The Trainpal app is absolutely incredible, check it out below. Use code TURNIP for amazing savings of 5% OFF UK and Euro Travel and 20% off Railcards mytrainpal.onelink.me/q1rp/kd62m9jb?pid=social&af_siteid=yt-TURNIP&campaign=media
Can't you see the Hippocracy of your sponsor for them to give you 5% Because of how expensive train tickets are surely they must Be making a lot of money from it as well Otherwise they wouldn't be a Company.
England is spending too much money on other countries when it is so poor An eye watering amount is being given to countries to fight wars Why? They should be trying to broker a peace deal and getting wealthy countries to negotiate with the world's war lords
Brilliant. As an old bugger I remember all the railway closures. And it wasn't just closures that caused the problems. At the same time, even on lines that stayed open, they closed loads of the stations. I come from rural Kent. Our local station was a massive goods yard. We had a station master that lived in a big house that was part of the station. There was a signalman. And several guys in the goods yard. Then you had the delivery guys that picked up from the goods yard. The station master had a lovely garden. And there were always hanging flower baskets. You sat in the waiting room in front of a coal fire. And there were working toilets. Next minute, nothing. All gone. Station shut. Goods yard closed. All the jobs gone. And most of the trains no longer stopped at that station. This is a main line to London. But you could only get the odd train that stopped. One of the worst government decisions ever. And governments are known for stupid decisions.
Beeching was an accountant, had no understanding of trains or their value to communities. His boss was Marples, minister of transport, who had a handy investment sideline in building motorways.
You can add - no vision, no real plan for the future, no visionary politicians, no creative spark anymore, no engineering prowess, no manufacturing base etc. Very sad that we threw all these things away.....and for what??
I wander lonely as a train Abandoned on a disused track.. Where darkest tunnels still remain But locomotives won't be back.. In eerie silence, on I wend.. A tiny speck of light I see.. But oh, these tunnels never end And now it's really haunting me! 😱 Quick footsteps make a creepy sound.. What following? A living dead? I pluck up courage.. turn around.. _Relief!_ It's just my faithful *TED!* 💚🐶 (Loved the vid, David!👍)
I constantly shrug my shoulders in disbelief of how much the British have sold out on everything and destroyed their economy and public services due to failed austerity yet still continue to think more of the same is the solution
It's the fault of successive governments who just come in and sell off the nations assets to make a quick few quid. Thatcher was the worst, then Major who sold off the railways. Even Thatcher knew selling the railways was a bad idea. She sold off everything but.
I used to love travelling by train - I still could if they had comfortable, soft seats - but due to injury, I can't physically tolerate the ironing board seats. There must be thousands of other people in the same situation. Obviously no thought for 'inclusion'. Old train carriages were like living rooms. I'm so glad that I experienced them. Windows you could open, heaters you could control, pictures, sofas to sit on, reading lights... Modern trains are vile, uncomfortable, soulless tubes.
yeah & covered in decades of old ash smoke with cigarette butts all over the place. On top of the the trains stank like an NCP car park stairwell. British Railways where Shit.
It wasn’t necessarily Beeching’s fault. He was following a Government brief. Transport Secretary Ernest Marples was the villain. The one who owned a road construction company - funny that!
Dr Beeching was a businessman. He was told to make the trains profitable or to save money, so culled the loss making lines. It was cold but straight forward. He wasn't looking to the future, at efficiency, to improve, etc, just money. As you said, it was the brief. If he had worked alongside others who had looked to the future, maybe we'd have seen a better network
@@DashCamSheffield He was looking to the future, as seen from then. Railways were old, Victorian technology. 1963 was the era of the atomic future. Private cars, private freedom, atomic powered personal helicopters. At the time, railways were seen the same as canals. The future was supersonic airliners like Concorde. No one can really predict the future, as Kodak and Polaroid found out.
For a start, restriction C1 pretty much scuppers double decker trains in the UK. As for the "privatisation "model" - there was NO model - the railway was simply split into numerous entities, TOCs (too many of them); ROSCOs (too many of them); Freight Companies etc. As for Network Rail (now supposedly state owned) responsible for 100+ PRIVATE Companies. Bus Companies, Water Companies, Pop Music Companies playing at trains. Ridiculous fare anomolies/hyper expensive/little competition between TOCs and timetabling that forgot the art of "connections" because the TOCs were incompatible. There was a model that we could have followed, that of the Swiss that operate under the guise of "Swiss Federal Railways" but the operators are private companies that work closely together to produce a timetable that works, connections that work and a fare structure that is "fair". British Rail privatisation was a disaster from the start.
@@stevo728822It’s objectively true. Look it up. The train operating companies have received several government subsidiaries that British Rail would never get before privatisation. You can look it up.
My dad worked on the railway, have great memories traveling up and down the country in the guards cabin lol...loved the trains when I was younger...dont get to use them anymore...Great video david...always a great video ❤
I was watching some old news shows which was before the beeching act had bee announced and it was complaining that a lot of branch lines time tables had been changed so that they no longer lined up with mainline trains. There was a quite large campaign before the beeching act to just have the timetables line up again. But if they did that a lot of beechings cuts wouldn't make sense, as ridership would be higher. Although to be fair a lot of his cuts already made no sense at all. Cutting off the centre and north of Wales from the south. Even very weird things like Blackpool was to have one of it's stations Cut, the council said can you do the other instead and he said yes. Now if the cuts were anyway logical on what planet can you just change the line in a heartbeat. It's just such obvious corruption. The fact that road constructors such as Earnst Marple were involved in the cuts just seals the deal.
