WHERE IS GREAT BRITISH RAILWAYS? | UK Railway and Trains

Great vlog governor

I think the simple answer to the inaction regarding GBR's introduction is quite simply Boris Johnson's demise! For, whatever else, and there's a lot, that you can say about old blondie, he seemed to have a heart for public transport that's rare in politicians, and PMs in particular!

His two successors, particularly Sunak, seem to only regard transport as an election opportunity, hence the continuation of the £2 bus fare (which was first suggested when Boris was PM) and the recent, quite rushed announcement of a second GBR sale (mind you, I have booked two bargains with it!) and nothing illustrates Sunak's negative attitude more that the cancelling of HS2 to Manchester.

Please mind the gap , the gap between investment in London and the rest of the UK is amazing ,Most of the cancelation of hs2 cash WILL go to London and the SE ,the North, poor brothers will pick up scraps

Well I just hope that it's all a success.

We have been here b4 - Privation or loads of different Railway Company - doesn't seem to work -It's just the British Way 🤔🚂🚂🚂

Great vlog Gordon, but sont hold your breathe foe this to ever happen unfortunately

Its causing 'confusion and delay' in the words of the fat controller (sir topham hat) 😂😅

Managed decline ! thats whats comming ! its just too expencive to the tax payer and passanger its never avalable at weekends for passangers or fright ! young people just say it trends negitivly hence the don't use it and a 35% 2 elettric railway is not green HS 2 it a broken pip dream now it delivers a fat zero at a eye wartering cost ! basical take what is built and turn it into a toll rd with electric charging points is the better out come ! A fleet of AI eletric bus Its a winner lol

i was rooting for grant shapps as transport min but now i see hes as flaky as all the others

Back in the day we had GWR, LNER and the rest, the trains largely ran on time, you could rely on them
I'm not opposed to having separate rail companies that get a bonus when everything goes well
But when trains are cancelled, late, or strikes keep happening, the rail bosses should be fined heavily, if the rail company goes bust, the government take it over and use the money from the fines to pay for it.
If the government renationalise the railways, i just hope it becomes a system we can all be proud of.

In the early days of Privatisation, Virgin Trains were given a bonus for cutting delays, while the Isle of Wight trains were fined because they did nothing about cutting delays.

The trains on the Isle of Wight were all running on time, so as there were no delays, the delays could not be cut. It appeared that all of the other train operating companies were adding more time onto their timetables, to cut the delays, but not by to much. It now takes longer to travel, than it did under BR.

As an ex-railwayman, from the days of the "proper railway" (British Railways), I feel that the bulk of the problems experienced with britain's railways have their foundation in the methodology of privatisation, rather than in privatisation as such. To take a cohesive network and break it up into so many disparate elements using "franchising" models that didn't work for the companies or the passenger was always going to create what I can only describe as being "rot". The cruel, and unseen (by the travelling public/taxpayer) issue is that since privatisation, the UK Government has put more money into the railways each year than it did during the last ten years of its stewardship of British Rail prior to the messy and rushed privatisation of the railways. Running railways is an expensive pasttime, no matter where you are in the world. Covid19 may have done the country a favour because the pressures it placed on our rail system caused the perfect storm that has forced Government's hand to come up with this "Great British Rail" plan. However, whether it succeeds will remain to be seen. I suspect not and for one really good reason. Our Government couldn't run a bath, let alone a Country or indeed a railway system. Great British Rail is destined to failure unless railwaymen are allowed to run the system top to bottom. Unless the private public financing deals are structured properly we will end up in the same shit soup we are in now where rail is concerned. Overcrowded trains that run late and services decimated by industrial action that don't run for the benefit of the travelling public or the freight companies. This latter user sector is vital for rail if we, as a country, are to meet our net zero carbon targets. Whilst I am no tree hugging, snot nosed, grass eating environmentalist, we have failed to understand fully at a Government level that if we don't move medium->long distance freight from road to rail, we will only harm the environment (and have been). I recall Freightliner Limited (under its BR days) establishing a RO-RO service for lorries to drive on to at one end and off at the railhead nearest their destination. It was, in part, a good solution to reducing road congestion and pollution. But the idea was killed off by the Thatcher government, which at the time was swayed by the Road Hauliers, which then went on to destroy the reputation and functionality of britains rail service such that, in 1992 they could commence a head long rush of a fire sale of our rail systems. Who bought our railways? For the most part, Britains railways are owned by foreign state owned railway companies such as DB, SNCF and others. Its a disaster frankly of monumental proportions. I do hope that this Great British Rail plan works - the country's economy will suffer if it doesn't. But I am sceptical because there is no one currently in parliament with the skill or gravitas to make it work, irrespective of which political flag they fly. Britain has always been an innovator, but has equally always been crass at making much of a business success from its innovations sadly. I do enjoy your video's nodrog. Keep em coming.

Great British railway coming at the end of this year

The Government & Rail Delivery Group need to sort the strikes out first. We keep hearing how Sunak & The Conservatives are delivering for the British Public but can't deliver this 18 months later.

Towards the end of BR investment was no where to be seen, but over the last 20yrs how many billions have been ploughed into the railways? What could BR have become if they had the same level of investment. The sooner GBR comes the better for the public, so we can finally stop paying towards the rail systems in other countries.

Tories have back-tracked way to much, glad you mentions general election, labour in and get the job done!

as a child in the 1950,s and 60,s my parents took me to grandparents in wigan from blackpool south on steam trains, and i can,t remember cancelations or late running trains and the journey time was not much slower than todays times, so much for progress .

I would think that the UK’s railways should go back to how it was before. But I would like to see
Great British Railways to take over and to make our railways lot more better, reliable and cheaper.

The NEW Government has promised to renationalise the railways within the next 5 years.

France 🇲🇫 Germany 🇩🇪 Spain Netherlands 🇳🇱 Italy still have state run railways, along side Private companies competing with the Nationalised rail network in each country.

Netherlands and Germany for example have private operators on branch lines

Italy has private operators running along side the national train operator.

So Britain's Railways could also once again be state run (Nationalised) but open access operators would still be able to compete with a state run railway in Britain, just like in the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and France as well as in Spain.