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00:30When we're on maximum power, we have something in the region of 3,250 horsepower.
00:51Using the microprocessor, give you full power until it gets to one to five miles per hour,
00:56which is set there on the clock.
01:00We will serve over 16,000 sandwiches that go on trains and be sold to our customers.
01:08British Rail is a company under siege.
01:12From outside, we hear of high fares, late, overcrowded and slow trains.
01:19And locked into a largely Victorian network is a system trying to break out.
01:31It's a system that straddles the nation, a system operated by a blend of technology and human effort.
01:38It is run on a managerial, technical and political knife edge that often leads to trouble on the line.
01:47Perhaps this is the perfect transport system.
02:07It simply moves spare parts in and out of a store.
02:12Like a railway, it is a guided network.
02:15But unlike a railway, its silent robots are directed by wire and controlled by a central computer.
02:23This system operates unaffected by fog, staff shortages, furious passengers or rush hours.
02:33Its owners, Leyland Daff, can operate it and develop it according to their business needs,
02:39making their decisions unhindered by government departments or meddling politicians.
02:44British Rail operates in a hostile world.
02:51It's a system striving to meet government targets to make profits, yet remain competitive in a ruthless transport market.
02:58Historian, Corelli Barnett.
03:00Well, this government in particular does not believe in state services and state aid and state intervention.
03:06In that, it is really only going back to what was true in the 19th century,
03:11in the original heyday of British Railways, but even other governments,
03:16which do believe in state intervention, on the whole, starve British Rail of money.
03:21So what you've had in Britain is that the state has never really had a national view of the rail system
03:27and has not been prepared to put in long-term investment and backing,
03:32which is a complete contrast to Europe.
03:33The editor of Railway Gazette, Richard Hope.
03:42BR investment is rising now, it is coming up, but so much of that is simply a backlog,
03:48correcting investment that wasn't made in the 1970s and the early part of the 1980s.
03:56BR still has a long way to go to catch up with the kind of railway they have in France or in Germany.
04:02Railways everywhere are in direct competition with two transport systems, roads and aircraft.
04:10Yet in Britain, where government is committed to not favouring any particular mode,
04:14railways are at a disadvantage.
04:17Technical editor of modern railways, Roger Ford.
04:20I think that the government talk of not subsidising against other modes is totally fatuous,
04:27because who pays for the upkeep of the very lightly used roads in rural areas?
04:34Roads that have to be relayed, etc., and they're perhaps used by two land rogues and a tractor once a week.
04:41On the other hand, railways, to maintain them, is considered to be a heavy load on the public purse.
04:49There isn't a level playing field. Investment is biased because of the fact that it's got to be investment from in the railway zone turnover.
04:58No one suggests that roads have to pay for the investment in the roads depreciation.
05:02It's a very difficult situation and a totally artificial one which works against railways.
05:07The present government authorises investment, but it isn't in the form of a grant.
05:12It's merely letting BR spend the money that it can earn.
05:15So to spend more money, BR has to earn more money, and to earn more money it has to raise its prices, cut its costs.
05:21So therefore, the person who eventually pays is the customer.
05:25So what is a railway? This is the permanent way.
05:38The rails, still known as roads, are the very basis of the system.
05:42Their structure governs everything. Comfort, speed, and even the type of trains that can run.
05:48Intercity Performance Manager, Bob Clark.
05:51The track structure is made up of the rail, the sleeper, the ballast, and the clips that hold the rail to the sleeper.
06:00A modern railway track is essentially a carbon steel rail which weighs 130 pounds a yard.
06:07There's a resilient pad which cushions the effects of the rail on the sleeper.
06:11The sleeper's modern sleeper is a pre-stressed concrete sleeper which weighs around a third of a tonne.
06:19And that sits in granite ballast, usually 12 to 15 inches deep, depending on the category of the railway.
06:27The main purpose of having the ballast there is to provide support for the track.
06:32It enables the geometry of the track to be maintained, and it provides a free drainage medium for getting water away from the railway.
06:42Take, for example, a mainline route like the East Coast Main Line.
06:45We would expect the rail to be lasting something like 20 years before it starts to get tired.
06:51We would expect the rail pads to be lasting between 5 and 10 years.
06:55We would expect the sleepers to last 50 years at least.
06:58The modern concrete sleepers, that is.
07:00The ballast we would clean about every 15 years.
07:03But at that point, it's still serviceable for lower category lines.
07:06And the policy that we have now is to transfer the material at approximately those expiry dates
07:12down to a lower category line where they can still be serviceable for many more years
07:16with lower speed and lower tonneage traffic.
07:18The trains that run on the rails are the point of contact between customer and system.
07:27A system that doesn't always seem to run in the passenger's favour.