I lived in the UK in the 80s and I loved British Rail. It was cheap, generally always on time, and a wonderful way to get around the country. I went back in 2007 after privatization and I was completely lost. So many different train companies and different times and I just ended up saying fuck it, got on a train from Peterborough to London, and I guess I was on the right train, I don't know, but nobody busted me. I miss the old days of British Rail, especially the 125s. Your hair looks great grown out. Superb video. ❤ 🚆
Come now. It might have been one network but it was cheap because the taxpayer paid for it. Nothing is free. The unions held the government hostage so the subsidy was massive. And the network reminded me of a U.K. barely out of WW2. It was dirty, late, poor catering (comedians didn’t make fun of BR pies and sandwiches for no reason). Cheap was about the only thing one could say about it.
@@xr6lad Coming from a place with no rail service, it was wonderful. You can look at anything and find fault or you can marvel at something you never had. And I was working so yes, I paid in.
Was only 2014 when the borders railway had reopened up to Edinburgh from my home town of Galashiels. There’s so many places in the borders that were affected by the beeching cuts. We were essentially car and bus locked until the train arrived. The line used to go to Carlisle back in my grannies day.
You have to be very carefull booking trains on the web, I just tried Nottingham to Oban on 1st november using nationalrail and it was £141.60 .. Tried thetrainline and it said there were no trains on the 1st but there were on the 2nd for £71.99. I tried mytrainpal and it was £65.30 but the strange thing was is that it was a 7 minute earlier train from a different nottingham platform but arrived at the same time as the £141.60 train. The whole system is rigged to rip you off, and this needs to stop so people can trust them again.
I also found Trainline to be misleading. Not everyone has a readily accessible station but I always buy my tickets at Swansea station and the staff will go out of their way to find the best and cheapest route.
Because we are northerners, the Northern workers that built the industrial Revolution, the mines, the mills, the trains, shipyards all built this countries wealth but that wealth is spent solely in London. London is the best public transport on earth, FACT!! Constantly getting new underground lines, brand new buses, oyster cards etc etc.. here it's impossible to get in or out from our towns to our cities due to layabout northern rail workers and their unions always blaming owners because £2000 a week isn't enough pay for these glorified tram drivers
Leigh no station anymore to it's city Manchester.. Wigan is the northern stop on the London to Glasgow line, passengers get of hoping to get to Manchester or Liverpool but guess what, northern rail don't wanna work today, why should they when they get a basic of £1200 a week and full sick pay. Yes successive governments have always not give a stuff about the north and "sir" pension robber starmer is exactly the same. We have Burnham and his Scouse counterpart plus loads of useless MPs like Lisa pie arse nandy who do absolutely nothing at all but feather their own nests by buying 2nd properties in London that we pay for, only to sell them for millions when they retire. Best, easiest way to make money except for working for northern rail that is
Total lack of investment. I used to work in the Swindon GWR works repairing carriages and rolling stock, till they decided to close it and sell off the land for housing. The biggest mistake was the divide up British Rail, British Rail Engineering Limited and Sea Link and sell them off the private companies. Under the BR badge there was one organisation running everything and linking up the regions. They should be investing back in the railways, building railheads in towns and city's, getting goods back onto the rails and off of the roads, it must be more economical to have one train of twenty container to have twenty HGVs on the overcrowded motorways, even coming in from Europe via the tunnel.
The Victorians and edwardians gave us an awesome railway infrastructure and we destroyed it with the 50s-60s cuts then there on in to the 90s.all gone.and looks at were we are today.keep up with the vids👍
It was all destroyed by a man who had financial interest in building roads, so of course Ernest Marples would instruct Dr Beeching to close down many railway lines.
A common complaint about the rails prior to the big four intervention was that there was a lack of standardisation, I believe they should have done regulations to ensure standardisation before trying to consolidate the companies, regardless a free market here would have likely seen companies pivot out of rail all together. One thing that would save rail would be a massive reduction in energy costs, something molten salt reactor adoption could give the UK, really it is insane how these last decades are the first in human history where energy has gotten more expensive and via intervention not from any sort of actual energy scarcity.
We do need HS2 in full. It's a project that has been both poorly managed and poorly promoted, however for the wider capacity benefits it will bring to the network, allowing for far more local and freight services to be ran in the place of express trains which will be moved onto the new line, it is desperately needed. The WCML is pretty much at capacity and suffers from several bottlenecks which will be relieved by the construction of HS2 in full. Costs should certainly have been managed better, but the premature cancellation of the project was incredibly short-sighted.
Bullshit, you are clearly a politician or someone getting a back hander out of it, probably both because hs2 only goes to and from efficient lines, it helps NOBODY OUTSIDE OF LONDON
@@stephenscales353 Size of the country is pretty much irrelevant it is the lack of capacity in the existing infrastructure which means something needs to be done, and quickly.
At a similar time to the beeching cuts. France and Japan had the same issue as the UK. What they did was invest in their railways and they are some of the best in the world. We cut our and they got worse.
France doesn't have the best railways, the tgv lines and paris' network are fantastic but other regional routes are slow and awful frequency, Britain's regional railways are much better but that's is mostly due to pop density
@@pr5134 I said some of the best in the world, not the best and it is a lot better than the UK. Britians regional railways are terrible anywhere out of London's commuter belt. Constant cancellations, late trains, poor frequency, uncomfortable, extremely overcrowded and expensive. You go on platform 14 - 15 Manchester Piccadilly at rush hour and tell me that is okay. It is the most hectic, overcrowded platform I have ever seen. They have to have staff holding people back for safety it gets so full, constant tannoy announcements trying to sort out the crowds and trains will get so full you have to squeeze yourself into a little corner and that will sometimes be the train after yours as you couldn't fit on the other one.
