war department close to the tail end of ww2. And good chunk of them ended up remaining in mainland europe with the dutch for shunting work then somehow came back and good few are used on heritage railways.
@@davidty2006 sixteen Class 11 variants made their way to Australia, to become the Victorian Railways F class shunter. A few survive operational today.
Take courage, Darkness! Remember, there is good stuff amongst the dross - the 03's, 08's, 14's, 20's, 24's and 25's (although I accept they could be troublesome occasionally!), 26's, 31's (problems with the /4 variant and deadly door windows notwithstanding!), 33's (Which you have covered about its only Achilles heel, the electrics), 35's (possibly the best of the diesel-hydraulic engines), 37's , 40's (ok, a bit of a failure as an express passenger loco, but as a second line passenger and heavy freight locomotive, hard to beat), 42's (maybe more "Annoyingly Average", but not bad at all), the brotherhood of the Peaks, 44's, 45's, 46's (excellent machines, although can be criticised on the grounds of weight - the electrics were wonderful though, especially with the 44's and 45's) 47's (To be fair, the 47's needed to be downrated slightly, and performance was a tad "ropey" until about 1970, but once the "teething problems" were overcome, a fantastic engine, although a small warning - the engines themselves, which were developed from the engines used in the 44's, 45's, and 46"s and were very user-friendly when used with the Peaks, were horribly fiddly and fussy in the 47's, it was said you only had to breathe on them and you'd get a piston through the crankcase!) 55's (which you have covered). All of these are covered by the Modernization Plan. (I nearly put in the 56's, because although they came in to service in the 70's, they used Modernization Plan technology - needless to say, as long as you left out the first 30 (strangely enough, 56 004 was a diamond amongst the dross), they were excellent machines, if a bit of a blunt instrument!).
@@robertwilloughby8050 from what I've read those that did get used had poor performance and availability. Ive seen figures quoting that the Class 14s barely reached 6,000 miles between failures, with a common failing being the aluminium cylinder block heads cracking. They also had problems with their starter motors and auxiliary generators. Not the most promising start. Fir fire that don't know it, the saga of their ordering makes some of the other decisions seem rational. Originally in 1957, they were intended to be an 800hp locomotive for branch line, shunting, and trip workings. This was approved and was to based on the DB V80 with a single engine and B-B configuration. With the design work under way, the WR wanted a 1,000hp locomotive with a steam heating boiler. This was refused and they went back to the drawing board. In 1960 the WR tried again, this tine for a DB V60 based Type 1. Approval was granted but the BTC refused to finance the new locomotive in May 1962 on the grounds that most of the work for these locomotives was gone. The ordrcwas then reinstated but for only 26 locomotives. The order was then extended to 56 locomotives. They were delivered between July 1964 and October 1965, but by January 1966 the BTC had to admit that there was no work for new locomotives. By the end of the year the Class 14s were withdrawn from service. The ER was forced to take 23 and did use a few in Hull Docks where they were less than useful, needing 2 locomotives and crews to do the work as they were not powerful enough for the job by themselves and no multiple working equipment had been fitted.
There is also the Class 04s, 07s, 09/10s, (highly successful shunters). even if they were considered unreliable, the Class 17s and 28s did have their moments where they can show regard to double-heading duties and minor work and survived through preservation. Also the Class 101s and 108s were the most reliable and successful diesel railcars throughout the network.
What's puzzling is that BR didn't purchase larger numbers of the Deltics, in addition to developing the prototypes 10000 and 10001 into production models. That, at least to myself, sounds more sensible.
You know some alternate history I think would be funny? If all the faults of the worst steam locomotives ever were actually in the best diesel locomotives ever. Like what if the class 08 didn’t work but the LMS 6399 fury did or the LBASCR e2 class did work.
In my AU of the RWS, Sir Topham Hatt created a similar Modernization Plan in the 1960s, the only difference being that it was successful in comparison to BR's.
The railways of Britain had been under state control twice before 1948, during both world wars and things had worked well. In the discussions about the railways being nationalised post WW2, there was a suggestion to have the current set up of Britains railways, with the government only owning the infastructure. The railways of Britain were first nationalised in 1948, road transport was part of that, under the title British Transport Commission. This put everything bar air travel under one integrated government control. In 1962, Conservative Prime Minister Harrold Wilson, divided the BTC into five bodies, British Railways Board, Transport Docks Board, Waterways Board, London Transport Board and Transport Holding Board. It was in this form, that British Railways would remain until 2001. The trouble that a nationalised industry such as BR faced, was it never had a stated purpose. Each incoming government, had different views, which also impacted the funding of BR. As you say, up until 1955 and during the sectorisation period, BR was doing ok. The standards had made some success, the Midland and Great Northern section of the Eastern Region, was successfully run with BR Standard Class 4 2-6-0s until its closure in 1959. In my view of the diesels produced, the succes were Class 04s, Class 08s, Class 31s, Class 37s, and Class 47s. In the later 70s, the British Rail 125s reinvigorated BR, and the opportunity was there with the APT, but it was wasted by political unrest. I love trains, but what the future holds for rail transport in the UK, really is unclear.