07:35Because to British Rail, the system belongs to one of four business sectors created to give management a focused commercial approach.
07:43Intercity, Network South East, Rail Freight, and Provincial, now called Regional Railways.
07:53Sectorization means four separate networks or companies running on one system.
08:00Business editor of the London Evening Standard, Mike Smith.
08:04The difficulty with sectorization is that it once again places the emphasis on short-term profit.
08:10Whereas you are trying to provide a long-term public service.
08:14The corporate plan, renegotiating the terms of the corporate plan,
08:18has placed the emphasis on short-term even, or made that emphasis even greater.
08:24On the whole, it's been a very good thing for BR.
08:27It's introduced financial discipline and it's introduced better management,
08:33better power, more power for the commercial side of the railway to get what they want from the engineers and the operators.
08:41The problem arises when it's taken too far and there is no overall corporate control at the boundaries between the sectors.
08:50And I think the classic example here is timetabling and connections between intercity and provincial.
08:57Intercity is just going its own way and provincial is having serious problems in trying to adjust their timetables to make connections.
09:06And very often when they do make connections, if the provincial train is running late, intercity won't wait for it.
09:11That the travelling public who don't understand these subtleties find this very difficult to cope with and very difficult to accept.
09:25This is not part of British Rail, but it does conform to most of the criteria now seen as essential for efficient railway operation.
09:33It responded to a market need. The need to provide a link between Docklands and London's tube network.
09:41The Docklands light railway is a competitive solution and like the wire-guided spare parts system, it is completely automatic.
09:49There are no drivers. Customer Services Manager, Mike Ambrose.
09:54The railway feeds off a 750 volt third rail, which is the great conductor rail you can see.
09:59We have 11 trains and 9 trains run during the peak times.
10:03Also at each station there is a brown box in the middle of the forefoot, which is called a docking data link.
10:09Once the train has passed over this docking data link, it identifies the train at the station and also gives data regarding what speed the train should go to the next station.
10:19Also there are speed monitor loops along the 7.5 mile route of the railway.
10:24That's the black wire, which loops off at certain distances.
10:27There is a timer on board the train, so the train must meet one of those loops within a second.
10:32If it meets it over a second, basically the train is going too slow.
10:35If it meets it under a second, the train is going too fast, and that's how the railways run.
10:40Although only three years old, the Docklands system has already outgrown itself.
10:46To cope, the lines and stations are being extended, and a more sophisticated signalling system is to be introduced.
10:52Director Jim Gates.
10:55The present system was fine for the initial railway, which was to run 9 trains around the system.
11:02In the future we'll be running about 30 trains around the system.
11:06They'll be that much closer together.
11:07We have a central junction within our system where trains converge into the same route.
11:12That is very difficult to manage in signalling and control terms.
11:16And the system we're going to, which will be the first of its type in the UK, but it has been applied elsewhere,
11:22will, rather than having fixed blocks keeping trains apart, it has a moving block.
11:27So, in fact, it keeps a predetermined distance between trains, depending on what speed they're going.
11:33When they built this railway, there was £77 million.
11:37And they said, what can we have?
11:40They went out to tender, and at one time they were thinking of trams down at Whitechapel Road.
11:44But what they got was this superb little railway, fully automatic, very well used.
11:53Of the £77 million, only about 10 or 12 actually went into the trains in the Sydney.
11:59Most of them went onto property.
12:00Because it was a case of not buying a railway, but buying £77 million worth of railway,
12:06it was, I think it was the first railway that exceeded its specified loads on the second day after opening.
12:15And as a result, everybody's had to work very hard to expand it.
12:19Which is a pity, because when the railway, an automatic railway runs, it runs extremely well.
12:24But when you are trying to rebuild a railway, when you are trying to increase its capacity three times, threefold,
12:32when you're trying to extend it to run into the city, you are mucking about with the automated system, reliability goes.
12:39What is needed is a much more of an integrated plan, so we know where we're going to be,
12:44what we're actually providing transport for, say, in ten years' time.
12:49So we're not working in the dark, we're not continually having to upgrade different bits of the system
12:54at different times, that we are going forward with an integrated approach,
12:59so that we've got an across-the-board standard, if you like, of reliability and flexibility
13:05and quality of service to passengers at the end.
13:08Like British Rail, Docklands has suffered from a lack of long-term planning vision.
13:13The custom-built seven-and-a-half-mile tramway system is fine for a light, self-contained railway.
13:19But its computer technology could never cope with British Rail.
13:22A system of over 23,500 miles, running trains of every shape, speed and length.
13:32Signalling governs the speed and the number of trains that can be run on any piece of track.
13:38More sophisticated signals improve the efficiency of the entire system.
13:41Is that you, Arthur? There's a cow on the line between your box and mine.
13:49Well, I've got the Lakes Express on the line.