Allied bombers did a good job on the French network, meaning the rebuild was from scratch, while even at war's end the UK network was Victorian and dilapidated after 5 years of war. Post war nationalisation had to happen because private owners of networks could not raise capital for a refurb'. Then along comes Dr. Beeching.
@@michaelwilliams3232 they didn't rebuild from scratch at all. In Japan even after a nuclear bomb the railway was running the next day. The investment Japan and France did at this time was new high speed networks i.e. Shinkansen and there some improvement works to the old systems.
Same happened in Australia. Victoria alone was heavily connected from south to north and east to west, but that’s all over. Love seeing the old mounds on which the rails lied
@@bijosn the topic here is that UK has lost 1000 of miles of track over the past 100 years, the same what happened in regional Victoria. Melbourne lost the outer circle and inner circle lines, which would be heavily used if in existence today. No foresight
Gosh, definitely don’t miss the days when I had to travel into Glasgow City Centre for work. Delays, cancellations, bus rail replacements and overcrowding!! 😡
The railways are owned and managed by Network Rail as already said. Some of the franchises were foreign owned, but these were renationalised and then given back to the franchisees in the form of a management contract. So no, the railway network is not foreign owned.
Nope. Most are on management contracts with 'profit' going to Department of Transport. Hull trains and Lumo happen to be owned by First Group, with profits staying in the UK
I use the train quite often as I live in Edinburgh but my parents are back in Newcastle where I'm from, and for a fairly short distance, a return ticket is about £60, whilst a friend of mine got a return ticket from Edinburgh to Glasgow the other day for £6.
Excellent episode mate. I agree (how couldn’t you) with the comparison with mainland European train services. Our offering is pitiful while being expensive. Keep it up!
I occasionally travel Birmingham to Manchester and have defected to using a coach. 30 years ago the train route that carries on beyond Birmingham to Bournemouth was 7 or 8 carriages. Now it's 4 carriages and cramped and overcrowded. Coach takes longer but much more pleasant, a comfortable temperature and half the price. Railways are so slow to react; despite Sunday Trading laws changing 30 years ago we still have a limited, pretty much unchanged service. Nearly 20 years ago pub hours were extended and yet the trains run no later.
Thanks for the vid And the irony is I’m travelling by train today. Well possibly, maybe or something depending on whether it is a train or replacement Either way I need to get to Birmingham Has the same problem last Thursday, ended up chatting to a nice Chinese lady, she said UK trains were a massive shock!
The irony is Bradford interchange and Bradford forster square stations are only Half a mile apart, they are near perfectly aligned that they could be connected giving Bradford a "Through Station", but no doubt there would be no will to do so or lack of funding for "essential infastructure" but Hundreds of Millions of Pounds can be wasted on vanity projects.
@@stephenscales353 When I stayed at the Midland Hotel a few years ago I got the train to Brighouse. It literally took me minutes to walk from there to Interchange.
When I was a little girl and we visited my Nana in Widnes, our greatest joy was to run to the back of her garden, where there were rail lines, and hang off the fence and wave at passengers. We emigrated in the middle of the 60s, so I’m guessing dear Mr. Beeching ruined that for everyone.
Yay a new Turnip video. The last time I went by train to Liverpool there was standing room only and it got so packed we could not move - could not make it to a toilet. Luckily I didn't need to go but I vowed never to go by train again - it was scary and even the train staff could not make it through the coaches. To pay for this felt like an insult.
I think that the trains were longer in North Wales, in the 1970's and 1980's. Although there were only 3 trains a day direct to London then. Now the trains are newer, but just as dirty. There are about 9 direct trains a day, although you can still take a train, and connect to a train to London Euston every half hour. Under British Rail, the local train from Manchester, would consist of 3 or 4 DMUs, each of 2 carriages. From 1990 onwards, you are lucky if you have more than 2 carriages on a train. Under Richard Branson, the journey time to London, from Colwyn Bay, was reduced by half an hour, but it went back up to 3 hours, as Virgin Trains reduced the delays that they were having. The trains are smaller, and more expensive than they have ever been.
Lol yes, your content might be 'boring' but it does document an incredible period of history. I'm not even British and your ancestors went to war with mine, but fuck me you guys did a number on technology and we should all be grateful. Rule Britannia and keep making these videos dude.
fantastic video. Strange that they never had connected the two railway station in Bradford, I actually visited the city 30 years ago, and even then was it a depressive city, might be most depressive places in UK, but I can still remember taking the train north to Carlisle and seeing the football stadium, that had burnt down some years before. Thanks for advising the Trainpal app because it not easy to find which ticket to which ticket.
As a transport enthusiast, I love the railways and try to enjoy travelling. But as someone with a disability, who uses a small mobility scooter, the assistance has let me down so many times. Whether I book ahead or not. Left on trains, luggage in wheelchair spaces and even faced abuse from other passengers due to them refusing to move their luggage. The train company did not care one bit. It's gotten that bad, that I've been forced to take legal action!
What about the rolling stock? I remember the carriages with individual compartments and wide, comfy, sprung seats. The train I get now from Wolverhampton to Wallsall has hard, narrow seats that won't fit two grown men side by side. About as comfortable as a builder's crew bus.
Was suprised you didnt end up in Crewe Railway heritage centre, the privatization really did a number on the town, used to have one of the biggest railway works I remember going to their open days
According to ORR Data Portal, in the quarter from April to June 2024, 70.1% of station stops in Great Britain arrived on time, or within one minute of the scheduled time. 87.4% of trains arrived at their final destination on time, or within five minutes of the scheduled time. 3.5% of trains were canceled, with full cancellations counted as one and partial cancellations counted as half. The network is also at full capacity.
