The Trainpal app is absolutely incredible, check it out below. Use code TURNIP for amazing savings of 5% OFF UK and Euro Travel and 20% off Railcards mytrainpal.onelink.me/q1rp/kd62m9jb?pid=social&af_siteid=yt-TURNIP&campaign=media
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 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
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
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 ❤
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.
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
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
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.
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 and there was some improvement works to the old system.
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.
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.
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.
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. ❤ 🚆
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.
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!
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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....
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.
Northern is getting better, sprinters are getting used less and less, we have brand new 331s, (Electric) and 195s (Hybrid), well the north west is, also no same company would run both london to york and Rotherham to grimsby
Sadly where we are at today, all comes back to 1948 and Nationalisation. Why? Bickering between regions who the management came from one of the Big 4, Lines that were formally from one company (LNER to Midland region which were controlled by LMS managers etc), a none cohesive plan of effective rationalisation, to remove duplication that occurred during the great railway building in the 1800's , political interference, self-interest (Earnest Marples who was Secretary of Transport, and owned a road building company.....), the modernisation plan that had no idea and a lot of poorly designed rolling stock (but a treat for train spotters), lack of interest and investment through the 70's and 80's. poor management and bolshy unions, a total lack of thought of integration of all transport from trams, buses, aviation and even cars, a very poor set up of the privatisation and its goals, shareholder led investment (sorry, grabbing profits before pumping money back in), the complete lack of interest in any major projects that don't involve London, to the current one of HS2, which is starving the north of a comprehensive investment of infrastructure over the South East. HS3 (The cross link between Liverpool and Newcastle, serving the major cities of Manchester, Bradford, Leeds, Sheffield, Hull, York as well) should have been done before any link to London. This really has been 80 years in the making.
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.
Trains aren't any better elsewhere in England I can asure you. They are expensive, overcrowded and often cancelled everywhere. I don't drive so I know how shite they are. Especially since covid they have not reinstated services the same as before. They are understaffed. Every train operator is. Northerners just think they are hard done by. ☹️ I have used trainpal before to split tickets to save £££. 👍🏻
I was in Korea years ago when strikes were happening. They even had staff in reserve to get the subway running and a quicker service. Driving down to London soon. Train prices and services are daylight robbery.
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.
There was a plan to build a thru' station in Bfd, however this was to have been sited at the old St. James wholesale market which is a good walk away from the city center, up a hill & the other side of the A650 main road! So, not a great idea. Perhaps, the Interchange simply needs rebuilding with a new platform layout and the Bridge Street (bridge) rebuilding and new entrance creating on the north side.
Anybody remember British rail and how bad that was? Anything done by government will be at least twice the cost and half the quality. Ticket prices might come down but taxes will go up to pay for it
5 years of coming into power LOL, how long is a term again!. The Government in the 50's 60's Made rail freight "expensive" simply by financing and favouring road freight. (Turning road freight into a monopoly which was what it accused the rail of being). Follow the money of who benefited their. This very reason of "monopoly" by the rail was used as well as inferred corruption to undermine rail freight. You have covered many of the reasons. The government created the environment for road freight to flourish, when a restructuring of bureaucracy and investment would have given us a world class rail system. While we have the present government bureaucracy, no mater what party is in power the choices are going to be bad.
Love your content Turnip, just wondering, have you vlogged Jaywick or plan on doing somewhere down the line? It looks like a sort of place you'd vlog! Maybe an idea for the near future? 😁
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.
Well I dont know about the UK, but where I live, I take the overpriced trains because of legroom, toilets that arent extemely tiny, and dining vagons. Also, there is usually more to look at from the windows than on a bus, where you see just a highway and those noise insulation walls.
i find it rather funny how you all the stock footage you used to describe the “golden age” of british railways showed exclusively trains from other countries
What a complete shit show our Rail has become, we should have state of the art mag lev trains everywhere twenty years ago not these archaic outdated designs. Fares cost a fortune, trains are slow and unreliable, I’m just relieved I don’t have to rely on them.
Go to langport Somerset. To only pub in Britain where there’s no bar. Goin back in time. I ave been goin there 50 years Elies. Rose crown. When go ask for Maureen. Tell her Ken pickles Lancashire told you come
One problem with upgrading and modernising the railways is the legacy of lines that run through towns etc. ii you look at the lines from above, there’s nowhere to expand and modernise too. Lines surrounded by housing and town infrastructure for example.
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.