What I'd like to see is a "what if" video, like what if BR did everything right and should have done, and what would UK rail look today or at least the 90s and 00s.
The class 15 was a good coach heater, the class 24 was absolutely fantastic, perfection, the 40s, 26, 27, 33, and 47 were great, the 25s were nice but I’m a 24 guy, the 50, 55, and 31 were good but not a big fan of
No, it was the abandonment of the Modernisation Plan that did that. The Plan was to build a handful of each Type and test them thoroughly and only build successful designs. But the BTC under pressure from the Treasury was forced to abandon the Plan to reduce costs.
The concern about oil vs coal could be avoided if the british goverment builds factories to convert coal in oil, as the germans do during WW2, and so the plans for dieselization couldn't be so frantic
HitD: “Lord, why do you send me your toughest battles?! 😭😭😭😫”
Jesus: “dude, it’s just a video about the BR Moder- oh! Sorry about that! You’ll be fine…I hope. Good luck!”
The one good thing about BR ordering a stupid amount of different diesels is that it definitely makes train simulators capturing the era have a lot of variety
And it gave us the funniest meme on this channel 🤣
Do they break down in the simulator?
@@Dr_Reason Probably
@@Dr_ReasonMost don't simulate the failures, but Im sure there is one out there that does. Technology is wonderful!
Or... as someone who plays Locomotion a ton, have the ability to roleplay as British Railways with various locos ported from MSTS to LoMo by Walter1940 (he literally ported almost every single BR diesel and electric loco's into that game)
Diesel Manufacturers: "Hello Sir, we have made the diesels you asked for. Which one would you like us to build more of?"
BR: "Yes"
DM: "yes, Sir but whi-"
BR: "YES!"
😂😂😂😂
I would love for you - maybe as an April Fools project - to do something like this, but for the Island of Sodor, explaining the BR era as if it were real. The mental image of some sort of skit where Sir Hatt laughs the BR execs out of the room over Dieselization is hilarious.
I'd like a semi-serious April Fool on the Class 54 'Super Deltics', treating them as if they actually existed, and having them chock full of all the minor, niggly faults that don't impinge on the availability figure too much, all delivered in Darkness's most serious tone (as though British Railways has broken him, and he'll never be happy again!). That would be fun!
@@robertwilloughby8050 Why not both? Do an April Fool's video where he speaks about Sodor, but he goes over how all the accidents would treat the Fat Controller's railway in real life (only acting like it really happened.)
@@tencents6 That would be fun! But I'd be scared that Sir Topham Hatt would end up on trial for Corporate Manslaughter ........
In NSW, the Crookwell line was the last line to be dieselized. The working timetable had this inscription on the top “The locomotive shall be equipped with an electric headlight”. This statement was shown for many years of diesel service.
The line is closed now but there were some attempts to run a tourist railway. I had this mental image of the driver being admonished by a Fat Controller type who is trying to verify that the locomotive indeed had an electric headlight.
The New South Wales Railways made the same mistake in ordering lots of diesel yard shunters at a time when containerisation was imminent. In 1970-71 they started replacing their 19 Class steam locos of 1877 vintage with 73 Class diesels. Problem was that the need for these diesels would be short lived. They should have known as LCLs (less than a container load) containers were already coming into use by that time. The 73s were much shorter lived than the 19 Class; withdrawals commented in 1987. Many were sold to Queensland sugar cane companies for conversion to 610 mm (2 ft) gauge.
(The 19 Class started off life as main line freight locos in 1877, and one was still being used on the main line on light goods in Newcastle in 1968).
BR not the only railway to order untested locomotives: WAGR ordered a fleet of 48 X class locos. The X has the same engine as the BR 28 class D57 - the CO-BO locomotive. The 28s were scrapped (one survived) after 11 years - due to the unreliable engine. WAGR persisted with theirs and got them running reliably after numerous changes to parts of the engines. The X class remained in service until 1988.
I am the same age as British Railways, lived on a main line out of London and worked for BR three times, starting on them when the railways were obliged to carry anything they were offered. I saw the diesels coming in and then the electrics that finally replaced them and reflected at the time on why the heck did they bother with the diesel interregnum on my own line when many steam engines were barely eight years old. This video is, to me, a very accurate summary!
I think the 'successful' diesels such as the Class 08 and 20 (both English Electric engines) have been a real success and many of them are still working today!
I think the BoCo fanfiction makes a reference to the Class 28's unreliability; ironically in the Railway Series BoCo is the one diesel that visits Sodor that doesn't break down!
the ghost train theme from thomas in the begining fits so well XDD
When ‘The Beeching Cuts’ appeared, I was hoping for an axe to appear and cut the title card in half.
