This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/19/chris-grayling-east-coast-mainline-nationalisation
The article has changed 3 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| Chris Grayling thinks nostalgia can fix the east coast mainline. He’s wrong | Chris Grayling thinks nostalgia can fix the east coast mainline. He’s wrong |
| (7 months later) | |
| Struggling to supply a lick of bright paint to his plans for the east coast mainline, Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, settled on the word “iconic”. He told the Commons on Wednesday that the new, publicly owned operator scheduled to replace the failed Virgin-Stagecoach combine next month will be called the LNER. “One of Britain’s iconic rail brands … the London North Eastern Railway,” he said, getting it half right as usual: the original title had a conjunction – it was the London and North Eastern Railway – which gives a truer idea of its scope. Without the conjunction, it might be a suburban transport network that reaches no further than Enfield. With it, you have a notion of the 500-mile line that connects London King’s Cross to the great cathedrals of York and Durham, and skirts the North Sea all the way from Alnmouth to Aberdeen. | Struggling to supply a lick of bright paint to his plans for the east coast mainline, Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, settled on the word “iconic”. He told the Commons on Wednesday that the new, publicly owned operator scheduled to replace the failed Virgin-Stagecoach combine next month will be called the LNER. “One of Britain’s iconic rail brands … the London North Eastern Railway,” he said, getting it half right as usual: the original title had a conjunction – it was the London and North Eastern Railway – which gives a truer idea of its scope. Without the conjunction, it might be a suburban transport network that reaches no further than Enfield. With it, you have a notion of the 500-mile line that connects London King’s Cross to the great cathedrals of York and Durham, and skirts the North Sea all the way from Alnmouth to Aberdeen. |
| State takes back control of east coast mainline | |
| Does pedantry always come with a liking for railways? Perhaps it does. (I often wonder at my own irritation. In the film Dunkirk, for example, the evacuees from the beaches come ashore in England to entrain in a carriage that obviously dates from the 1950s. Why oh why? ) But if railway enthusiasm can mean pedantry, and pedantry can mean truthfulness, then we might conclude that Grayling spent very little of his youth on the station platforms of Buckinghamshire, where he grew up. He was born in 1962, after all, which means that by the time he went to school in High Wycombe trainspotting was close to vanishing as a mainstream pastime for adolescent boys. He may have been aware that the railway that ran through his town was one of Britain’s last main lines, built jointly by the Great Western and Great Central to connect London more directly with the Midlands and the north; he may also have known that, after the railway amalgamations of 1923, the LNER itself sent trains rushing through the Chiltern Hills. But a man who uses the phrase “iconic rail brands” does not seem likely to have been such a boy. | Does pedantry always come with a liking for railways? Perhaps it does. (I often wonder at my own irritation. In the film Dunkirk, for example, the evacuees from the beaches come ashore in England to entrain in a carriage that obviously dates from the 1950s. Why oh why? ) But if railway enthusiasm can mean pedantry, and pedantry can mean truthfulness, then we might conclude that Grayling spent very little of his youth on the station platforms of Buckinghamshire, where he grew up. He was born in 1962, after all, which means that by the time he went to school in High Wycombe trainspotting was close to vanishing as a mainstream pastime for adolescent boys. He may have been aware that the railway that ran through his town was one of Britain’s last main lines, built jointly by the Great Western and Great Central to connect London more directly with the Midlands and the north; he may also have known that, after the railway amalgamations of 1923, the LNER itself sent trains rushing through the Chiltern Hills. But a man who uses the phrase “iconic rail brands” does not seem likely to have been such a boy. |