Unfortunately with railways the passenger has to pay for everything. The fuel the track the wages. I can't see nationalisation changing that in any way.
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
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.
When I go to England, I feel like a vandal standing among the ruins of Rome. The past glory and the current decay. Very sad state of affairs in the whole U.K. currently.
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.
It's all about limiting our movements, keeping us within our little sections. Being easier to monitor us and ultimately control us all. This is the final game plan of those that pull the strings. Seriously, we, as a people are screwed.
ah, no it's not.. if only there was a grand conspiracy, that would at least mean there was a plan. The truth is personal greed and basic incompetence as always, is the main reason.
@@wanderingturnip The punctuality of German railways is so garbage these days, its become a meme there, and the Guardian did an article on it about a year ago. German trains themselves are really nice but Britain does punctuality better. Especially since COVID.
I’ve ridden through there a few times with the Rochdale Cycling Club ..Bacup tunnels 🌈✝️🕊️😇😘🥰😍 x x x The trouble with public transport is incontinent folk sit on the seats ..pick their noses and wipe them on the seats, vomit etc Also e cigging gangs etc
Ken Loach created a really interesting film called ‘The Navigators’, on how British Rail was pulled apart and ‘competition’ introduced. It’s available on RUclips
I think the rail network is slowly improving, new stations are being opened as are some old lines, but given how bad it all was then it's not difficult to get better! Mind you, we're pretty crap at most things these days, so why should the rail network be any different 🤔 I don't believe the Liebor government will do anything at all, they'll just still say there is no money 🥴 That's their go to excuse when they don't really want to do what they have promised, they can find it when it suits though.
The British have often been seen themselves that the privatization of their railways was a disaster, but everywhere else, such as in Finland, it is praised that the privatization of the railways was a success in Britain and it should be followed as a model. So which way is it?
Anyone telling you that British rail privatisation was a success is either a liar or a fool. There is no metric by which British rail systems are competitive with those in countries with equivalent wealth and development. It's slower, stripped down, convoluted, expensive, and unreliable. Even from the owner/operators' perspective it's bad since even with constantly rising ticket prices and effective regional monopolies all the rail companies are constantly on the edge of going bust. So, in answer to your question, it's categorically the first way and don't let anyone tell you otherwise
I think it was before nationalisation really that the problem started. The 'Beeching Cuts' are famous in Britain for being an act of government vandalism in the 1960s (it's not really that the 'Beeching Report' itself caused the cuts, but it's emblematic of a sustained programme of closures before and after the report). Before then (a time my Mum and Dad can remember from their childhood in the 50s and 60s), there was an extensive network of railways across the country, so that the majority of even small towns (and some villages!) had a train station, so that a large proportion of the population had a station in walking distance, from where you could travel to a large proportion of the country. Then the government decided to focus on only the most financially lucrative lines, so they shut loads of stations and tore up a huge amount of the railway network, leaving only lines between cities and large towns where there was the most passengers. It was a really huge amount of railways destroyed. So many places were now cut off from the railway network, or at least you now needed a car to drive to the nearest large town which still had a station. A lot of rural footpath routes in the UK are old railways! This was still back in the time of government ownership of course, but still here is the thinking that the purpose of railways should be to make as much money as efficiently as possible, and _not_ seen as a valuable public service, a piece of national infrastructure which improved the country and helped it to be productive, even if it didn't make that much money itself. The same thing has been happening more recently with something like the post office, for example (although in that case it came at the same time as privatisation, not before it). There always seems to be a bit of a hangover in these sorts of things where that the people who work in the organisation (the railways or the post office, for instance) still think of themselves as public servants providing a community good, even after the owner (the government or a private company) has decided they don't care about it as a piece of national infrastructure. It can take decades for that sentiment to catch up to the new reality, during which time the owners basically profit on the good will of the staff and the public who still want to see it as a public service! Of course, in the present day, it would be amazing to have an extensive national network to provide much more efficient public transport as well as freight, ticking all of the boxes for sustainable transport policy that every major political party agrees with. But it's too late, they'd burnt it all down fifty years ago, because why value having infrastructure for society?! 😞
Don't see how the trains are under funded when train drivers get paid over £60k a year just to press 3 buttons. Might as well get fully automated trains and get rid of them. It's not like a car where you have other road uses to worry about. It's literally a set route on rails. Ai should easily be able to do that.