As far as the marshalling yards are concerned, you are a little bit off. Containerization didn't even have its first experiments until the 1960s and really didn't take off until the 1980s and 1990s. One of the big things that American railroads were doing at the time was the building of "hump" yards to classify freight. In short, a hump yard has a small artificial hill where cars are pushed up and then roll down via gravity. People in an observation tower would set the switches so that the car would go to the appropriate track for it's next train. So, most likely, British Rail was thinking along these lines.
In the post WWII era, it was more likely the diversion of goods from train to truck. Since, even today, trucks are more economical for runs of 500 miles or less, this was a big problem in Great Britain where there just weren't many long-haul runs. So, simply, there wasn't a lot of freight to classify.
It was the same after the first war, a lot of trucks became available for next to nothing and people and companies bought them, the Canals died off fairly quickly after the first world war and not as a lot think because of Railways but because of the trucks!
jump forward to the aftermath of WWII and again a lot of cheap truck/lorries become available, this led to the demise of a lot of rail freight, why wait for a train and have to haul your goods to the final destination when a Haulier will deliver it to your door next day?
You know what? You should make a full length documentary on Richard Jensen and the steam locomotives he “preserved”, and your main source should be “A Passion for Steam” by Trackside Photographer.
Only just discovered this channel, there were some solid points in this but misses some key details: The UK rail network in it's entire history never really made any money, any appearances of it returning hefty dividends were often bourne out of 1840s railway mania scams made by the likes of George Hudson. They history of UK railways in the 19th century is very similar to big tech companies of today. Once the bubble finally burst, is why you initially got grouping and the big 4 with hopes that amalgamations will offset loss making networks. However the losses continued but the railways had long established themselves as indispensable to UK industry, which is why we got BR. I'd argue that the government wanting to make the UK railways profitable over modern was the biggest mistake of the modernisation plan.
The main reason for the unreliability of UK diesels was its restrictive loading gauge, we'd been experimenting with diesel/petrol prototypes since the beginning of the 20th century, however the countries with the earliest successes in dieselisation, (Germany and the US) also had the most generous loading gauges. By the early 50s there simply wasn't the technology for small yet powerful enough engines that could fit into the loading gauge, up to the task of powering big express and freight (that's why the earliest diesels such as railcars and the 08s were the earliest successful diesels because they performed jobs which didn't require massively powerful engines.) Our railways required something more proprietary rather than off the shelf.
Why we still manufactured steam so late was, that the UK railway network was completely exhausted from the war, we needed new rolling stock immediately, depending on what was at the time relatively unproven technology within our restrictive loading gauge would've been foolish, so we stuck with what worked.
For more info on this I'd recommend the TH-cam channel Gareth Dennis and Tanya Jacksons book on British Rail or Charles Lofts book Last Trains.
Not convinced about the loading gauge being connected with unreliability: the NZR's loading gauge is a fair amount smaller than British railways and yet the 1953 model G12 from '55 with 1425hp were achieving over a 90% availability rate. Of course these were lesser power than the 16CSVT, however the EE 12SVT of contemporary vintage were considerably more unreliable than the G12's 567C. The 6SRKT and 6CSRKT were more reliable than the 12SVT, however they weren't in the same league availability wise. With, again, a smaller loading than Britain.
Lots of state owned industries made profits. British Airways, British Gas, British Telecom, Central Electricity Generating Board and I could go on. The industries that lost money were basket cases before they were nationalised like coal and railways. They were declining industries and no amount of money or effort was going to save them.
Amazingly, the British Waterways (the Nationalised inland waterways entity) made (small) profits year in, year out!
1:36 thats a claughton class steam locomotive, I wish they preserved them
They just ran the scanning train over my section of the ECML to prepare for electrifying it
And all of this is why modelling the railways in the 1950's/60's is still so popular in the UK. You can run almost any combination of locos and it existed somewhere on the network.
Now I'll give you a laugh, the real issue with freight was that the British Government after the first world war had kick started the Road Haulage industry, but during the last war, the railways were the only means of transporting goods in bulk that was needed. It means that the freight issue was not a new problem. The second factor was that many companies owned their own wagons, and merely had the wagons moved. Actually modulisation was on the books for sea freight reasons. But not the current container freight.
*Modernisation
What BR should have done
-Actually modernizing the system by rebuilding certain curves and making the system more suitable for higher speed operation, rather than dressing up the old Victorian era network with modern equipment.
-Built freight yards for container freight
-gotten rid of the Railway and canal traffic act the minute BR was formed.
-Taken Diesel introduction more steadily without the railway and canal act. As in, testing out the what would have been the original 174 and decided which FTs they liked the best, then slowly increase the orders.
-Have the orders of diesels take the trends in growth of local and branch line services.
Politics in the 1930s had hampered entrepreneurship under Grouping.