Excellent stuff As a frequent visitor to Bradford I can confirm just how shit using the Interchange is. You really are getting stuck into some important topics. Love it.
I remember about the Thames Link back in the '90s...It was really so expensive... about 30 quids for a 50 miles track. I think David's dog was a good help in those spooky tunnels.
He preferes the coach to a train? I know they are expensive, but I would still get the train and not the coach to London from 'up north'. Great video as always. Love the interviews.
Really enjoy the down to earth, honest presentation of you videos, which is why it's disappointing to see a blatantly AI generated image used in this one, especially without a disclaimer when discussing historical facts. Maybe it was an honest oversight, and it's up to you what you want to do with your videos but I'd rather no image at all than an AI generated one.
My little town was basically built by one man Mr Pease. He was big in ironstone and iron. He built the Zetland Hotel in Saltburn and also the train line from Redcar. Saltburn had a station built by Mr Pease, but he also added a private station to the Zetland hotel so the riffraff got off at the station, the train then pulled into the Zetland to let his guests off in style. the track was only 200m long if that.
I use a train to commute to work on weekdays and though I only travel one stop and the journey is only 9 minutes long, an open return ticket costs a little shy of £11 meaning I spend over £200 on rail travel. I'm optimistic about the re-nationalisation because I live in Somerset where so many lines were stripped away by the Beeching cuts and so often there are delays because of the weather or 'trespassers on the rails'. But, as the HS1 debacle has confirmed the modern-day costs of building or rebuilding infrastructure are often so high that they become albatrosses hanging from the necks of future generations. The government will need to spend so much to fix and futureproof the rail network, but even the people who want that will likely baulk at having to contribute to paying for it through taxes and so on. This will leave a need for investment from private entities, which will lead to a national network that still has to cater to the interests of investors.
Another Gem of a video and a subject I am sure you could get much more mileage (pun intended) out of it. I am from Grimsby and back in the day, there was direct trains to London. They were affordable and comfortable so people could go for a day in the capital. Not anymore. In 2015, I needed to get a passport and looked into going to London for a same day one. It cost an arm and a leg. My other options were Peterborough (what was I gonna do for four hours there??!!), Liverpool (same astronomical price as the capital) and Durham. I ended up going to the latter. I have just been to Japan and the bullet trains are in a different league. Clean and spacious with staff that have pride in their jobs. Will we ever get back to that? I don't think so. As somebody has mentioned most of our rail network is run by foreign companies. I was told that they use the profits in the UK to subsidise the trains in the companies' countries. The rest of Europe must be laughing at us. Or, should I say we at the laughing 'stock' of Europe.
I took London to Leicester this summer and I was surprised that it was about $100 for a roundtrip. Granted it was nonstop and took about an hour. Now I understand why that was the case. As you pointed out, the local trains from Leicester to the surrounding towns were less frequent and stopped often but all in all I didn't mind. Thinking of staying in Leeds next summer to explore Liverpool, Manchester, and York. Not sure if Leeds is the best place to stay for that zone, but I think it will be the best value for the region. If anyone thinks otherwise, please let me know.
If you stay in Sheffield you can do all those things as easily and comparable cost, but you are also minutes away from the peak district. It depends how well you value a town center over access to a national park. Leeds has retained theirs much better than Sheffield. Leeds to MCR on the Victoria line is a nice journey, but so is Sheffield to MCR through the peaks. Typically the slower routes will take in the more attractive journeys
@@thathurt yeah I thought it was expensive and I wondered how anybody commuting for work could justify it. Maybe it's cheaper with a monthly pass or something.
@@rodneyhull9764 yeah plus York is expensive. I'm looking for relatively cheap lodging like a found in Leicester so I think it's a tossup between Sheffield and Leeds.
Check the Spain RENFE (our national train service), delays every single day, trains which don't show up, no explanations on what's going on. Inside, well, people smoking, no security service. We are told to use public transport, but it's falling to pieces. As somebody mentions on your video, I have also changed to using the bus (yes it takes longer) but there are no people smoking, it is quieter, you fell safer and the driver is seen so you feel a bit more calm.
We did have a few double decker trains… the Class 4DD. Well, sort of 1.5 decker as the lower deck was kinda with the bogies and not much headroom on the top. The issue was that our network is extremely busy and requires trains to stop as briefly as possible to get people on and off. Having two decks slowed this down as more people had to file through the same number of doors. In the end they decided not to make more and they extended platforms instead, to have more carriages.
I wanted to travel by train to the BP Pulse Venue, Great I thought - going up, 3 trains an hour - yippee. Then I looked at coming back, granted this is on a Saturday night. The last train home is 23:30 and then the next is 8:47 on Sunday. What is the point? Car Parking is only £2 more and I don't have to walk home in the early hours and if anyone thinks staying at the local Genting hotel its £374 a night!
it is cheaper for me to fly Slovakia and back compared to a train ticket from London to Brighton. Imagine wanting to go on a family day out, horrendous.
I like Bradford; was there on holiday last week. I like Interchange station, with the old hydraulic buffers still in place, with the flowers around them. Trains to Manchester, Leeds, Blackpool, London, Huddersfield and Hull, with some extended to Chester. From Forster Square trains go to Leeds, Ilkley and Skipton. With one change you can get to many other places. Lots of bus services, but they really do need to get the bus station open again. Some of the trains are too short, the Leeds to Manchester one’s for example are often overcrowded. Bradford has 7 platforms, with an eighth one being built at Forster Square. The Lines serving Interchange could do with electrification, but there are a lot of tunnels which may be a problem.