Hi, a respectful EVP spirit audio analysis at 0.25x video speed. First tunnel (a tunnel in a way acts as a passage - a portal - to another dimension): At 13:43 a male utters a moan and says: 13:44 'I've been busy'. The words could refer to Richard Beeching. Second tunnel, we can hear a female voice, as you talk about the dismantling of the rail line: 14:43 'Det er hemmeligheder..' ('Those are secrets..'), 'for en tillidsmand' ('to a union representative'). At 19:24 a female (spirit) voice says 'Fuck the train'. Thank you, same exact issues here in Denmark, it's crazy. The Völve, Asatru shaman of Denmark and the Lands of the North
Robert McAlpine Lobbied Beeching to close railways as he had purchased trucks from the War Department plus wanted to construct roads and other Infrastructure knowing he would have secured Government Money.
The Trainpal app is absolutely incredible, check it out below. Use code TURNIP for amazing savings of 5% OFF UK and Euro Travel and 20% off Railcards
mytrainpal.onelink.me/q1rp/kd62m9jb?pid=social&af_siteid=yt-TURNIP&campaign=media
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.
Good hairdo.👌
This is 21st century britain for you! Overpriced and no value at all!
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
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
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 👌
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.
£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
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 and there was some improvement works to the old system.
pls dont use AI images
yeah they really need to connect forster square to the interchange so trains can flow through properly to manchester
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. ☹️
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!
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.
Don't forget, our train drivers are by the highest paid in Europe. Don't it believe me? Look it up!
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.
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. ❤ 🚆
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.
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!
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
Your code doesn’t work
Sorting it now thanks
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.
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.
“Great” is a geographical term like Great Yarmouth, Great Grimsby, Greater London and Greater Manchester.
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
Glad to see you again
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
Great topic 😊
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..
Ted is really audacious to walk right in the tunnels !
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!
FFS just nationalise it already.
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.
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 😂.
Let's go
this ones right up my street
or on the right track....
One word - greed
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.
Northern is getting better, sprinters are getting used less and less, we have brand new 331s, (Electric) and 195s (Hybrid), well the north west is, also no same company would run both london to york and Rotherham to grimsby
try Scarborough station!! makes Bradford look well connected!
Sadly where we are at today, all comes back to 1948 and Nationalisation. Why? Bickering between regions who the management came from one of the Big 4, Lines that were formally from one company (LNER to Midland region which were controlled by LMS managers etc), a none cohesive plan of effective rationalisation, to remove duplication that occurred during the great railway building in the 1800's , political interference, self-interest (Earnest Marples who was Secretary of Transport, and owned a road building company.....), the modernisation plan that had no idea and a lot of poorly designed rolling stock (but a treat for train spotters), lack of interest and investment through the 70's and 80's. poor management and bolshy unions, a total lack of thought of integration of all transport from trams, buses, aviation and even cars, a very poor set up of the privatisation and its goals, shareholder led investment (sorry, grabbing profits before pumping money back in), the complete lack of interest in any major projects that don't involve London, to the current one of HS2, which is starving the north of a comprehensive investment of infrastructure over the South East. HS3 (The cross link between Liverpool and Newcastle, serving the major cities of Manchester, Bradford, Leeds, Sheffield, Hull, York as well) should have been done before any link to London. This really has been 80 years in the making.
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.
Trains aren't any better elsewhere in England I can asure you. They are expensive, overcrowded and often cancelled everywhere. I don't drive so I know how shite they are. Especially since covid they have not reinstated services the same as before. They are understaffed. Every train operator is. Northerners just think they are hard done by. ☹️
I have used trainpal before to split tickets to save £££. 👍🏻
I was in Korea years ago when strikes were happening. They even had staff in reserve to get the subway running and a quicker service.
Driving down to London soon. Train prices and services are daylight robbery.
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.
There was a plan to build a thru' station in Bfd, however this was to have been sited at the old St. James wholesale market which is a good walk away from the city center, up a hill & the other side of the A650 main road! So, not a great idea. Perhaps, the Interchange simply needs rebuilding with a new platform layout and the Bridge Street (bridge) rebuilding and new entrance creating on the north side.
Anybody remember British rail and how bad that was? Anything done by government will be at least twice the cost and half the quality. Ticket prices might come down but taxes will go up to pay for it
5 years of coming into power LOL, how long is a term again!.
The Government in the 50's 60's Made rail freight "expensive" simply by financing and favouring road freight. (Turning road freight into a monopoly which was what it accused the rail of being). Follow the money of who benefited their. This very reason of "monopoly" by the rail was used as well as inferred corruption to undermine rail freight. You have covered many of the reasons. The government created the environment for road freight to flourish, when a restructuring of bureaucracy and investment would have given us a world class rail system.