The Depression hit 'distressed areas' such as the North East and South Wales, where the coal industry had to be protected- hence the bias to perpetuating steam traction, beating speed records with 'Mallard' etc. But there was plenty of entrepreneurial spirit in regions whose economies boomed: think of Herbert Walker's Southern Electric or the magnificent public transit in London under Lord Ashfield and Frank Pick.
The LMS was experimenting with mainline diesels and the GWR with railcars well before World War Two. Gresley's and Bulleid's streamlining was a technology that looked beyond steam.
War and socialist theorizing about the efficiency of state ownership smothered innovation.
A Big Four freed of anachronistic common-carrier obligations would probably have met the challenges from road and air more adroitly than a BR toiling under the bureaucratic supervision of a British Transport Commission and a Ministry of Transport. After all, before 1939 the Four were already guarding their flanks by investing in bus lines and air passenger services.
BTC/BR was also being hamstrung in the 1950s by the government preventing them from raising prices to cover rising costs which lead to the deficit of 1962 which the Beeching Plan was intended to reduce.
Yeah, and it didn't help that Beeching's _boss_ was the epitome of 'conflict of interest' in the first place. To quote/paraphrase the Stories of Sodor, Beeching was doing what British Parliament told him to do: fix British Rail. The problem is that they didn't know that Beeching's boss was a bad actor and went behind Beeching's back to rip the rails up and replace them with roads.
@@TheTrueAdept how is not holding any shares in a road building company a conflict interest?
@@neiloflongbeck5705 not Beeching, his ACTUAL boss who was the conflict of interest here...
@@TheTrueAdept Marples HAD sold his shares.
@@neiloflongbeck5705 not really. Maples still had a vested interest in the company, and it isn't uncommon in these sort of situations that the sale of stocks is a fiction...
The whole diesel thing brings ‘prototype / final design’ to a whole new level.
In our defence, British rail couldn't start a modernization plan until it did because of WW2. Whilst France and Germany and other European countries rebuilt war damaged railways to modern standards because they had been damaged, the UK was broke but had a functional network, so the modernization plan, if it could of been implemented earlier, could of worked, but we didn't have that luxury.
Hell, we didn't finish paying back the lend lease to America until about 2005.
Also, I recall a conversation me and my Dad had about this once and, with hindsight being 20/20, he suggested that if BR had kept steam on the main line and concentrated dieselization on the branch lined to start then we could of had a fuller and more reliable network than we have today.
Keep up the excellent videos.
We ended up just repairing the network constantly to keep war traffic moving.
Diesels were only quite new meanwhile electrics had been well tested by the big 4.
Although they could of atleast electrified kings cross without redoing the roof.
I suspect the North Eastern Railway and later London & North Eastern Railway wanted to modernise with diesel and electrics.
@@sandletters39 LNER never had any major interest in diesels same with NER before it. Electrics however NER and LNER had great interest with Tyneside having a 3rd rail network and Gresley making the EM 1 that would become the Class 76 for the woodhead route.
@@davidty2006 They certainly had some brief interest in the Armstrong Whitworth 1Co1 diesel experiment of 1933. The NER however planned to electrify the York to Newcastle leg of the East Coast Main Line but WW1 intervened everything.
@@sandletters39 oof that section wouldn't be electrified till the class 91's arrived in the late 80's.
Only if the durham coast line that i live on was electrified as well mainly for diversion reasons....
I remember that even the Royal Train was often steam-hauled because the diesels were too unreliable and breaking down was embarrassing.
Well at least most of the diesels were either rebuilt and proved very more reliable as their steam predecessors, (Class 14s, Class 22s, Class 24s, Class 35s, Class 40s, Class 42s and Class 52s) or had been modified into working for long living careers, such as (Class 20s, 37s, 47s, 55s and 66s)
And hey even some steam engines had some problems and often had to rely on the diesels to come to the rescue (Flying Scotsman for example in 2019.
@@lennoxschannel7484 What happened with that
Great video.
As is the case with many things in life...haste makes waste.
British Railways was in such a hurry to modernize ASAP, that they ended up with a plethora of fairly useless diesel motive power.
I know some people are calling for the nationalization of the American freight railroads; I get the feeling that it'd be like British Railways, but even worse.
Another great video on the folly of British Rail! It's nice to see that you're working on more documentary styled videos that go in depth about the economics of railroading around the world in addition to your top 5 lists.
A folly only surpassed by its privatisation becoming - RAILWRECK - LITTERALY'
Josh: *Mentions Dr. Beeching*
Collective fan base: "HISSS"
His real name is Josh?
well anyone who actaully understands anything and knows that he did what had to be done wouldnt hiss. they accept, like beeching did, that the world had moved on and a lot of those lines had to go
You should look to explain the breakdown of what all the derivatives of design used in the modernisation plan. The Diesel Hydraulics, the Diesel Electrics, 3rd rail, pantograph and their distribution.