All this, fare wise makes me pleased to live in Victoria, Australia where the maximum fare is AU$7.50 or £3.90 which gives up to 800miles of rail/bus travel in one day, half this for OAP's. Aussies travelling to the UK always purchase a Britrail pass in advance for the cheapest fare.
Thanks for this interesting video. As a small overcrowded country Britain has really suffered from all those line closures; imagine how much nicer this country would be now if it had kept them all and the Beeching axe had never been swung!
Thanks for another fantastic video. Could you do a video on hotel dynamic pricing, particularly in London? It seems to be a huge problem that isn't being covered anywhere. One week a hotel will charge £1k the next week it goes up to £2500 for no reason and it's been like this since covid x
You should come to Chelmsford where they are building the first new train station on the Great Eastern main line for over 100 years. Probably should have been built 40 years ago, but at least it's happening now.
Another good vid mate. I have to say I preferred how you did you audio in previous ones though, this new mic separates you from the ambient sounds a lot, sounds like you're in a studio
Hey thanks for this mate. Someone else actually pointed this out as well, it seems that the built in mic is actually a lot better, I’ll save the externals for specific situation, very windy and stuff 👍
Trains in cornwall are a disgrace too. Barely on time, often dont stop at correct stations and super expensive. Its cheaper to fly when i travel from cornwall to yorkshire.
I watched a video by bald and bankrupt recently where he used the train in India & it made me actually appreciate how good ours still is. It may not be the best, but it's in no way shape or form the worst 😂
To keep the trains running long-term and to keep the system up-to-date would require that the *private* companies running them use some of their profits for that purpose, rather than give them to shareholders. Which is pretty much anathema to the kind of companies who currently run our trains. And it's going to get worse. The rail companies are seeing falling profits and rising maintenance costs due to their neglect. They can see that their contracts are about to be removed and so there is every incentive to gouge every last penny until the very last minute, then hand back a pile of wreckage.
I can just about remember the old Bradford station (that dates me!). Now that station was one serious statement, you were arriving at a major city that had great civic buildings. Sadly the modern toy town version looks like it belongs in a little town that's serving a few thousand people.
The Private Franchise contracts are still running & they wont be renewed when the current tenders expire. So it hasnt been "Renationalised" yet. Plus even when it has been nationalised then the Rolling stock will still be private rolling stock companies as they are the only ones that can supply the funding for the new rolling stock you have running around anyway.
WT... Nice video 👍🏿... I live in Birmingham and the only reason why I came to Birmingham is because of the train... One day from work from Birmingham to Northampton I went to get the train home and I went to the station at 6pm in Birmingham and I got home I got home to Northampton at 1am in the morning... Normally it takes 59 minutes... So I decided I need to get a house in Birmingham....
As someone who has previously worked both in the UK and the US on the railways, indeed was part of the management team that returned AMTRAK to New Hampshire and Maine. I really couldn't be more pessimistic about railways in the UK, thankfully I don't have a horse in the race so I can speak from a position of some knowledge without any degree of self interest. Railways around the world have a fundamental problem which are exacerbated in the UK. They are dreadfully inflexible, this is compounded by the fact that as the UK is the oldest railway system and it was never designed to be a national network the UK basically has had to "make do" for 150 years and just think about how the towns and cities around the UK and indeed the kind of travelling people do has changed its actually remarkable if "functions" to the level it does, this is also hampered by the fact that large parts of the network are built in areas of land that are far from ideal... Think of all the new build housing estates that flood every year because it was built on historical flood plains because the land was cheap... put 10,000 miles of railway on top of that type of land and you have an idea of the day to day challenges. There really aren't any easy answers about how to fix the railway in the UK, I think the very best that can be done is to keep patching it up and bumbling along.
I realised how crazy Britain's railway history was when the Beeching Cuts happened. And they chose to shut down the Great Central Main Line. At the time it was the latest Main Line. All that engineering and beautiful railway stations and viaducts just GONE and demolished for good. And now they want to build HS2. Some of it is now being built ON the old Great Central Main Line. Overall I'm like common? make your mind up.
I've used Trainpal for all my journey for years and it's excellent - apart from it's missing a lot of obvious splits (eg Oxford to Leamington Spa) that used to work. I do like the regular discounts eg was 4% off everything a couple of weeks ago.
They just reopened our line here in Leven, looked into how much it'd cost to get to Derby to visit family for Christmas, over £400!!. Journey time was nearly as long as a bus. No ta, I'll suffer the bus.
Yeah that's the problem when you lead on things, I remember going to Vietnam in the mid 2000s - they never really had broadband but by that time they installed the infrastructure for gigabit...couldn't really get that in the UK until 10 years later.
enjoyed the vid. got a stonking price signing onto trainpal. Euston / Milton Keynes - less than half price on trainline. I love using avanti west coast and the service is getting better. even nothern is getting better. remember the pacer trains - on bus chassis? tickets are a nightmare. i saved 15 quid going from crewe to lancaster by booking to oxenholm. cheap tickets is an art form and i must admit I enjoy the chase - if i get the right price. look forward to your next vid
Another excellent offering from Our Turnip. The 3 things which made the UK the first railway country were the same factors which destroyed our train system: a national love of tinkering with things, geography, and ideological obsessions with private enterprise. The person I hate the most in all this has to be Mr Underpants... apart from pulling them down off his skinny ar5 in order to give Edwina Curry a pounding (dismiss that image from your mind), that supremely unrememberable thicko did one other thing for which he'll be remembered.
I was in Korea years ago when strikes were happening. They even had staff in reserve to get the subway running and a quicker service. Driving down to London soon. Train prices and services are daylight robbery.