While we have the present government bureaucracy, no mater what party is in power the choices are going to be bad.
Love your content Turnip, just wondering, have you vlogged Jaywick or plan on doing somewhere down the line? It looks like a sort of place you'd vlog! Maybe an idea for the near future? 😁
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.
Well I dont know about the UK, but where I live, I take the overpriced trains because of legroom, toilets that arent extemely tiny, and dining vagons. Also, there is usually more to look at from the windows than on a bus, where you see just a highway and those noise insulation walls.
i find it rather funny how you all the stock footage you used to describe the “golden age” of british railways showed exclusively trains from other countries
What a complete shit show our Rail has become, we should have state of the art mag lev trains everywhere twenty years ago not these archaic outdated designs. Fares cost a fortune, trains are slow and unreliable, I’m just relieved I don’t have to rely on them.
Go to langport Somerset. To only pub in Britain where there’s no bar. Goin back in time. I ave been goin there 50 years Elies. Rose crown. When go ask for Maureen. Tell her Ken pickles Lancashire told you come
One problem with upgrading and modernising the railways is the legacy of lines that run through towns etc. ii you look at the lines from above, there’s nowhere to expand and modernise too. Lines surrounded by housing and town infrastructure for example.
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.
I'm 56 and it's sad that your films hold a mirror up to what this country is becoming
i find trainpal has become very unreliable now, it used to provide really good discounts but it just isnt the same
Horse & cart possible... electric cars produce emissions covered by the Euro 8 rules.
I'M BEGINNING TO THINK THAT THE POWERS THAT BE SHOULD JUST CLOSE BRITAIN DOWN AS THIS APPEARS TO BE WHAT THEY ARE DOING.
Replacement bus service - shocking, no other country in the world needs to do engineering work only us 🙄
You are great at doing the ads/promotions too. Normally I skip but you are really good at it. Love the new longer hair.
Unfortunately with railways the passenger has to pay for everything. The fuel the track the wages. I can't see nationalisation changing that in any way.
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
Will watch in full. Must say the Elizabeth line and thameslink are solid. But then again that's in the south east and we get the spoils here.
Re -nationisation ? I will believe it when it happens ! Money for someone ? !
What's thebpoint of train pal app, if the trains aren't running 😅
The swashbuckling hero hair looks boss mate!
Anyone who believes a politician is a fool
Good Vibes
it cheaper to fly across the country than get a train
Pay per mile will slaughter the entire car industry.
ERNEST MARPLES PUT THE BOOT N ON THE RAILWAYS TORY TRANSPORT MINISTER.
Can you do video about the mess of Bradford Live
watching the trains coming in and going out again great content for watching on a train
One of your best videos yet Turnip, so interesting 🥰
Reason… incompetency and corruption.
Would be interested in a similar video on buses in Britain
Thanks for another fantastic video
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.
Please do more of Bacup 😆🙏❤
When I go to England, I feel like a vandal standing among the ruins of Rome. The past glory and the current decay. Very sad state of affairs in the whole U.K. currently.
I think you mean Vandal not vandal :0)
Ed China's twin ;-)
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 👍
Nice Video thanks mate
great video!
Keep turnipin(!!!)
Thanks for this, the British did invent the railways, but in the 18th, not the 17th century.
1800s and 19th century you mean?
16th century if horse drawn are included.
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.
It's all about limiting our movements, keeping us within our little sections. Being easier to monitor us and ultimately control us all. This is the final game plan of those that pull the strings. Seriously, we, as a people are screwed.
ah, no it's not.. if only there was a grand conspiracy, that would at least mean there was a plan. The truth is personal greed and basic incompetence as always, is the main reason.
The Tories did much to undermine the Railways under Thatcher for ideological reasons.
Yeah the road lobby
In Germany the train network is a lot worse than the UK. Overall I really don't think UK trains are that bad.
Really? I’m surprised to hear that
@@wanderingturnip The punctuality of German railways is so garbage these days, its become a meme there, and the Guardian did an article on it about a year ago.
German trains themselves are really nice but Britain does punctuality better. Especially since COVID.
I’ve ridden through there a few times with the Rochdale Cycling Club ..Bacup tunnels 🌈✝️🕊️😇😘🥰😍 x x x
The trouble with public transport is incontinent folk sit on the seats ..pick their noses and wipe them on the seats, vomit etc
Also e cigging gangs etc
Ken Loach created a really interesting film called ‘The Navigators’, on how British Rail was pulled apart and ‘competition’ introduced.