| I saw what I think of as my first LNER engine in December 1948. I know the year and the month because we were on our way from Lancashire to my grandparents’ golden wedding in Fife, and snow lay thick in the cuttings as our train climbed to the summits at Shap and Beattock. The railways had been nationalised in January that year, and, so far as I knew, as a child born into old London, Midland and Scottish territory, all engines were shabby and black. Then, at Carlisle, my brother pointed out a green engine – “apple-green” was the LNER’s description – that had probably travelled across England at the head of a train from Newcastle. I never saw one so unforgettably green again – it must have been one of the very last to have been painted in LNER colours – though a duller green was eventually adopted as the livery for the express classes on British Railways after an experimental year or two in a rich dark blue. | I saw what I think of as my first LNER engine in December 1948. I know the year and the month because we were on our way from Lancashire to my grandparents’ golden wedding in Fife, and snow lay thick in the cuttings as our train climbed to the summits at Shap and Beattock. The railways had been nationalised in January that year, and, so far as I knew, as a child born into old London, Midland and Scottish territory, all engines were shabby and black. Then, at Carlisle, my brother pointed out a green engine – “apple-green” was the LNER’s description – that had probably travelled across England at the head of a train from Newcastle. I never saw one so unforgettably green again – it must have been one of the very last to have been painted in LNER colours – though a duller green was eventually adopted as the livery for the express classes on British Railways after an experimental year or two in a rich dark blue. |
| When we moved north a few years later, to a house at the end of the Forth bridge, we found ourselves firmly in the LNER’s old domain. “Iconic” wasn’t then a word in regular use, but it would be true to say that the company had established a reputation for speed and modernity, which it owed to real achievement as well as a gifted publicity department. It was an LNER engine, the Mallard, that held the world speed record for steam traction (126mph near Grantham, 3 July 1938), and 15 years later locomotives of the same streamlined class regularly passed the bottom of our street, with names such as Empire of India, Commonwealth of Australia, Kingfisher and Merlin. Wedge-shaped fronts improved their aerodynamics and lifted smoke clear of the driver’s line of sight, while their distinctive chime whistles made us aware of their coming when still miles away. No other British steam engines took trains so frequently to speeds above 100mph, including the Flying Scotsman; but then no other railway had a flatter or straighter mainline. | When we moved north a few years later, to a house at the end of the Forth bridge, we found ourselves firmly in the LNER’s old domain. “Iconic” wasn’t then a word in regular use, but it would be true to say that the company had established a reputation for speed and modernity, which it owed to real achievement as well as a gifted publicity department. It was an LNER engine, the Mallard, that held the world speed record for steam traction (126mph near Grantham, 3 July 1938), and 15 years later locomotives of the same streamlined class regularly passed the bottom of our street, with names such as Empire of India, Commonwealth of Australia, Kingfisher and Merlin. Wedge-shaped fronts improved their aerodynamics and lifted smoke clear of the driver’s line of sight, while their distinctive chime whistles made us aware of their coming when still miles away. No other British steam engines took trains so frequently to speeds above 100mph, including the Flying Scotsman; but then no other railway had a flatter or straighter mainline. |
| At Carlisle, my brother pointed out an 'apple-green' LNER engine. I never saw one so unforgettably green again | At Carlisle, my brother pointed out an 'apple-green' LNER engine. I never saw one so unforgettably green again |
| And yet of the four big railway systems created by the amalgamations – “the grouping” of 1923 – the LNER was in some ways the least successful and the most hard-pressed and hamstrung by the past. It depended more on freight revenue than the others at a time when the heavy industry it served in Yorkshire, the north-east and Scotland had settled into its long inter-war depression. It also inherited large debts from its constituent companies, notably from the Great Central, which had recently spent heavily on a lavish London extension. Consequently it very rarely turned a profit (a good year yielded 0.4% on ordinary shares), and never successfully standardised its locomotive stock. Throughout the 1950s a wide variety of engine types from that decade and every previous one in the 20th century could be seen from our kitchen window, bearing the names of antelopes, counties, foxhunts, birds of prey, Scottish glens, Derby winners and characters in the novels of Walter Scott – and the more significant parts of our now vanishing empire. | And yet of the four big railway systems created by the amalgamations – “the grouping” of 1923 – the LNER was in some ways the least successful and the most hard-pressed and hamstrung by the past. It depended more on freight revenue than the others at a time when the heavy industry it served in Yorkshire, the north-east and Scotland had settled into its long inter-war depression. It also inherited large debts from its constituent companies, notably from the Great Central, which had recently spent heavily on a lavish London extension. Consequently it very rarely turned a profit (a good year yielded 0.4% on ordinary shares), and never successfully standardised its locomotive stock. Throughout the 1950s a wide variety of engine types from that decade and every previous one in the 20th century could be seen from our kitchen window, bearing the names of antelopes, counties, foxhunts, birds of prey, Scottish glens, Derby winners and characters in the novels of Walter Scott – and the more significant parts of our now vanishing empire. |