This is what happens when you put overpriviledged petrol-heads in control of traffic, who have never used a train in their life. As far as I know Beeching also had relatives in the concrete business who profited massively from road building.
i find it rather funny how all the stock footage you used to describe the “golden age” of british railways showed exclusively trains from other countries
The Trainpal app is absolutely incredible, check it out below. Use code TURNIP for amazing savings of 5% OFF UK and Euro Travel and 20% off Railcards
mytrainpal.onelink.me/q1rp/kd62m9jb?pid=social&af_siteid=yt-TURNIP&campaign=media
Can't you see the Hippocracy of your sponsor for them to give you 5% Because of how expensive train tickets are surely they must Be making a lot of money from it as well Otherwise they wouldn't be a Company.
The only way to get cheap tickets these days seems to be to book well in advance.
I hope its better than trainline , which is dreadful.
England is spending too much money on other countries when it is so poor An eye watering amount is being given to countries to fight wars Why? They should be trying to broker a peace deal and getting wealthy countries to negotiate with the world's war lords
The age of the train was the slogan for British rail in the 80’s with an iconic tune by Peter Auty the original singer of the snowman .
Brilliant. As an old bugger I remember all the railway closures. And it wasn't just closures that caused the problems. At the same time, even on lines that stayed open, they closed loads of the stations. I come from rural Kent. Our local station was a massive goods yard. We had a station master that lived in a big house that was part of the station. There was a signalman. And several guys in the goods yard. Then you had the delivery guys that picked up from the goods yard. The station master had a lovely garden. And there were always hanging flower baskets. You sat in the waiting room in front of a coal fire. And there were working toilets. Next minute, nothing. All gone. Station shut. Goods yard closed. All the jobs gone. And most of the trains no longer stopped at that station. This is a main line to London. But you could only get the odd train that stopped. One of the worst government decisions ever. And governments are known for stupid decisions.
And it was a fraud. The Beeching cuts were based on faked data.
And the privatisation was based on some half baked schoolboy’s idea.
Beeching had a lot to answer for. It was the beginning of the end. Now we have to suffer HS2, supposing it is not scrapped.
Beeching was an accountant, had no understanding of trains or their value to communities. His boss was Marples, minister of transport, who had a handy investment sideline in building motorways.
He actually wasn’t. He was an engineer and physicist
@@markmoran916 and a number cruncher. His methodolgy was to count daily users. Thanks for the correction.
@@michaelwilliams3232 a lot of his data was faked.
Beeching didn't close a single railway line. The Labour and Conservative Transport Ministers did.
This is 21st century britain for you! Overpriced and no value at all!
You can add - no vision, no real plan for the future, no visionary politicians, no creative spark anymore, no engineering prowess, no manufacturing base etc. Very sad that we threw all these things away.....and for what??
No different to other developed countries.
I beg to differ @@stevo728822
@@robtyman4281globalisation, apparently.
@@robtyman4281and no colonies to plunder
I wander lonely as a train
Abandoned on a disused track..
Where darkest tunnels still remain
But locomotives won't be back..
In eerie silence, on I wend..
A tiny speck of light I see..
But oh, these tunnels never end
And now it's really haunting me! 😱
Quick footsteps make a creepy sound..
What following? A living dead?
I pluck up courage.. turn around..
_Relief!_ It's just my faithful *TED!* 💚🐶
(Loved the vid, David!👍)
Haha, brilliant as always! 🤣 My comments seem to get deleted from this channel. Hope this one doesn't 🤷🏻♀️
@@Magic-Florence I can see your comment, Flo.. thanks so much, it means a lot!
I get comments deleted regularly by YT.. and have no idea why!
I constantly shrug my shoulders in disbelief of how much the British have sold out on everything and destroyed their economy and public services due to failed austerity yet still continue to think more of the same is the solution
1980s Thatcher sold everything! Lots of us knew it was wrong!
But it was a very greedy time, and now we pay for it.
You mean the politicians, same in every country, I don't trust any of them they all act out of self interest.
It's the fault of successive governments who just come in and sell off the nations assets to make a quick few quid. Thatcher was the worst, then Major who sold off the railways. Even Thatcher knew selling the railways was a bad idea. She sold off everything but.
You shall own nothing and be happy so keep on being a sub 😮😮😮
Rees-Mogg said you would see your Brexit benefits in fifty years, so from now, that's only forty-six. Something to look forward to!
I used to love travelling by train - I still could if they had comfortable, soft seats - but due to injury, I can't physically tolerate the ironing board seats. There must be thousands of other people in the same situation. Obviously no thought for 'inclusion'. Old train carriages were like living rooms. I'm so glad that I experienced them. Windows you could open, heaters you could control, pictures, sofas to sit on, reading lights... Modern trains are vile, uncomfortable, soulless tubes.
yeah & covered in decades of old ash smoke with cigarette butts all over the place. On top of the the trains stank like an NCP car park stairwell. British Railways where Shit.
@@simonamos5426Yep, litter everywhere and stank of pish and puke.
@@simonamos5426 were*
And the constant repetitive mind numbing tortuous tannoy announcements..
What a miserable lot you are 😢
It wasn’t necessarily Beeching’s fault. He was following a Government brief. Transport Secretary Ernest Marples was the villain. The one who owned a road construction company - funny that!
Dr Beeching was a businessman. He was told to make the trains profitable or to save money, so culled the loss making lines. It was cold but straight forward. He wasn't looking to the future, at efficiency, to improve, etc, just money. As you said, it was the brief. If he had worked alongside others who had looked to the future, maybe we'd have seen a better network
@@DashCamSheffield He was looking to the future, as seen from then. Railways were old, Victorian technology. 1963 was the era of the atomic future. Private cars, private freedom, atomic powered personal helicopters. At the time, railways were seen the same as canals. The future was supersonic airliners like Concorde.