13:52Victorian technology relied on interlocking levers and men.
13:59Oi! There's a cow on the line.
14:08Keep a sharp look out.
14:10Keep a sharp look out.
14:11Right.
14:12Today, signal men scan VDUs in central control rooms commanding hundreds of miles of mainline.
14:24Out on the track, this modern mainline signal looks like a simple traffic light, but it's not.
14:42As the train passes, it changes to red, commanding any following trains to stop.
14:52When showing one yellow light, it means stop at the next signal, which is red.
14:57Two yellows means the next signal has one yellow, so be prepared to apply the brakes.
15:08The driver sees the signal and gets an audible warning.
15:13If he fails to press a cancel button after a warning of a red or yellow signal ahead, the train will automatically brake.
15:21This system, called AWS Advanced Warning System, is activated by magnets on the track.
15:29It has made the British Railway carriage statistically one of the safest places on earth.
15:35But the signals and AWS only advise the driver.
15:40He remains in control.
15:42Its weakness is that the driver can cancel the system and still pass a red signal.
15:47To prevent this, British Rail is now developing new signal technology.
15:52ATP, Automatic Train Protection.
15:55Project Manager, Bob Walters.
15:58The attractions of the system that we are contemplating adopting and which we are piloting currently,
16:05is that it works in parallel with the existing signalling and can therefore be installed without alteration to the existing signalling,
16:13the reinvestment in which would represent billions of pounds.
16:18This provides the additional safety without having to replace or rip out any of the existing signalling,
16:23and can therefore be introduced at a far quicker rate than would otherwise be the case.
16:28With Automatic Train Protection, an onboard computer advises the driver.
16:33If he is not matching the computer's model of events, unlike AWS, the computer takes control and applies the brakes.
16:43Instruments like this will be in the cab.
16:46This tells the driver what's going on.
16:49The white pointer is a speedometer.
16:52The green light shows the maximum speed limit on the track, 60 miles per hour,
16:56and the red display shows the target speed for the track.
17:00In this case, zero.
17:02In other words, stop.
17:04With ATP, the driver cannot pass this red signal.
17:09That power is removed from him.
17:11Part of the reason for the development of Automatic Train Protection is that British Rail has been haunted by three accidents.
17:24Clapham, Purley, and Belgrove.
17:29Drivers' experience has always enabled them to interpret the line.
17:33In the case of Purley and Belgrove, driver misinterpretation is what led to the crashes.
17:39Automatic Train Protection would have prevented them.
17:42But ironically, it was the Clapham Accident Enquiry which recommended adopting ATP,
17:48even though Clapham was caused by faulty workmanship.
17:51Suddenly, ATP became a priority, and the politicians rushed to reassure the public.
17:57I think that to have ATP is in itself quite a desirable thing.
18:03Many of the other European railways are now moving towards ATP.
18:07It is part of the modern railway.
18:09But those railways are maintained by government essentially as public services.
18:17And in that context, it is quite feasible for the governments to insist on very high safety standards.
18:23Where it goes wrong is if you demand higher and higher safety standards, where more and more money is spent for less and less return,
18:33where you demand that from a railway which is going to have to shed business,
18:40is going to have to put traffic from the railway onto the road because it can't balance its books,
18:45then the whole thing becomes not merely ridiculous but self-defeating.
18:50The problem is that to impose it as a political will, when in fact the number of accidents it would prevent is minimal, is quite irrational.
18:58BR is going to have to find another billion pounds to pay for this, and that could be a conservative estimate.
19:05The numbers rise every time you talk and think about it.
19:08But where is that billion pounds going to come from?
19:10I suspect it's going to have to spin the money out of its own guts as before in many instances.
19:15Whether the government will make that money available is, I think, very doubtful.
19:18So basically the customer will end up paying for their own safety benefits and their very minor safety benefits at that.
19:35This racing driver is attempting to shave one hundredth of a second off each lap by braking at the last possible moment
19:42and accelerating to maximum speed as quickly as possible without losing grip.
19:48The secret is driving smoothly.
19:51High-speed trains employ the same technique, but save minutes rather than seconds.
19:56This is British Rail's new 140 miles an hour locomotive, class 91.
20:01It's not the driver, but a microprocessor that maintains grip.
20:06Traction inspector, Gordon Linford.
20:08Speed now, 107.
20:09The racing car weighs less than a Mini.
20:14The train, 375 tons.
20:16It has reached 125 miles per hour at full power in just under two and a half minutes.
20:22You can already feel the power starting to decrease on the 91.
20:27It's getting gradually up to the 125 mark.
20:30There we are.
20:32The actual power light still remains lit,
20:34but the microprocessor has already eliminated any power to the traction motor.
