The government is completing the nationalisation of British Rail. It thinks it was much better before privatisation on 1 January 1997 after 49 years of full public ownership.
Over that half century there was a big decline in rail use. 996 m passenger journeys in 1948 had fallen to 628 min 1997. It was bad news for employees of the state concern . 500,000 of the 650,000 original jobs disappeared as freight and passengers diverted to the roads. That was an average loss of 10,000 jobs a year. That was not what the Unions and Ministers had in mind when they borrowed £1132 m to acquire the assets.That would be £47,000 m in todays money. All added to the state debt.
The nationalised railway went through phases of closures, accelerated in the Beeching notorious termination of many small lines and heavily loss making services. It failed to open new branch and spur lines to keep up with changing patterns of demand. It watched as Heathrow became one of the world’s busiest airports but failed to put in a 5 mile spur line to link the airport to the mainline network. It took BAA to do that as a private project, linking to Railtrack lines after privatisation. BR watched as many new large industrial estates opened near motorways with no thought to offer a branch line for freight shipment.
Between 1973 and 1978 30 people died in bad rail crashes and a fire. In contrast for the 14 years of Conservative government and partial privatisation 2010-24 there were just 3 deaths. Both the nationalised and privatised industry have had some serious crashes. Nationalisation was not safer.
The losses of the nationalised industry were large. Fares usually went up by more than inflation, with taxpayer subsidy paying far more of the costs than fare revenue.
July 30, 2026
Socialism eschews reality. It does not recognise it. Socialism has always been and will always remain a dream. in practice it is universally a fialure economically and causes oppression and poverty. But this time it will be different because its failures are always the fault of the filthy capitalists who just won’t submit. Why won’t they submit? Oh, because they are normal human beings and that is the root of the problem.
July 30, 2026
Large capital investment by BR in the 1980’s had to be signed off by the Government. As regards Heathrow the Piccadilly Line had not long reached the airport and was deemed to be a great success.
BR in it’s pre privatised state was also a great success and will be incomparable to the Labour chaos to follow, which in itself is the natural successor to the doomed Tory rail privatisation of 1994. Ahead of Blair the Conservatives were desperate to be rid of the railways.. it was handled very badly and has sown the seeds for the terrible service we endure today.
July 30, 2026
‘ It thinks it was much better before privatisation on 1 January 1997 after 49 years of full public ownership.’
It was.
We had a joined-up national rail service with affordable fares. You did not need to check before a journey in case your train was cancelled or delayed.
Privatisation gave us a dogs breakfast. It was no longer a single entity. All sorts of poorly run franchises came and went. The maintenance of the infrastructure had to be renationalised because of serious safety concerns. Government then started making it up as they went along once they realised what a terrible mistake they had made – the era of people like ‘failing Grayling’ and others.
July 30, 2026
worse than that the staff were simply rude, and openly gave the wrong information. I remember watching a customer service advisor working for the nationalised British rail tell a passenger the completely incorrect trains to get on to their destination, and smirking about it as the passenger left. no service ethos at all.
July 30, 2026
Good morning.
The fall in both public and freight use of our railways marks both the change in society as the car took over, and the demise of British industry and manufacturing. Rail use will further undergo losses as people can no longer afford the high prices and the ability for some to work from home.
There needs to be a serious look at railways and their future use as society changes. Nationalisation or privatisation is not going to do that each on their own. It requires a joint effort.
Reply The main reason for freight collapse was nationalised Rail insistence on trainloads only.