No one can really predict the future, as Kodak and Polaroid found out.
@@spencerhardy8667 Kodak now manufacture LCD screens.
@@spencerhardy8667 Exactly as you say. I remember it well.
It's funny that just as Beeching got going Japan Rail was opening the first Shinkansen.
For a start, restriction C1 pretty much scuppers double decker trains in the UK. As for the "privatisation "model" - there was NO model - the railway was simply split into numerous entities, TOCs (too many of them); ROSCOs (too many of them); Freight Companies etc. As for Network Rail (now supposedly state owned) responsible for 100+ PRIVATE Companies. Bus Companies, Water Companies, Pop Music Companies playing at trains. Ridiculous fare anomolies/hyper expensive/little competition between TOCs and timetabling that forgot the art of "connections" because the TOCs were incompatible. There was a model that we could have followed, that of the Swiss that operate under the guise of "Swiss Federal Railways" but the operators are private companies that work closely together to produce a timetable that works, connections that work and a fare structure that is "fair". British Rail privatisation was a disaster from the start.
Japan is another example of privatisation done properly. If you regulate it well, it can work.
Interesting fact britain spends more on subsidies now to private rail companies than it spent when it owned British Rail.
Rubbish
@@stevo728822It’s objectively true. Look it up. The train operating companies have received several government subsidiaries that British Rail would never get before privatisation.
You can look it up.
My dad worked on the railway, have great memories traveling up and down the country in the guards cabin lol...loved the trains when I was younger...dont get to use them anymore...Great video david...always a great video ❤
That sounds like winning the childhood lottery 👌
Pure MAGIC that must have been! 👍
Good hairdo.👌
Almost Beatles Let it Be era
It's heading for Edd China territory.
And Johnny Bravo 😀
It suits him way better like this rather than short/shaved 👍
😂😂 All this great info and it's all about the hair! But you're right, great hair! 💈🧒
I was watching some old news shows which was before the beeching act had bee announced and it was complaining that a lot of branch lines time tables had been changed so that they no longer lined up with mainline trains. There was a quite large campaign before the beeching act to just have the timetables line up again. But if they did that a lot of beechings cuts wouldn't make sense, as ridership would be higher. Although to be fair a lot of his cuts already made no sense at all. Cutting off the centre and north of Wales from the south. Even very weird things like Blackpool was to have one of it's stations Cut, the council said can you do the other instead and he said yes. Now if the cuts were anyway logical on what planet can you just change the line in a heartbeat. It's just such obvious corruption. The fact that road constructors such as Earnst Marple were involved in the cuts just seals the deal.
I lived in the UK in the 80s and I loved British Rail. It was cheap, generally always on time, and a wonderful way to get around the country. I went back in 2007 after privatization and I was completely lost. So many different train companies and different times and I just ended up saying fuck it, got on a train from Peterborough to London, and I guess I was on the right train, I don't know, but nobody busted me. I miss the old days of British Rail, especially the 125s.
Your hair looks great grown out.
Superb video. ❤ 🚆
Come now. It might have been one network but it was cheap because the taxpayer paid for it. Nothing is free. The unions held the government hostage so the subsidy was massive. And the network reminded me of a U.K. barely out of WW2. It was dirty, late, poor catering (comedians didn’t make fun of BR pies and sandwiches for no reason). Cheap was about the only thing one could say about it.
@@xr6lad Coming from a place with no rail service, it was wonderful. You can look at anything and find fault or you can marvel at something you never had. And I was working so yes, I paid in.
Better still in the seventies.
Was only 2014 when the borders railway had reopened up to Edinburgh from my home town of Galashiels. There’s so many places in the borders that were affected by the beeching cuts. We were essentially car and bus locked until the train arrived. The line used to go to Carlisle back in my grannies day.
You have to be very carefull booking trains on the web, I just tried Nottingham to Oban on 1st november using nationalrail and it was £141.60 .. Tried thetrainline and it said there were no trains on the 1st but there were on the 2nd for £71.99. I tried mytrainpal and it was £65.30 but the strange thing was is that it was a 7 minute earlier train from a different nottingham platform but arrived at the same time as the £141.60 train. The whole system is rigged to rip you off, and this needs to stop so people can trust them again.
I also found Trainline to be misleading. Not everyone has a readily accessible station but I always buy my tickets at Swansea station and the staff will go out of their way to find the best and cheapest route.
Is "mytrainpal" different to "TrainPal"?
@@bettygraham818 Trainline is the worst, dont ever use it. They've been known to sell tickets for trains that don't exist in the time table.
Is that for a months worth of travel or something ???
£18 Billion for Crossrail, and £85 Billion for HS1.5, is why we cannot have nice things in this country….. 😢
Because we are northerners, the Northern workers that built the industrial Revolution, the mines, the mills, the trains, shipyards all built this countries wealth but that wealth is spent solely in London. London is the best public transport on earth, FACT!! Constantly getting new underground lines, brand new buses, oyster cards etc etc.. here it's impossible to get in or out from our towns to our cities due to layabout northern rail workers and their unions always blaming owners because £2000 a week isn't enough pay for these glorified tram drivers
literally feel bad for non londoners atp
Leigh no station anymore to it's city Manchester.. Wigan is the northern stop on the London to Glasgow line, passengers get of hoping to get to Manchester or Liverpool but guess what, northern rail don't wanna work today, why should they when they get a basic of £1200 a week and full sick pay. Yes successive governments have always not give a stuff about the north and "sir" pension robber starmer is exactly the same. We have Burnham and his Scouse counterpart plus loads of useless MPs like Lisa pie arse nandy who do absolutely nothing at all but feather their own nests by buying 2nd properties in London that we pay for, only to sell them for millions when they retire. Best, easiest way to make money except for working for northern rail that is
@@CheesenpickleAslef is a strong union = good wages. But you lie about £2000pw
@@Cheesenpicklestop whingin toryboy
Total lack of investment.