Another great "What if" idea supported... that of bypassing mass dieselisation, doing a like for like upgrade of antiquated steam replacement - eg. The Ex-Midland Railway 1252 class with Ivatt Prairie tanks (or BR Standard 2MT), in a pragmatic way of possibly replacing three 19th century era engines with two new... even three new for seven old... imagine seeing a fleet of Standard Class 8 in Royal Blue livery with the Double Arrow logo up until the 1980's.
Nice! 😊
With the music at the end I would have expected the „Beeching axe“ ;-)
While the comments on the structure of freight handling sound reasonable, they don’t take account of the related changes in shipping. The advent of the International Standards Organisation (ISO) containers and the major changes in the shipping industry, closure of docks and relocation thereof took place in parallel. They were not forecast correctly in the 1950s.
Very interesting video and fascinating to hear your take on the Modernisation Plan. Overall i think you're pretty accurate but it is worth noting a few things, firstly as you say some diesel locos were successful, in fact some class 20, 37, 47 and 50 are still in active service today as well as some Class 08, many locos were awful and you listed some of the most famous ones. However, in their defence (well a little bit), most, if not all diesel locos were stabled and maintained alongside steam locos, the dirt and grime was not a good environment for diesel locos which required a much cleaner environment for effective maintenance and hence the best chance of decent reliability. Lastly, you appear to be astonished at how badly the whole thing was managed by Government, you have to be aware of the horrendous corruption in place in UK government at that time, this culminated with the Beeching Axe which was driven by Ernest Marples the Transport Minister at that time (Dr Beeching reported to him in effect), Marples had a construction company that specialised in road building so it was in his interest to run down the railways in favour of roads and an expansion of the road network, which is exactly what happened, this is something we are still paying the price for in the UK even now.
Love the fact this is the video that introduced me to Darkness The Curse lmao, just proves how much of a curse British Rail is for him
One of the interesting post-war deals with British Railways vs the European Railways - BR was not destroyed, so they mostly repaired the damage, which left the UK with permanent way built up to 100 year prior, but it did allow them to get up and running faster than they did in Europe. In Europe tank battles and far more intensive application of explosive ordinance resulted in total destruction in places, so the lines were redesigned during the rebuild, resulting in a system today which is capable of supporting a much higher point to point maximum speed - the result is that something like the Channel Tunnel train could run at over 200kph through France, ran slower through the tunnel, because of the pressure wave, but then had to slow to a snail pace through Kent with the very winding tracks, that just don't allow safe high speed workings.
For one it didn't help that the Tory Government of the day were lobbying for the roads, especially Ernest Marples who owned a Road Building company, indeed the politics in it!
Except that by the time he was Minister of Transport he had sold all of his shares.
Hmmmm and tories have been with oil companies ever since....
@@davidty2006 yeah the tories tend to be with the things that the people need, like the roads back then which appeard to be the future of transport until the 1980s when everyone realised they would become too full, and oil today that no country can exist without
The British Rail guide to modernization. Throw money at the wall, surely some of it will stick.
I really appreciate the fairness with which you covered this topic: pointing out the good as well as the bad.
Are you going to cover the beeching cuts?
One area where it was a success??.... A fantastic range of models for the railway modeller!!!
Gave us a meme on this channel too
One thing that you don't realise was that the the British government had planned on Nationalizing the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) and the British European Airways (BEA) which they eventually did in 1962 with the creation of British Airways and Road Freight network, and the railways were seen as an easy win..... the Road Freight network wasn't touched after the chaos of managing British Rail.
Oh, my... there's cursed darkness, Dante's Inferno, a one way boat trip in Hades, and then there's...
Thank you for this, sincerely hope you manage to sleep sometime before Christmas.
Can't wait for the sequel and Dr. Beeching... Britain's closest equivalent to a certain Mr. Perlman...
You should talk about illinois central 790, it's a 2-8-0 consolidation built back in 1903. It's a wonderful little engine
The big mistake was not realising that they could modernise and still use coal, by going for wider electrification. Ultimately, electric trains still run on coal. The Germans saw this and for all its similar issues today with lack of investment, they have a much better system than we do.
Crazy to think that in early 1930s America we would have mainline diesels running along side steam for almost 2 decades, but in Britain it would be years before any real mass produced mainline diesels appeared, and years before they actually became reliable. I’m all for a country building there own technology, but I can’t help but think how much better it could have gone had BR worked out some kind of license agreement with EMD or Alco to build a proven American design domestically in the UK by British companies
They probably would have been
Are we getting a sequel about the Beeching Cuts? Would love to hear your spin on it!
Due to the passing of the Clean air Act 1956 which made it illegal and finable offence for a steam locomotive to emit excessive smoke (Section 19) the BTC was forced to rapidly dieselise, meaning they bought a lot of rubbish with their gems.
