Class 73 electro-diesels

[steam for ever]

Thankyou pre65, it's a very interesting video.
Sadly at present my computer does not have sound, but it was amazing nonetheless. At that time both steam and diesel locomotives were being churned out enourmous rates, and it is startling to think how quickly some diesel designs were churned out at the time, even if that meant many were unsuccessful. At least they had a go!

bigmacca1, although the magazine 'RAIL' has become unpopular with many enthusiasts, I occasionally get a copy once a month or something, and many contributors agree that the current ticketing system is quite frankly awful. Barry Doe in particular is a ticketing and fares expert, and from much of his journalism one gets the feeling that he is getting very fed up with it all.
A while back I looked at the careers pages on websites of a few TOCs, and one or two reccomended to staff to read magazines such as RAIL and the Railway Magazine. I feel it is therefore fairly safe to assume that the managers read them also (otherwise it would be an absurd hypocricy, but then again nothing would surprise me in todays rail industry). Therefore, the managers must be able to see the many complaints about ticket prices, and yet operators very rarely comment on the subject, either my mahor public statement or in passing remark in such magazines.
Okay, they don't decide ticket prices, the DFT do, but considering that the DFT does need a degree of TOC input, and considering how much those companies go on about 'improving customer service' and 'putting the passenger first', one would think that they would be campainging for simpler, cheaper tickets like many groups are.

This shows another key difference between the privatised system we have today, and the late BR one we had 20 years ago.
In its final years BR realised that providing a service to people was more important than making money, and although it wasn't perfect, it was heading towards being what the Transport Act 1947 had set out to create. A railway owned by the people, FOR the people, and run by people who could call themselves railwaymen.

Now, we have a railway where the track is owned by a government body, it is run for the benefit of shareholders, which drains away money to people who in no real way contribute towards running a better railway. The people who run it? Probably have a fancy degree and spent years in banking, reatil and bus companies. Recipe for disaster.
The TOCs are not interested in service providing. They just want a tidy paypacket for the top dogs.

Its rather like buying a house, starting to smarten it up, suddenly selling it to people who turn it into a take away restaurant that doesn't do very well, and then you buy back the garden path. Of course, anyone with a brain wouldn't do such a silly thing and think their endeavour would bear fruit, so why on earth would polititians do that to a railway?
Probably because they they don't have brains, and any intelligence they do have, they just waste on comming up with witty insults to hurl in the house of commons!