20:38In fact, there is a residual amount of power to the motor to keep it at that constant speed which I am isolated.
20:45The microprocessor has accelerated the 91 without wheel slip.
20:49The faster trains accelerate to top speed and the quicker they stop, the more you can get on the line.
21:05The more on the line, the more money British Rail makes.
21:08So, if signals can automatically stop the train and microprocessors pilot it, why not, like Docklands, remove the driver and let technology take over?
21:18Intercity 225 project engineer Andrew Higton.
21:24In engineering terms, it's not difficult. It's possible that's been shown.
21:29But in terms of a high-speed railway like this, I don't think I would like to ride on a train doing 140 miles an hour with no driver.
21:35Just as I don't think if I was on an aeroplane I'd like to travel without a pilot, although it's perfectly feasible to take off, fly and land an aeroplane without a pilot.
21:44Public safety perceptions are changing so radically. You won't have to see the fuss about aircraft safety with these computer systems.
21:54I would have thought that it was not on.
21:57Intercity have built Class 91 and its train for a specific market. London leads Edinburgh.
22:04Its development is an example of how the creation of business sectors has focused commercial effort.
22:10But this process has caused casualties.
22:14Speedlink is a sub-sector of rail freight. It's a system common in Europe.
22:26Waggons collected from private industrial sidings are marshaled into one long train, like this, for the rest of their journey.
22:33But it loses money and might be closed.
22:37Any reduction in freight on the railways will inevitably move that freight onto the roads.
22:44Now one estimate is that cutting back this little bit of Speedlink will put an extra three million tonnes of freight a year back onto the roads.
22:53Environmentally that's crazy.
22:54British Rail has a problem.
22:55British Rail has a problem. Speedlink will be essential when the channel tunnel opens, because customers can pack their own wagons knowing they will reach their destination on time and safe.
23:06But British Rail can't afford the small locomotives to move or trip the private wagons to the main yards, where big locomotives take over.
23:15It costs money trying to use big engines like this to pull short trains while tripping, and it now seems likely that the Speedlink system will be abandoned, a mere three years before the tunnel opens.
23:29On the freight side, BR is relying very heavily on private industry, wagon hire companies, and transport, private transport companies to invest in terminals and in wagons.
23:44And they've just dealt, or in the process of dealing, a very damaging blow to the competence of those people by withdrawing the Speedlink wagon load service and rendering a lot of past investment by these same companies useless and worthless.
24:00And I can't see how they're going to persuade people to invest to the extent forecast in channel tunnel traffic.
24:13Ironically, Rail Freight's channel tunnel sub-sector is already investing in wagons, some from France. Rail Freight's Bert Blissett.
24:23We are leasing some of these wagons to operate, firstly, high-performance service within Britain, and with day one of the tunnel, to operate a service between the continental mainland and Britain, having the same characteristics of speed and carrying capacity.
24:39This wagon combines the two features of a low platform height and a very high speed capability. In this instance, 140 kilometers per hour, which is roughly 90 miles per hour.
24:50There is a souped-up version of the wagon capable of 100 miles per hour, and trains formed of these wagons run every night between Avignon, Paris, Avignon, Lille, and so on, which makes them the fastest freight trains in the world.
25:03The speed gives us two things. Firstly, the ability to compete with road haulage in the marketplace over certain key routes, where speed really is of the essence.
25:12The ability, for example, to get from Paris and Frankfurt to London overnight. And secondly, it enables us to path freight trains between passenger trains, which themselves are running even faster.
25:22A freight train of conventional speeds, say 60 miles an hour, is much more difficult to path, as we call it, between passenger trains, which are running at 125.
25:35So railways only work when everything is taken into account. Fast trains can't work safely without a signalling system to match. Freight has special needs, and yet must interlock with the fastest passenger timetables.
25:48When Britain is linked to the European system, the efficiency of the entire system will depend on the quality of our rail infrastructure.
25:57But European trains, freight and passenger, will emerge from the tunnel onto the most archaic lines in Britain.
26:04The channel tunnel, it seems to me, will only have the effects on British rail that British rail itself, and the government, and British public opinion allow it to have.
26:21In other words, it's not so much the tunnel, it is the constraints on rail development in Britain, which will determine what British rail can do.
26:31It's true that about a billion pounds is being spent on a passenger terminal at Waterloo, on trains, and on some limited improvements to the railway between London and the tunnel.
26:45But they are very limited improvements. They really don't amount to any more than bringing that line up to a standard which is lower than the standard of equivalent intercity lines north and west of London.
26:55We're looking at channel tunnel development through the wrong end of the telescope, or you could say the wrong end of the tunnel in my view.
27:02We're looking at it purely on the short term commercial profit. If you look at what's happening in France, I think in the next four or five years they're going to spend four billion pounds on improving an already very, very good high speed rail network.
