The Department for Transport has just launched an eight-week consultation to determine the shape of its much-vaunted Great British Railways – our renationalised railway system. Will it, I wonder, be anything like the earlier nationalised incarnation, British Rail (BR)? I do hope so. Because, although BR was disparaged for being old-fashioned and a bit creaky, inefficient and loss-making, I was very fond of those trains of yesteryear.
John Major’s privatisation of the railways in the 1990s was meant to introduce competition, improve services and reduce costs. It didn’t work out that way though, did it? Trains today have never been so unreliable or so expensive. Not to mention overcrowded. So, champion of free market capitalism though I am, in this instance I think we can let the state have another go.
Call me sentimental, but trains really were better in the old BR days
My warm feelings towards dear old British Rail come from the fact that, back in the 1970s, I frequently took trains as part of my first job as a journalist: staff writer on the weekly Local Government Chronicle. My assignments took me all over the country to report on the doings of local authorities; that was how I discovered the land I had recently moved to and adopted as my own.
I never travelled first class – my expenses weren’t that generous – but in those days you didn’t have to, in order to have a first class ride. How? In the restaurant car, of course. Its rows of tables were set with white tablecloths and proper crockery and cutlery, and you were served by courteous waiters. On an early train you would head there to order a full English breakfast, or if later in the day, treat yourself to lunch. On the homeward evening journey you could enjoy supper with a nice glass of wine while watching the countryside speed by in the dusky light. Quite the most civilised way to travel.
Naturally, restaurant cars were the first to go with privatisation, because the new rail companies could sell many more tickets if they used that space for seating. They were replaced with ‘buffet cars’, a grandiose name for a little counter where you can buy tea in a plastic cup and a bag of crisps or chocolate bar. The (bog standard) sandwiches are usually gone by the time you get there and reach the top of the queue.
Back then I don’t recall ever being on a train so full that people had to stand all the way or else sit on the floor beside the toilet, as they often do nowadays. And I suppose trains were occasionally delayed, but it couldn’t have been a major problem because I was never late to an assignment because of it. And is it my imagination, or were the traditional British Rail seats more comfortable than the harder ones in use today?
There was the odd mishap. Once, on a journey back from Wales my train was stopped for a couple of hours because of cows on the tracks…or were they sheep? Anyway, a nice farmer came to the window and I gave him 50p to call my husband and tell him I’d be late for dinner. And he did.
What I loved most about my many train journeys was the opportunity they gave to meet people. Passengers weren’t glued to phones and laptops in those days; sometimes they talked. My most memorable meeting, in 1975 or ’76, was with the boxer John Conteh, then at the height of his fame. I boarded a train at Euston, heading to Liverpool, sat down by the window in an empty seating bay and started reading a book. A moment later someone sat down opposite me and when I looked up I saw it was Conteh.
I felt a little thrill. But I carried on reading. As the train began to roll another man sat down, in the seat beside me – he was middle-aged, chubby and sweaty-looking. He recognised the boxer too, and almost immediately struck up a faux-matey conversation with him. I couldn’t concentrate on my book because I sensed our famous fellow passenger’s irritation. The sweaty bloke called him ‘John’ and babbled about himself. He pulled out a business card and put it on the table in front of Conteh, who didn’t pick it up.
A few minutes later Conteh and I exchanged glances. ‘Good book?’ he asked. We started talking, and he told me he was going home to visit his parents. He spoke of them with affection, and said that when he became successful and rich, he moved them out of the slummy district they had lived in for years and bought them a lovely house with a swimming pool in a salubrious suburb of Liverpool. ‘But my parents were miserable,’ said Conteh. ‘They missed their old friends and neighbours. They lasted six months. Then I had to move them back to the old area.’
We laughed and chatted on, and for the rest of the journey the man sitting beside me never got a look-in. I’ve always felt that my encounter with the illustrious boxer and the over-chummy bloke taught me something about life.
Call me sentimental, but trains really were better in the old BR days. So I would say to the experts now shaping our new renationalised railways: please don’t be greedy. Don’t cram us in like sardines, just lay on more trains. Don’t charge funny money for tickets or we’ll drive instead. And bring back the restaurant cars. Let’s make it a civilised way to travel again.