This is the longest period the BR theme has run nonstop in a video
All of this is another clear example of what happens when you allow pencil pushers, accountants and bean counters, bureaucrats and government public servants to control things by committee. Oh wait, I also forgot, allowing politicians to get involved. They always have party axes to grind.
...and mates who are into road building...
You forgot to add changing the laws to ensure that killer smogs like we had in 1952 didn't happen again. This pushed the BTC into accelerating the dieselisation and electrification on the railways as Section 19 of the Clean air Act 1956 made it illegal for a steam locomotive to emit excess smoke in the smoke control zones, something happens from time to time.
@@neiloflongbeck5705 Sorry Neil, I know you were making a serious point, but 'killer snogs' made me proper snort.
@@binarydinosaurs thanks.
Wondered when you'd actually dive into the Modernisation Plan.
Ah yes electrification... A process still going on and likely to never be completed AND completely forgetting that we have two electric systems that function here in the UK and have done since the earliest days of electrification.
Cracking video!
You’re intro this time around felt different than usual, I like it!
It's really good to see a longer rail-based video. I'd love to see more longer non-game-play videos!
beeching axe I can say this was a mess closing lines that where heavily used and making money only to be closed on the grounds off been duplicate routs like my local beverley to york line with it closers has made traveling to york a nightmare considering how busy the road get and how many accidents happen each year coursing huge delays am just hoping one day the line will be reopen
A Very well done presentation
Smashing vid as always ..... a nerdish point, there are two shots of non-standard Standard 5's: one with Stephenson's link motion and the other with Caprotti gear.
Mr. Rational. "Here's my plan we scour the world for successful diesel locomotives and then we produce license copies of them in the UK with a little cosmetic work to make them look British."
Mr. Labor Party, "No, we can't afford to pay the licensing fee."
Mr. Rational, "Ok. Then have MI6 steal the designs and make significant cosmetic changes to make them look home grown."
Mr Labor Party, "lf we do that we might end up with locomotives that work.
I'm actually surprised that British Railways didn't just _standardize_ on a few types of diesel locomotives.
During the and late 1960s and 1970s British Rail did standardise on a few classes of diesel locomotives, as part of the National Traction Plan non-standard diesel locomotives were withdrawn from service as new units of the standardised classes were bought into service.
@@Alexander_C69 I agree, but that early plan was an expensive fiasco.
@@Alexander_C69 Yeah,after everybody and his Aunt in engineering with no experience of railways had got himself a government contract for diesel locomotives payed for by the taxpayer.
@@philiprufus4427 All the locomotives were designed by a major engineering industrial company or by BR Workshops, and only the Class 15 was designing by an engineering company with limited expertise in designing locomotives.
@@Alexander_C69 have you heard of the class 08 diesel shunter locomotives that was the most standardised locomotive in the British railway fleet with over 900 of them being made.
British Rail's 1955 Modernization Plan was a nightmare from start to finish, it cos the tax payer millions and delivered very little. Once again to many trying to do their own thing. Perpahps it needed a single figure to over see it all perhaps someone like Sir Nigel Gresley. Having two perhaps three types of diseal engines with interchangeable parts would have been a better idea.
Gresley was experimenting with electrics before BR with the EM 1 for the woodhead route because hills. His prototype EM 1 was used to help the dutch and made the base of the Class 76 then class 77 before those were sold to the dutch after the line's closure. So he did have a bit of influence all be it not much.....
His greatest battle lies in wake.
probably wasn’t planned that way but BR was setup to fail and made it ripe for the Beeching Cuts. In Australia, the tendency was to run down a service through neglect and then use the lack of patronage to justify closing lines.
Same thing was done here,witnessed it as a kid,teenager and a young man.
It’s interesting to Amtrak succeed where British Rail failed.
If they wanted to get rid of the cool smoke Ash cinders why didn't they just go to fueling the steam engines with oil?
Too much money to import, and the UK at the time have substantial coal reserves, thus much cheaper.
@@kristoffermangila
They were getting rid of the coal fired engines.
@@calvingreene90 then the UK government would face the ire of the coal mine workers...
Oil and gas in the north sea wasn't discovered yet.
Meanwhile there was county durham (where i live) with every colliery you could ever want....
To the point NER didn't care about coal consumption.
Funny: wouldn't those commanding BR in the 50s have been aware that those efficient electric locomotives would run on power generated by power plants running on the coal that was so readily available?
That was mainly in regards to the diesels
If it's anything like now, things like the strike and the legislation that hamstrung the railways in the face of road and air competition would have been very nice for the people who made money out of road and air transport (or selling cars) and were connected to those in government.
I surprised Clent Atlee didn't want oil
I personally respect British Rail’s intentions with the modernization plan, but the way they did it was completely wrong. I personally would have done gradual changes, and tested the diesels before using them.