27:17We are still haggling about 73 miles of high speed network.
27:22The spectre that haunts British politics is of domination by the Europeans.
27:26Railways, for years the British symbol of inefficiency and poor quality, are now seen as environmentally, economically and socially an essential part of a greater Europe.
27:44Political opinion in Britain has yet to catch up.
27:49High speed rail link is way in the future. All the traffic demands indicate that extra capacity will be needed in the south east. We understand that.
27:58But where it runs, when it's opened, is a matter for debate, for decision and announcement shortly.
28:05But the pressure and feeling from Europe seems to be that we're being slow off the mark and it will be needed much earlier than that.
28:10Well, we're running this rail network, not the Europeans.
28:20It comes every day, I just can't guarantee when. It's a temperamental ghost.
28:24You're not the headless Baron. No, I'm from Barclays. I think I may be able to help.
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28:44And with a flexible loan, you could develop accommodation and even catering.
28:47Let's discuss this in my office.
28:53If you're running a small business or thinking of starting one, talk to Barclays.
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29:02Take one. Stand by.
29:05Tape running. And cut.
29:09And again.
29:11OK, it's a wrap.
29:13Only Sellotape original comes with a unique end finder.
29:19Oh, yes, yes, it's definitely the six amp fuse shorting through the alternator.
29:23Unless, of course, we've got to dodge...
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29:59I wouldn't do that if I were you, Rupert.
30:05If the wind changes, you'll stay like it.
30:07Well, I'd get rid of him, love.
30:09You hang on to him, he's all right.
30:12I think you should make a nice cup of tea.
30:16It seems that everyone in the world has plenty of advice to give.
30:20Take the money over the box.
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30:24The question is, which is the right advice?
30:27And where can you go to get it?
30:29Oh, no, please, it says something in my eye.
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30:33And then blowing your nose.
30:35I wouldn't pull that trigger if I were you.
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31:04For those who like their tea to taste like tea,
31:07finding the word decaffeinated might be somewhat disconcerting.
31:12But when you gently decaffeinate your tea within hours of picking it,
31:16then getting a modern cup of tea to taste like a proper one...
31:20Ooh!
31:21Look silly.
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31:30Now you know to what degree BMW test their paintwork.
31:42The BMW 3 Series.
31:44From £12,500 to £160.
31:47Well, we're running this trial network, not the European.
31:49No, we're running this trial network, not the European.
31:53London is a kind of railway blood clot between our industrial and the European.
31:58Europe.
31:59And Europe.
32:00London is a kind of railway blood clot between our industrial heartlands and Europe.
32:10London's rails were never intended to, and probably never will, offer a clear way to Europe.
32:17It's the largest commuter system in the world.
32:18But it also needs investment to keep its customers, without which they too might find European cities more attractive.
32:24Director of Network South East, Chris Green.
32:25I think I would invest in more railway infrastructure in the central London area.
32:31It's obviously going to be the bottleneck to all future transport development in London.
32:32And if we're not careful, it will eventually drive people out of London into the central London.
32:33The infrastructure, which is a big part of the road that is going to be very small.
32:34The infrastructure that probably never will, offer a clear way to Europe.
32:35It's the largest commuter system in the world.
32:36But it also needs investment to keep its customers, without which they too might find European
32:41cities more attractive.
32:45Director of Network South East, Chris Green.
32:48I think I would invest in more railway infrastructure in the central London area.
32:53It's obviously going to be the bottleneck to all future transport development in London.
32:58And if we're not careful, it will eventually drive people out of London into the central London.
33:00Into areas like Paris and Frankfurt, if it becomes too difficult to get into London.
33:05Most European cities have purpose-built lines under their centres.
33:10London, Europe's largest city, has one.
33:14A once forgotten freight tunnel.
33:20The tunnel has been reopened and called Thames Link.
33:26The new trains can run from Bedford to Brighton, through London's heart.
33:31What we really want to do is, A, to expand Thames Link into a real metro.
33:36And that means new Varducks, new flyovers, and a train every three minutes in the rush hour.
33:40But I think more important for London, we want to go for the big east-west crossrail.
33:45And that, I think, is really hitting the top price.
33:48This would give us an express railway across London from Paddington to Liverpool Street.
33:52We could move 48,000 people an hour extra.
33:55Journalists Richard Hope and Roger Ford.
33:58I think the real problem for Network South East is that they don't have a remit to, if I can put it that way, to make life in London more civilised.
34:07They don't have the kind of remit that the Dutch Railways has to quite definitely carry more passengers to increase the number of people who are moving by rail, specifically to reduce road congestion.
34:21There isn't a link there in this country, and that link is very necessary to make sure that Network South East knows what it's doing, knows where it's going,
34:29and it should be guiding Network South East fares policy, and it isn't.