| Many children of my generation also witnessed the past in another way. From the late 1940s, writers such as John Betjeman, C Hamilton Ellis and OS Nock published essays and books that implied the golden age of British railways had died with the first world war. They would take a fragment of memory (like mine of the green engine at Carlisle) and from it construct what almost amounted to a worldview: Things Were Better Before. When this nostalgia was combined with an English distaste for state ownership, fostered by publications as disparate as Orwell’s 1984 and the Daily Express, it left the nationalised railway with few friends; and it was no wonder that when John Major talked of railway privatisation he summoned visions of the marvellous old Great Western and its coaches in their livery of chocolate and cream. | Many children of my generation also witnessed the past in another way. From the late 1940s, writers such as John Betjeman, C Hamilton Ellis and OS Nock published essays and books that implied the golden age of British railways had died with the first world war. They would take a fragment of memory (like mine of the green engine at Carlisle) and from it construct what almost amounted to a worldview: Things Were Better Before. When this nostalgia was combined with an English distaste for state ownership, fostered by publications as disparate as Orwell’s 1984 and the Daily Express, it left the nationalised railway with few friends; and it was no wonder that when John Major talked of railway privatisation he summoned visions of the marvellous old Great Western and its coaches in their livery of chocolate and cream. |
| People don’t want railways to be political totems. They just want them to work | Andrew Adonis | |
| The company that won the first franchise on the east coast mainline also reflected this affection – in its name, the Great North Eastern Railway, and also in the Victorian coat of arms that embellished the side of its trains, and the handsome blue-and-white crockery in its restaurant cars. None of this old-fashioned elegance, however, could alter the fact that it had overbid for its franchise – which also proved the case with its unloved successor, National Express, so that the service was taken into public ownership in 2009 and held there until the latest over-bidders, Virgin and Stagecoach, came along in 2015. | The company that won the first franchise on the east coast mainline also reflected this affection – in its name, the Great North Eastern Railway, and also in the Victorian coat of arms that embellished the side of its trains, and the handsome blue-and-white crockery in its restaurant cars. None of this old-fashioned elegance, however, could alter the fact that it had overbid for its franchise – which also proved the case with its unloved successor, National Express, so that the service was taken into public ownership in 2009 and held there until the latest over-bidders, Virgin and Stagecoach, came along in 2015. |
| Despite this unhappy record, Grayling is determined that the franchise will be delivered into private hands once again in 2020, this time as part of an experimental partnership with the owners of the track, the public institution Network Rail. The details are so far unspecified. All we know is that we have a brand, LNER, that floats disconnected from any historical reality. At least, unlike its immediate predecessors, it sounds neither like a soap powder nor a bourbon. For this small dignity we should be grateful. | Despite this unhappy record, Grayling is determined that the franchise will be delivered into private hands once again in 2020, this time as part of an experimental partnership with the owners of the track, the public institution Network Rail. The details are so far unspecified. All we know is that we have a brand, LNER, that floats disconnected from any historical reality. At least, unlike its immediate predecessors, it sounds neither like a soap powder nor a bourbon. For this small dignity we should be grateful. |
| • Ian Jack is a Guardian columnist | • Ian Jack is a Guardian columnist |
| Rail industry | Rail industry |
| Opinion | Opinion |
| Privatisation | Privatisation |
| Chris Grayling | Chris Grayling |
| Rail transport | Rail transport |
| Transport | Transport |
| comment | comment |
| Share on Facebook | Share on Facebook |
| Share on Twitter | Share on Twitter |
| Share via Email | Share via Email |
| Share on LinkedIn | Share on LinkedIn |
| Share on Pinterest | Share on Pinterest |
| Share on Google+ | Share on Google+ |
| Share on WhatsApp | Share on WhatsApp |
| Share on Messenger | Share on Messenger |
| Reuse this content | Reuse this content |