Azrael said:
I agree with your last point: I'd far, far rather the money thrown at Virgin et al had gone to BR (who, as you say, were a damn sight more efficient than the current Wild West setup).
I think you're being a bit hard on Big Four though. Yes, they have been wildly romanticised, but they did a good job in difficult circumstances, especially when you compare them to the Tube speculation fiasco. (Type "Whitaker Wright" into wikipedia to see just how crazy this got.
) GWR returned a healthy profit throughout the Depression, no mean achievement, and although it might not have electrified it constantly pushed development of steam and diesel locomotives. Electric traction was still a relatively new technology, and rolling it out across the GWR tracks would have been a major project foolishly undertaken in the economic climate. I'd argue they took the most sensible route (forgive the pun) with the resources they had.
It's also worth noting that Lloyd George's coalition government forced the rail companies to merge into the Big Four as a compromise with the pro-nationalisation lobby.
Ultimately I agree that it's not a matter for dogma. I support a nationalised London Underground and I'd support a nationalised rail system if that were the best model. I just think privatisation has an unfair reputation thanks to the utterly inept set-up the Major government forced on the industry. (Rushing it through before Labour got into power: not that they need have bothered.
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The nationalisation lobby wasn’t really that strong at the time of the grouping. The idea of nationalisation was about (and had been since the 1840s, in fact), but it had little real support apart from the Labour Party and the trade unions, neither of whom were in a position in the early 20s to do much about it. Grouping was far more a product of the success of the organisation of the railways during World War One, when they were placed under the direction of a committee operating on behalf of government. Before this, competition had been encouraged as far as possible and a monopoly was thought to be undesirable: the unification of the railways in wartime demonstrated that the benefits of greater co-ordination outweighed the disadvantages. Grouping, therefore, was an attempt to maintain these benefits without nationalisation.
I don’t think the Big Four’s achievements were negligible, by any means. The railways were certainly a lot better by the outbreak of World War II than they were at the grouping in 1923. As you say, they had a difficult economic climate to contend with, and it’s fair to say that government interference in the form of the ‘common carrier’ obligation limited their commercial freedom and advantaged their competition.
I do think they failed to respond adequately to the changed climate between the wars. In the first instance, the railway network was by then too large, with several duplicate routes. There was little move towards rationalisation of these, mainly because such duplicates were owned by different companies (the largest example being the LNER’s Great Central and LMS’s Midland main lines, but most were smaller) who were mutually reluctant to close one of them and relinquish traffic to their opponents. Consequently, both lines continued to exist, neither making much money and both offering a poor service. I think that fault is probably inherent in any railway system where regional monopolies coincide with one another at their boundaries. Even where competition with another company was not a factor, many rural lines continued running though the traffic they once catered for had long since vanished and they would never make money. It was only under BR that rationalisation began – and then too slowly and too late. Beeching went much too far, but had operating economies been made and certain lines closed previously, the railways might not have been in the financial mess they were in when he came along.
Although you’re right that the GWR continued to make a profit, as did the other companies, the price of this was underinvestment in track and rolling stock. The only exception to this was the LNER, which did maintain a fairly healthy investment programme, but at the price of paying no dividends in the late 1930s! The railways were solvent, but their financial position was never good. In any case, by 1945 the situation was very different and whatever happened they were going to need a subsidy (over and above what the government owed them for wartime usage).
You’re right that the GWR – and the other railways – continued turning out rolling stock throughout the interwar period, and I didn’t really mean to suggest that full electrification was possible in the interwar period. However, I think the Big Four were slow to start using diesels. Granted, they performed no better than contemporary steam engines on long-distance trains, but at the other end of the scale they were much cheaper and more effective for shunting duties. This was well known in the 30s, but there were only a handful of diesels in existence by 1939 – and right up until nationalisation the GWR were building large batches of steam shunting locomotives.
I’m not, therefore, convinced that the Big Four were as good as they’re sometimes portrayed. However, I do wonder what would have happened in the post-war period if nationalisation had somehow not happened. Many of the problems facing the railways in the 30s were intensified, such as the growing competition from road traffic, and there were some new problems, such as the rising price of coal and growing scarcity of labour that put steam traction at a decisive disadvantage compared to diesel or electric power. BR’s early record at coping with these difficulties was not good, and plenty of people have suggested that the Big Four would have done better. That’s quite possible IMO. However, I don’t think British Rail’s record in its later years is nearly as bad, given its financial problems, and there was no real need or justification for privatisation.
Privatisation along regional lines, with vertically integrated firms operating a monopoly in a particular area might have worked better than the current set-up, but I’m sceptical about whether it would have been better than BR. In the end, the railways overall were – and are – a loss-maker. Regional companies would all still have needed a subsidy, and each would need a management hierarchy and so on of its own, where only one existed under BR. I think the taxpayer would just have ended up subsidising this duplication of roles, along with other costs caused by lack of standardisation and quite possibly a similar lack of co-ordination between firms that characterises the railways now.