34:40A guide to the success of a railway is the number of customers carried in comfort.
34:45Bottlenecks will limit this capacity.
34:51This is one of the worst.
34:54For over 100 years, Borough Market Junction, outside London Bridge, has reduced travel to a crawl.
35:01Solutions are not new.
35:03British Rail's Roger Brazier.
35:05We do have a report here, made on behalf of the South Eastern Railway, a former private company that owned the railway behind us here,
35:14by John Wolfe Barry and A.J. Barry, who are consulting engineers, and this is dated 1894,
35:20and it contains a number of alternative schemes for trying to do just what we are still trying to do,
35:26which is get the trains through this bottleneck rather easier and better and quicker.
35:32And in fact, if you open it up, one perhaps of the most fascinating is this one here,
35:38where the other side of London Bridge, in order to sort the traffic out as it approached London Bridge Station,
35:44which was part of the problem, they were going to double-deck the viaduct,
35:48down in where the old Spa Road Station used to be, down towards Southwark Park.
35:53But at last, relief is at hand. Planning Manager Richard Mallitz.
36:02Well, in the background here, you have the double-track viaduct spanning the Borough Market,
36:07which carries the service into Charing Cross.
36:09And what we need to do is provide an additional pair of tracks over this section,
36:13which means repeating what the Victorians did, which is to put a viaduct over the market,
36:18which you see behind us here.
36:20And that would allow us to run both Thameslink and Charing Cross trains over this section in the peak hours.
36:25We estimate that some 15,000 people would use the new link that it would be created
36:30between London Bridge, the city and King's Cross during the morning peak three hours.
36:36So that's a substantial benefit and a significant relief to congestion,
36:40particularly on the northern line, which provides the alternative route on the underground.
36:47On the trains, it's technology to the rescue.
36:50Frustrated commuters will get more elbow room with a new generation, NetWorker.
36:55Under the government's financial rules, BR couldn't justify new trains to increase capacity.
37:01It was only through new technology in the form of three-phase drives,
37:04which recover energy when you break, that BR was actually able to go ahead with capacity expansion.
37:11Now, in a system where you depend on new technology to provide more capacity,
37:16because the financial rules won't let you do it with old capacity,
37:20I would just have thought that suggests that they're not being allowed to address the future in a logical way.
37:27Lucky to get a seat, NetWorker project director, Jim Vine.
37:32We have a severe overcrowding problem on our lines into Cannon Street and Charing Cross at the moment,
37:38and many of our trains, up to about 50% of them, are well overloaded beyond any agreed limits with the Department of Transport.
37:47Either we had to provide a considerable amount of new infrastructure, like widening and putting more tracks on existing viaducts in central London,
37:57rebuilding terminals like Charing Cross, where there isn't the land available, or we could go for lengthening trains.
38:04The most cost-effective way was to extend the present 10 car trains to 12 car trains.
38:10Even that is involving, of course, about £150 million worth of expenditure on the infrastructure.
38:16Now, we've ordered 400 vehicles, and there was an option for another 276 to be exercised last February.
38:25Now it won't be exercised before the end of this year.
38:27All the time, investment plans that have been announced slide back.
38:31The reason they slide back is because of short-term financial pressures overriding the long-term interests of the railway.
38:37Being a bulk people-mover has a downside. Empty trains in sidings, not earning during the day.
38:49Network South East has vigorously marketed leisure travel to keep these trains busy and cut losses with the extra revenue.
38:59Government demands the sector must eventually run without subsidy,
39:03but the downturn in the economy has reduced off-peak travel.
39:07So who will pay?
39:09Journalist Mike Smith.
39:11I think there's no question that the customer will be paying an increasing amount in railway fare,
39:17so I think it's pretty obvious where the cutbacks in taxpayer support will come from.
39:22It will come directly from the customer's pocket.
39:24With the exception of major railway construction under central London, if that takes place,
39:30it's the passenger who's going to pay for the future of the railways.
39:34That is the government's policy to cut down continuously the amount of public money going in
39:39and make the customer pay.
39:46Unlike Network South East, on this railway there is no rush hour, no passengers, and no bottlenecks.
39:53This train carries nothing but coal.
39:57Called merry-go-round, it's a system for the continuous flow of coal from mine to power station.
40:03The train is just a system for moving it.
40:06It's what railways were invented for.
40:09Rail freight's coal sub-sector is in direct competition with low-cost road haulage.
40:28To survive in this market, Nottingly Depot in Yorkshire, like others in the sector,
40:32is dedicated totally to the system.
40:34Its staff, locomotives, and wagons do nothing else.
40:38Area manager, Eric Straw.