It’s available on RUclips
We love you wandering turnip you're so informative ❤️
I never comment about promos’ but train pal is brilliant! actually true!!
I think the rail network is slowly improving, new stations are being opened as are some old lines, but given how bad it all was then it's not difficult to get better! Mind you, we're pretty crap at most things these days, so why should the rail network be any different 🤔
I don't believe the Liebor government will do anything at all, they'll just still say there is no money 🥴 That's their go to excuse when they don't really want to do what they have promised, they can find it when it suits though.
The British have often been seen themselves that the privatization of their railways was a disaster, but everywhere else, such as in Finland, it is praised that the privatization of the railways was a success in Britain and it should be followed as a model. So which way is it?
The British railways are incredibly profitable for the companies that own the rail cars. Just about everyone else has lost out.
Anyone telling you that British rail privatisation was a success is either a liar or a fool. There is no metric by which British rail systems are competitive with those in countries with equivalent wealth and development. It's slower, stripped down, convoluted, expensive, and unreliable. Even from the owner/operators' perspective it's bad since even with constantly rising ticket prices and effective regional monopolies all the rail companies are constantly on the edge of going bust. So, in answer to your question, it's categorically the first way and don't let anyone tell you otherwise
I think it was before nationalisation really that the problem started. The 'Beeching Cuts' are famous in Britain for being an act of government vandalism in the 1960s (it's not really that the 'Beeching Report' itself caused the cuts, but it's emblematic of a sustained programme of closures before and after the report). Before then (a time my Mum and Dad can remember from their childhood in the 50s and 60s), there was an extensive network of railways across the country, so that the majority of even small towns (and some villages!) had a train station, so that a large proportion of the population had a station in walking distance, from where you could travel to a large proportion of the country.
Then the government decided to focus on only the most financially lucrative lines, so they shut loads of stations and tore up a huge amount of the railway network, leaving only lines between cities and large towns where there was the most passengers. It was a really huge amount of railways destroyed. So many places were now cut off from the railway network, or at least you now needed a car to drive to the nearest large town which still had a station. A lot of rural footpath routes in the UK are old railways!
This was still back in the time of government ownership of course, but still here is the thinking that the purpose of railways should be to make as much money as efficiently as possible, and _not_ seen as a valuable public service, a piece of national infrastructure which improved the country and helped it to be productive, even if it didn't make that much money itself.
The same thing has been happening more recently with something like the post office, for example (although in that case it came at the same time as privatisation, not before it). There always seems to be a bit of a hangover in these sorts of things where that the people who work in the organisation (the railways or the post office, for instance) still think of themselves as public servants providing a community good, even after the owner (the government or a private company) has decided they don't care about it as a piece of national infrastructure. It can take decades for that sentiment to catch up to the new reality, during which time the owners basically profit on the good will of the staff and the public who still want to see it as a public service!
Of course, in the present day, it would be amazing to have an extensive national network to provide much more efficient public transport as well as freight, ticking all of the boxes for sustainable transport policy that every major political party agrees with. But it's too late, they'd burnt it all down fifty years ago, because why value having infrastructure for society?! 😞
Don't see how the trains are under funded when train drivers get paid over £60k a year just to press 3 buttons. Might as well get fully automated trains and get rid of them. It's not like a car where you have other road uses to worry about. It's literally a set route on rails. Ai should easily be able to do that.
What's the stopping distance of a train going 125 mph not knowing if someone is trespassing on the tracks?
Hi, a respectful EVP spirit audio analysis at 0.25x video speed. First tunnel (a tunnel in a way acts as a passage - a portal - to another dimension): At 13:43 a male utters a moan and says:
13:44 'I've been busy'. The words could refer to Richard Beeching.
Second tunnel, we can hear a female voice, as you talk about the dismantling of the rail line:
14:43 'Det er hemmeligheder..' ('Those are secrets..'), 'for en tillidsmand' ('to a union representative').
At 19:24 a female (spirit) voice says 'Fuck the train'.
Thank you, same exact issues here in Denmark, it's crazy.
The Völve, Asatru shaman of Denmark and the Lands of the North
Robert McAlpine Lobbied Beeching to close railways as he had purchased trucks from the War Department plus wanted to construct roads and other Infrastructure knowing he would have secured Government Money.