you sure that links working, Ed?

British Rail don't actually exist anymore, it's all regional operators who are uniformly cr*p and the intercity is run by Virgin trains, also total cr*p. No-one travels by train unless they have to, e.g. going into Central London; our rail infrastructure is unsafe, outdated, undermanned, underresourced, congested, badly-planned, and has been a political football for years. Plus a few leaves and a flurry of snow bring it grinding to a halt, don't they, my fellow ex-commuters?

when the Tories privatised the railways back inthe 90s there were many warnings of what would happen, and theyve all come true. Noo-Labour were forced to in effect take them back into state control, although there's still a pretence of private ownership. But they're a disaster, literally, you take your life in your hands when you get on a train. One things for sure, you wont get there on time unless you set out a couple of hours early. Our trains are cr*p.

Thanks Taw. I thought it was too easy to link to the NYTimes.

Article portion excerpted below.... I think you should get the flavor from this. After opening about a rail accident in Carnforth.......

Mournful talk of the railways, of course, is a staple of
public discourse, particularly on the crammed commuter
trains that lurch into London each day, or along the drafty
platforms of countless railroad stations becalmed by delays
and cancellations across the land.

But as television's treatment of the Tebay deaths showed,
the debate evokes deep and conflicting memories beyond mere
commuter grumblings, reaching into the way Britons see the
state of their nation.

At a theater in London a new play by David Hare, called
"The Permanent Way," tells the story of the four crashes
from Southall in 1997 to Potters Bar in 2002 as an angry
tirade against the government's decision in the 1990's to
sell off the once state-owned railways to private companies
- a "painful parable," Mr Hare said, of bad government.

By contrast, at this onetime rail hub, 250 miles northwest
of London, volunteers have rebuilt the station tearoom to
resemble its erstwhile appearance as the set of the 1945
movie "Brief Encounter" - a tale of thwarted longing and
infinite sorrow starring Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard,
whose trackside yearnings seem peculiarly relevant to
Britain's often forgotten romance with its railroads. Even
the station clock that figures in the film, built in 1880,
has been restored to functioning splendor.

"People come here for nostalgia," said Jane Quinn, the
owner of the tearoom. "They come because years ago they met
here and now want to come back."

But it is precisely that interplay of generations that
helps define one aspect of modern Britain, tugging the
nation's heartstrings between a past cloaked ever more in
the myths of time and a present that has learned its
lessons of instant celebrity so well from the United States
that it has begun to re-export them.

In a television competition last year, viewers were still
sufficiently enamored of their history to vote Winston
Churchill the greatest Briton ever. But so-called "reality"
television spectacles like "I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of
Here" offer the nation new icons in the form of C-list
celebrities reanointed in the pantheons of transient fame.
If Churchill defined one notion of Britain and America
marching in lock step, consider a more recent Atlantic
crossing: shows like "American Idol" ("Pop Idol" in
Britain) or even "Big Brother" made their debut in Britain
before taking their brand of quick-fix fame to the United
States.

Too bloody right taw

it's true. the cr*pness of our national transport system, epitomised by the awful state of the railways (although there are LOTS of other examples) does sum up just how rubbish we are, and yes, almost everyone who can remember pre-Beeching or ahs grown up with the imagery of that bygone era does hark back to it as an almost Golden Age, when stuff actually worked, and wasn't just dross dressed up with tacky plastic facades, and we still had some pride and a sense of purpose.

sadly however its more of a tinsel age now, a fond memory thats almost myth. If you'd like to know about this phenomena as particularly applied to Britain, I can't recommend too highly a study by an American academic, Martin J. Weiner, called "English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit" published in the early '80s. It was a seminal influence on my own final year dissertation in 1986 and also on my MA in National Trends in Design. Weiner prefaced his book with a superb quote from Enoch Powell, "the lives of nations, much as the lives of men, are lived largely in the imagination.."

I hate public transport! Ever since the Victorian Government sold the system to private companies, service has been poorer than before (that's saying something), and prices keep rising; usually by 10c/year. I remember a time when you could buy a two-hour ticket for 90c. Now, it's $1.70. Need I say more?

oh my god esq, thats soooo expensive

*Thwacks ff* The point isn't how much it is *thwacks ff again*, but the rate of inflation! They raise the prices because they can, not because they need to to cover costs. Greedy bastards!

Edited by - esquilax on 2/25/2004 4:52:52 PM

@Esqy

Speaking of which, Esqy, didn't they finally finish the railroad to Alice Springs, is that the Ghan? so that it goes up to Darwin and you finally are able take a train all the way from Adelaide to Darwin (via Alice Springs)?

@Taw, ff,

Well, it is not as if we preserved our railway systems for very long at all. There was a brief "Golden Age" with streamliners from around the 30's to the early 50's after which, with the Federal funding of national highways, passenger rail track was the first to be eviscerated. Freight rail never really died but it also is in sickly condition today.

Edited by - Indy11 on 2/25/2004 5:09:27 PM

did you know that when British Rail bought some trains from the Germans, the trains had to be downgraded to run on our tracks?

true as well!

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- The home of Freelancer: Rebirth, the prequel to Freelancer!

doesnt surprise me one bit, they bought some of these new automatic door trains for use down here in kent, and the rails in ashford are too small, and the trains are too big, and when they went to make an 8 carriage train, the computer shorted out

the trouble is down to decades of underfunding but to say more is getting a bit political so suffice to say money wasted, diverted and spent on the wrong things
it was overstaffed for years which cost huge amounts of revenue as well yet did little good for the travelling public
ticket prices well i tried to get a ticket to london about a year ago it was a single ie one way but as it was last minute ie 1 week in advance they wanted nearly £200 ,as you may guess i went by coach (about £25 return) even trying to find out train times and ticket prices is unecessarily complex



i might add that that price didnt guarantee me a seat i could have been standing the whole trip !

Edited by - [STEEL on 2/26/2004 4:31:15 AM

Well, from what's been posted so far, I guess the portrayal in the newspaper is correct

spot on!

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- The home of Freelancer: Rebirth, the prequel to Freelancer!

we all hate the railways.