40:40Basically, we carry 1116 tonnes in each train,
40:44which incidentally is 45 lorry loads of 38.5 tonne lorries,
40:49with one guy as opposed to 45 lorry drivers.
40:53And we move the coal over five days a week and also Sunday night to the customer's requirements.
41:05The customer advises us each week in respect of the tonnage that he wants for the following week.
41:12We get that advice at 1600 on a Wednesday.
41:15We formulate a train plan employing 116 drivers, 44 train preparers,
41:2217 locomotives and wagon sets to meet that train plan.
41:27Presently, we're moving 350,000 tonnes in a week,
41:31but we can move up to 500,000 tonnes per week.
41:37Nottingly's merry-go-round system is virtually a private company.
41:48This is a private company.
41:50Foster Yeoman quarry stern and sell it in bulk.
41:54Rail is a cheap and reliable way of moving it to the marketplace.
41:58As a private enterprise, they were able to buy the best solution to suit their needs.
42:04Their own trucks and American-built locomotives.
42:07Rail freight provide the drivers and track.
42:10Foster Yeoman could only make this long-term investment
42:14because they knew that their connection with the main rail system would always be there.
42:18Other companies are not so sure.
42:21I think there's a great deal more that could be done to get the private sector involved
42:26with not only wagons but owning locomotives.
42:30I don't see why the private sector shouldn't ultimately be able to crew its own trains under licence by BR.
42:38But to do that, they must have some kind of statutory right of access to the rail network.
42:44They must have guarantees that that rail network is going to be there for them to use over a reasonable period of time,
42:50in exactly the same way as somebody who buys a lorry or builds a factory assumes that the road network is going to be there,
42:57and he's not going to find himself cut off.
42:59Railways require a great deal of commitment, a great deal of investment on a very long-term basis.
43:08You expect to get it back over 30 or 40 years.
43:11And there is, without the guarantees that the railway network, the lines are going to be there,
43:17that the policies that will be putting traffic towards the railways are there,
43:24that the financial underpinning will be there.
43:27Without that, people are not prepared to put money into the railways.
43:32Foster Yeoman's long-term commitment to rail gives them a sharp insight into how British Rail runs.
43:42Director Richard Painter.
43:44I think the prime difficulty with British Rail at the moment is they have to react to circumstances,
43:53and that goes all the way down to the system.
43:56With us, we've found that if we can get specialised drivers, dedicated maintenance people,
44:01the right equipment, it is a very, very effective transport system,
44:06probably the most effective in the country.
44:09But in order to get people to be proactive rather than reactive,
44:14I would want to have a lot more freedom and be a lot more decisive in my economic planning.
44:22This is the result of proactive planning.
44:25Backed by British Rail's biggest subsidy, Provincial, now known as Regional Railways,
44:30has restored customer faith in railway travel by selling hard and re-equipping.
44:36It hasn't been easy.
44:45These early attempts at a quick fix, known as skippers and pacers,
44:49basically bus bodies on goods wagon chassis, proved unreliable.
44:54Marketing manager, Paul Prescott.
44:57The Pacer was the best vehicle around, and it was also very important politically for us
45:02to be able to build up confidence with the Department of Transport
45:06that there was a future for provincial lines, that they could be operated in a low-cost way,
45:11that we could attract people to travel on them if only we had new equipment,
45:15and they were extremely valuable in that sense.
45:17We then, having laid that framework,
45:21were able to go on to expand with more attractive trains in the Sprinter.
45:27This is the most attractive train, the top-of-the-range Express,
45:44the final component in the sector's business plans.
45:47But manufacturing delays of Express at the now-privatised British Rail Engineering,
45:53BRELL, means tight government financial targets to reduce taxpayer support could be missed.
45:59Provincial is not going to be able to meet the targets that have been set out in the corporate plan
46:06and agreed with government, or at least not without drastic cuts in services
46:10and maybe closing some lines.
46:13I think, myself, the government will draw back from such drastic action,
46:18particularly if there's an election approaching.
46:21But the fact that they are two or three hundred coaches short
46:26simply cannot be overcome without spending more money,
46:33and that money has to be spent on keeping coaches in service that would have been scrapped.
46:39It's even worse than that, because the coaches that they're short of are the top-of-the-range.
46:43They've introduced the new diesel trains in reverse order.
46:48They introduced the simplest and cheapest.
46:50They've gradually upgraded.
46:51With the Sprinter Express, they produced a very attractive mid-range train,
46:56which pulled in ridership gains of forty-fifty percent on some lines.
47:00The trains that they haven't got are the air-conditioned hundred-mile-an-hour Premier trains.
47:05So not only are they suffering from lack of capacity,
47:09they haven't got the trains which would have really pulled in the passengers.
47:13So they've got a severe revenue loss through not offering the better service.
47:17Britain has some of the fastest trains in Europe.
