The Railways of WW2....

[Tank]

This was on my mind at work today.    I'm ready for some interesting posts......

When you think of the Victorians and all of their money and hard work that went into the railways of Britain (which eventually turned into The Big Four), do you think it was right that The Big Four lost the right to run their regions after WW2 finished?

[Geoff]

Wow what a hard question, the country must of been at a low ebb after the war, and I think more things must of been nationalised than the railways, yes a lot of money was put in by private investors but they always want there money back so maybe the reason was to keep travel cheap to rebuild the country back up after the war.

My thoughts are is it a good thing being in private hands at this time.

So my answer is I do not know, I know one thing is that I do not like foreign companies running our railways, I believe that should be in our hands, but hey all I do is run a model railway.

[Jonathan Clapp]

I dont think your question is accurate.

To begin with,The victorian era railways of Britain all eventually ended in bankruptcy after the first world war. All the hard work and money of that age went up in smoke. the reorganization of 1921 that created the big four  managed to keep the system operating by some improvements to efficiency, but ultimately fared no better.
After the 2nd war, before that even, the big 4 were themselves, in their turn, completely, massively bankrupt.
Shareholders in businesses take their chances. thats the nature of business. reward is accompanied with risk.
so the operators of the big 4 companies had no rights to be taken away, to the contrary, they were in receivership. They owned that failure, but the nation urgently required rail services.

Furthermore, the Nationalization of 1947 was in no way a taking. The plan awarded the shareholders handsomely, instead of a kick in the pants, they were given a guaranteed income in exchange for their nearly worthless common stock, much to the detriment of the new system.

so, was nationalization the right course of action in the circumstances?
I tend to think it was, given the vital nature of the services, and the overall condition of the post war system. the level of investment needed wasnt then imaginable from the private sector. The public subsidy that would have been required to re-vitalize the big four would have amounted to ownership anyway, and the experience of the 1920s and 30s gave no assurance of future stability if they were rescued.

[poliss]

In the entire existance of the LNER it never paid a dividend to it's shareholders.
The southern railways were very poorly built, that's why Eurostar had to go so slowly for years. Note that on the Hastings line, because of the tight loading gauge, they had to build specially narrow stock with bars on the windows, because if you stuck your head out it would be knocked off by a tunnel wall. Even the track has to be set in concrete for some tunnels because there's not enough width.

Have you noticed how there are no mainlines through London to the main sea ports? Every company wanted a big terminus in London.

Then there were all the squabbles between the private companies. Opposing lines from other companies that went into 'their' territory were blocked in parliament.

A line was going to be built along the Caladonian Canal. Snippet from the Loch Ness website. "An 1893 proposal by the North British Railway (who ran the West Highland Railway) to build a line from Fort William to Inverness had been immediately countered by a proposal by the Highland Railway for a railway from Inverness to Fort William."  What a tourist line that would have made. You might have caught a glimpse of Nessie from your compartment window.

[jonclox]

With everything in chaos the way it was after WW2 something had to be done regarding a range of services /manufacturing etc.
The trouble was that many workers decided that with the new system there was little need to work anything like as hard as they had done over the years.
Things slid downhill and instead of services improving they fell into a positon where very few cared.......they got paid at the end of the week regardless of if they worked or just loafed each shift.
So in some ways nationalisation was the railways lifesaver and in others it created a generation of slackers.
This also applied to a wide industries/services not only the railway

[ToothFairy]

Only private enterprise, with its willingness to take risks in pursuit of (probable but far from certain) profit would have built the vast network and introduced the brilliant (if often flawed) creations of Stanier, Gresley, and so many others. Only government control would have produced the insane cost-cutting response to the Beeching Report; private enterprise would have paid attention to both sets of recommendations. But ultimately the foundations of society - roads, railways, hospitals, schools - need to be isolated from "vested interests". Trouble is, of course, that politics, and therefore government, is all about "vested interests". But at least politicians are in some sense accountable to the public, even if it is only at intervals of several years.

- Michael

[OwL]

I dont think the big four lost their right. I think that the events of WW2 decided their fate, the needs of the war demanded a national timetable, with minimal time/money spent on individual companies being better than their rivals, thus BR was born.

The chief form of travel after WW2 was rail, due to rationing, low incomes and lack of public ownership of cars, the swagger and swank of the big four could no longer be justified. The 1930's put rail travel at the for-front with world record breaking steam engines and fancy 'silver service' dining trains from London to Scotland, the mood and needs of the late 40's early 50's British Public did not need luxury, they needed functionality.

The public, now used to 'no frills travel' and the austere nature of Britain after six years of war and hardship needed a standard rail network, run by standard engines offering standard jobs for returning armed forces men with keeping the women who kept the 'big four' railways running during 39-45 (thus earning their place as viable/valuable rail employees.)

The landslide Labour victory in the 1945 general election proved that this was the case. Nationalisation was the mood and need of the time.