The roads,and airlines were subsidized,and the rails had to make a profit?? As in the US,there was/is no equality before the law,so the railroads and public transport was hamstrung from the start!! Then the bankers,who didn't want to put money,into a supposed dying line of operation,as they were making a killing on highway bonds,and airline/ airport construction! By definition,conflict of interest,and that also added to the political morass! Thank you for your commentary,goes along with some native Brits views!! Thanks again 👍!
Yeah the americanism came over here...
Making us the US of europe...
Good One 👍
Starts at about 1.15, an ok doc.
OMG he did it he really did it!
All shrinks and mental hospitals must standby this will be brutal 😱
BR: WE MUST STANDARDIZE ALL OUR EXISTING STOCK AND STEAM LOCOS MOVING FORWARD IN ORDER TO OPERATE COHESIVELY!
Also BR: Let's NOT standardize our diesels that haven't been tested yet! That'll work out fine, right? Of course it will~!
Spoiler Alert:
It didn't.
They were kinda desperate to dieselize. Diesel and/or electric motive power came to prominence in North America, Australia, and most of Europe well before Britain, so it became something of a point of national pride for the politicians to say they had finally gotten Britain out of the steam era. Of course this incredibly ill-conceived approach to dieselization only further contributed to BR's headaches.
Hi . I watch your videos with great interest. The reason BR is regarded as a failure is too much government meddling in my opinion. While other countries just get on with the job like DB,SNCF etc. British governments have always meddled with railways in uk. This has led to an endless cycle of Nationalise. Privatise. Lack of investment, and poor investment when money is available. This has led to uk railways being a bit of a joke compared to their European counterparts.
Sad,when you think British engineers built railways all over the world.
Don’t forget VIA took over CP and CN passenger trains just like Amtrak did in the USA took
The class 08s and their variants are just different
Class 08 came from the Class 11 that was built for the war department close to the tail end of ww2.
And good chunk of them ended up remaining in mainland europe with the dutch for shunting work then somehow came back and good few are used on heritage railways.
@@davidty2006 sixteen Class 11 variants made their way to Australia, to become the Victorian Railways F class shunter. A few survive operational today.
The super villian ark of British Rail
Love the photo coverage of Class 20's, Metro-Vick CO-BO's and the Blue Pullman's ... 3 of my favourite diesels 😁
Take courage, Darkness! Remember, there is good stuff amongst the dross - the 03's, 08's, 14's, 20's, 24's and 25's (although I accept they could be troublesome occasionally!), 26's, 31's (problems with the /4 variant and deadly door windows notwithstanding!), 33's (Which you have covered about its only Achilles heel, the electrics), 35's (possibly the best of the diesel-hydraulic engines), 37's , 40's (ok, a bit of a failure as an express passenger loco, but as a second line passenger and heavy freight locomotive, hard to beat), 42's (maybe more "Annoyingly Average", but not bad at all), the brotherhood of the Peaks, 44's, 45's, 46's (excellent machines, although can be criticised on the grounds of weight - the electrics were wonderful though, especially with the 44's and 45's) 47's (To be fair, the 47's needed to be downrated slightly, and performance was a tad "ropey" until about 1970, but once the "teething problems" were overcome, a fantastic engine, although a small warning - the engines themselves, which were developed from the engines used in the 44's, 45's, and 46"s and were very user-friendly when used with the Peaks, were horribly fiddly and fussy in the 47's, it was said you only had to breathe on them and you'd get a piston through the crankcase!) 55's (which you have covered). All of these are covered by the Modernization Plan. (I nearly put in the 56's, because although they came in to service in the 70's, they used Modernization Plan technology - needless to say, as long as you left out the first 30 (strangely enough, 56 004 was a diamond amongst the dross), they were excellent machines, if a bit of a blunt instrument!).
The 14s were so late that the traffic they were designed fir was long gone.
@@neiloflongbeck5705 I will agree with that, but they were decent, at least.
@@robertwilloughby8050 from what I've read those that did get used had poor performance and availability. Ive seen figures quoting that the Class 14s barely reached 6,000 miles between failures, with a common failing being the aluminium cylinder block heads cracking. They also had problems with their starter motors and auxiliary generators. Not the most promising start.
Fir fire that don't know it, the saga of their ordering makes some of the other decisions seem rational. Originally in 1957, they were intended to be an 800hp locomotive for branch line, shunting, and trip workings. This was approved and was to based on the DB V80 with a single engine and B-B configuration. With the design work under way, the WR wanted a 1,000hp locomotive with a steam heating boiler. This was refused and they went back to the drawing board. In 1960 the WR tried again, this tine for a DB V60 based Type 1. Approval was granted but the BTC refused to finance the new locomotive in May 1962 on the grounds that most of the work for these locomotives was gone. The ordrcwas then reinstated but for only 26 locomotives. The order was then extended to 56 locomotives. They were delivered between July 1964 and October 1965, but by January 1966 the BTC had to admit that there was no work for new locomotives. By the end of the year the Class 14s were withdrawn from service. The ER was forced to take 23 and did use a few in Hull Docks where they were less than useful, needing 2 locomotives and crews to do the work as they were not powerful enough for the job by themselves and no multiple working equipment had been fitted.
the 52s were also very good, honestly theres more good/decent classes to name than rubbish ones
There is also the Class 04s, 07s, 09/10s, (highly successful shunters). even if they were considered unreliable, the Class 17s and 28s did have their moments where they can show regard to double-heading duties and minor work and survived through preservation. Also the Class 101s and 108s were the most reliable and successful diesel railcars throughout the network.