47:31Intercity is now a widely copied idea.
47:41We also have some of the worst.
47:44Travel into the capital is a national digress,
47:50and might even force business to other European cities.
48:02The bald facts are that British Rail moves people on over 700 million journeys a year.
48:09British trains travel 265 million miles each year.
48:19They carry over 143 million tons of freight.
48:23British Rail employs 134,361 men and women.
48:42Here, at the Department of Transport, 2,300 people care for roads.
48:49135 deal with trains.
48:56To whom is British Rail accountable?
48:58It's not accountable at all, really, if you exclude the Department of Transport,
49:02who are the sponsoring department.
49:04Beyond that, the customer has no real say about whether he has a complaint
49:09about whether his trains are late, whether his fares are too high,
49:12or whether the rolling stock is of no value to him.
49:16It's basically unaccountable to the customer.
49:19It might be accountable to the Secretary of State for Transport,
49:22but that's done in private.
49:24I think the present arrangement whereby BR has to agree in advance,
49:29privately with the civil servants,
49:31what proposals should be put on the minister's desk,
49:33so he can sign them with a great flourish and claim the credit.
49:36I think that is totally wrong.
49:38It prevents BR from, as they should,
49:42from stating publicly what they would like to do,
49:46setting out an agenda for investment,
49:48telling the public and the government
49:51what the implications are of doing it and not doing it,
49:54and it allows government to evade the responsibility
49:58for blocking investment,
50:02for stopping investment in certain areas
50:04and then turn around and say that the railways,
50:07two or three years later, say the railways aren't performing.
50:10Is it a level playing field?
50:28Well, this bridge is perhaps a monument
50:31to the difficulties facing the railways.
50:33The Dornock Road Bridge in the Scottish Highlands
50:36is being built as a shortcut across the Firth.
50:39Building it to carry the railway, too,
50:42would have saved over 20 miles.
50:44The Dornock Bridge story is a classic example
50:47of the extraordinary imbalance there is
50:50between road and rail investment criteria in this country.
50:53Here we had the A9 Road running parallel
50:57with the far north line from Inverness up to Wick,
51:00having enormous sums of money spent on it,
51:02more than could possibly be justified
51:05in strictly economic criteria.
51:07It was a political move.
51:08The parallel railway could have been brought up
51:11to the same standard by constructing the Dornock link
51:15and given a viable future.
51:18The cost was not all that excessive.
51:20There was money available from Europe
51:21if the government had chosen to take it,
51:23but instead they secretly told British Rail
51:27to play down and to withdraw the application.
51:30BR went along with this
51:31and announced that they didn't wish to go ahead with it
51:34and therefore the future of that line is now seriously in doubt.
51:40Well, it doesn't show anybody up in a particularly good light.
51:42British Rail promoted it very heavily.
51:45I remember one area manager there saying,
51:47without the Dornock Bridge, the line to the north is doomed.
51:52The sums concerned, the bridge was under 15 million,
51:55the A9 investment is hundreds of millions.
51:58And yet BR is now saying it doesn't matter and the surface is perfectly fine.
52:03It's a sad business and I think it shows the way in which BR is unable to actually fight a project through
52:11for fear of offending the government and the civil service.
52:15We do seem to make it very difficult for ourselves.
52:18I think that the answer is in some way to disengage British Rail a bit more from the Department of Transport
52:25and give it its own financial targets which are much more realistic from the broader social need.
52:34Historian Corelli Barnett.
52:36It seems to me the advantage of privatisation, if it were real privatisation,
52:40that is to say really freeing the railways to operate in the market,
52:44would be that it would get the Department of Transport off the railways back.
52:49And instead of having this absurd demand
52:54that they should make an 8% or whatever it is return on their investment,
52:58that the railways would then be free to go for investment
53:02on terms that seem good to them and their lenders.
53:07Technology is on its side, the environment is on its side.
53:11The problem is that it is not seen as an opportunity.
53:14The railways in this country are always seen as a problem to be managed, to limit losses.
53:18I suspect it goes back to the fact that our railways were built for profit,
53:22whereas European railways were built for national interest and defence in particular.
53:26Therefore, railways in this country are seen purely in commercial terms
53:30rather than their much wider capability as a tool of social improvement.
53:35Provided the Channel Tunnel does come, that I think above all will open the eyes of people
53:41to what railways are all about in a European context
53:44and will change the rules of the game.
53:47I think if we continue with the current policies,
53:50we will only get a smaller, more elitist and certainly more expensive railway.
53:55The railways are very much at the crossroads in the next few years
53:58as to which way they are going to go,
54:01and particularly the size of the railways that we will have in the future.
54:04.
54:19.
54:21.
54:22.
54:23.
54:25.
54:26.
54:28.
54:31.
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