I would love to see a video about JNR. (Japanese National Railways)
What's puzzling is that BR didn't purchase larger numbers of the Deltics, in addition to developing the prototypes 10000 and 10001 into production models. That, at least to myself, sounds more sensible.
Are you going to do a video on Beeching’s ‘Reshaping of British Railways’ report?
Already done. It'll be live for everyone in one week.
Diesel Makers: *Making Diesels*
British Rail: I'LL TAKE YOUR ENTIRE STOCK
You know some alternate history I think would be funny? If all the faults of the worst steam locomotives ever were actually in the best diesel locomotives ever. Like what if the class 08 didn’t work but the LMS 6399 fury did or the LBASCR e2 class did work.
That would be interesting
You gonna have ability to get though whole vid on British rails bud, should we have a medic on stand by
I used to love playing Railroad Tycoon 2 as well. Isn’t the music copyrighted?
He probably has permission from the owners of the game
In my AU of the RWS, Sir Topham Hatt created a similar Modernization Plan in the 1960s, the only difference being that it was successful in comparison to BR's.
The railways of Britain had been under state control twice before 1948, during both world wars and things had worked well. In the discussions about the railways being nationalised post WW2, there was a suggestion to have the current set up of Britains railways, with the government only owning the infastructure. The railways of Britain were first nationalised in 1948, road transport was part of that, under the title British Transport Commission. This put everything bar air travel under one integrated government control. In 1962, Conservative Prime Minister Harrold Wilson, divided the BTC into five bodies, British Railways Board, Transport Docks Board, Waterways Board, London Transport Board and Transport Holding Board. It was in this form, that British Railways would remain until 2001. The trouble that a nationalised industry such as BR faced, was it never had a stated purpose. Each incoming government, had different views, which also impacted the funding of BR. As you say, up until 1955 and during the sectorisation period, BR was doing ok. The standards had made some success, the Midland and Great Northern section of the Eastern Region, was successfully run with BR Standard Class 4 2-6-0s until its closure in 1959. In my view of the diesels produced, the succes were Class 04s, Class 08s, Class 31s, Class 37s, and Class 47s. In the later 70s, the British Rail 125s reinvigorated BR, and the opportunity was there with the APT, but it was wasted by political unrest. I love trains, but what the future holds for rail transport in the UK, really is unclear.
What I'd like to see is a "what if" video, like what if BR did everything right and should have done, and what would UK rail look today or at least the 90s and 00s.
Probably electric on the busiest main line and suburban routes and DMUs and steam, running on light oil fuel, on the secondary routes.
This is why we should’ve kept steam people!! 🤣
The class 15 was a good coach heater, the class 24 was absolutely fantastic, perfection, the 40s, 26, 27, 33, and 47 were great, the 25s were nice but I’m a 24 guy, the 50, 55, and 31 were good but not a big fan of
English Electric is probably the only diesel manufacturer in the UK to have their head screwed on in the modernization
@@lyokianhitchhiker sulzer slander grrrrr
Ahh yes, the modernization plan that brought terrible Locomotives
No, it was the abandonment of the Modernisation Plan that did that. The Plan was to build a handful of each Type and test them thoroughly and only build successful designs. But the BTC under pressure from the Treasury was forced to abandon the Plan to reduce costs.
Along with some good ones that still run today on the mainlines and refuse to die...
All hail the 37.
@@davidty2006 the Modernisation Plan didn't have any Type 3 designs. They came from the abandonment of the Modernistion Plan.
Is the dr beeching cuts next video british railway?
4:43 what image is that?
Got scared by the spooky intro. Had to go watch cat videos. What'd I miss?
The concern about oil vs coal could be avoided if the british goverment builds factories to convert coal in oil, as the germans do during WW2, and so the plans for dieselization couldn't be so frantic
*Beeching Cuts WHEN?*
Government in action.
I feel this is going to a Beeching of a video,,, browahahah
That one seems is still at yard to be prepared for service
Do you plan on making more videos of terrible locomotives?
They should have ordered EMDs. Why reinvent the wheel?
Like any nation, they do tend to try and keep the local businesses happy. Why did EMD build their own diesels and not buy MAN's? Same thing...
Marchwood lived there