I used to work in the Swindon GWR works repairing carriages and rolling stock, till they decided to close it and sell off the land for housing.
The biggest mistake was the divide up British Rail, British Rail Engineering Limited and Sea Link and sell them off the private companies.
Under the BR badge there was one organisation running everything and linking up the regions.
They should be investing back in the railways, building railheads in towns and city's, getting goods back onto the rails and off of the roads, it must be more economical to have one train of twenty container to have twenty HGVs on the overcrowded motorways, even coming in from Europe via the tunnel.
The Victorians and edwardians gave us an awesome railway infrastructure and we destroyed it with the 50s-60s cuts then there on in to the 90s.all gone.and looks at were we are today.keep up with the vids👍
It was all destroyed by a man who had financial interest in building roads, so of course Ernest Marples would instruct Dr Beeching to close down many railway lines.
A common complaint about the rails prior to the big four intervention was that there was a lack of standardisation, I believe they should have done regulations to ensure standardisation before trying to consolidate the companies, regardless a free market here would have likely seen companies pivot out of rail all together. One thing that would save rail would be a massive reduction in energy costs, something molten salt reactor adoption could give the UK, really it is insane how these last decades are the first in human history where energy has gotten more expensive and via intervention not from any sort of actual energy scarcity.
We do need HS2 in full. It's a project that has been both poorly managed and poorly promoted, however for the wider capacity benefits it will bring to the network, allowing for far more local and freight services to be ran in the place of express trains which will be moved onto the new line, it is desperately needed. The WCML is pretty much at capacity and suffers from several bottlenecks which will be relieved by the construction of HS2 in full. Costs should certainly have been managed better, but the premature cancellation of the project was incredibly short-sighted.
HS2 phase 2b might go ahead to Crewe, which takes in Trent Valley bottleneck I believe. As long as we don't call it HS2.
No we don't. Britain isn't that big and doesn't have multiple impassable mountain ranges e.g. France.
Bullshit, you are clearly a politician or someone getting a back hander out of it, probably both because hs2 only goes to and from efficient lines, it helps NOBODY OUTSIDE OF LONDON
@@stephenscales353 that was the problem in Kent, huge mountain ranges but we still got HS1
@@stephenscales353 Size of the country is pretty much irrelevant it is the lack of capacity in the existing infrastructure which means something needs to be done, and quickly.
At a similar time to the beeching cuts. France and Japan had the same issue as the UK. What they did was invest in their railways and they are some of the best in the world. We cut our and they got worse.
Beeching did more lasting damage to the UK than Hitler and he was trying haha.
France doesn't have the best railways, the tgv lines and paris' network are fantastic but other regional routes are slow and awful frequency, Britain's regional railways are much better but that's is mostly due to pop density
@@pr5134 I said some of the best in the world, not the best and it is a lot better than the UK. Britians regional railways are terrible anywhere out of London's commuter belt. Constant cancellations, late trains, poor frequency, uncomfortable, extremely overcrowded and expensive. You go on platform 14 - 15 Manchester Piccadilly at rush hour and tell me that is okay. It is the most hectic, overcrowded platform I have ever seen. They have to have staff holding people back for safety it gets so full, constant tannoy announcements trying to sort out the crowds and trains will get so full you have to squeeze yourself into a little corner and that will sometimes be the train after yours as you couldn't fit on the other one.
Allied bombers did a good job on the French network, meaning the rebuild was from scratch, while even at war's end the UK network was Victorian and dilapidated after 5 years of war. Post war nationalisation had to happen because private owners of networks could not raise capital for a refurb'. Then along comes Dr. Beeching.
@@michaelwilliams3232 they didn't rebuild from scratch at all. In Japan even after a nuclear bomb the railway was running the next day. The investment Japan and France did at this time was new high speed networks i.e. Shinkansen and there some improvement works to the old systems.
Same happened in Australia. Victoria alone was heavily connected from south to north and east to west, but that’s all over. Love seeing the old mounds on which the rails lied
I thought the train system jn victoria runs well and seemed very organized so what is wronga?
@@bijosn the topic here is that UK has lost 1000 of miles of track over the past 100 years, the same what happened in regional Victoria. Melbourne lost the outer circle and inner circle lines, which would be heavily used if in existence today. No foresight
Gosh, definitely don’t miss the days when I had to travel into Glasgow City Centre for work. Delays, cancellations, bus rail replacements and overcrowding!! 😡
Scarborough to Whitby: 15 miles by road, 4 hours by train. Thanks Beeching.
70 % of the UK rail network is FOREIGN OWNED so all that profit goes OVERSEAS!
In France mostly
Most of the network is owned by Network Rail which is a UK government owned body.
The railways are owned and managed by Network Rail as already said. Some of the franchises were foreign owned, but these were renationalised and then given back to the franchisees in the form of a management contract.
So no, the railway network is not foreign owned.
Nope. Most are on management contracts with 'profit' going to Department of Transport.
Hull trains and Lumo happen to be owned by First Group, with profits staying in the UK
Some trains in Germany are owned by a British company.
I always enjoy your video thank you from New Zealand keep up the good work.
I use the train quite often as I live in Edinburgh but my parents are back in Newcastle where I'm from, and for a fairly short distance, a return ticket is about £60, whilst a friend of mine got a return ticket from Edinburgh to Glasgow the other day for £6.
The man behind Beeching was Earnst Marple MP. Have a guess what his family business was....................road building!
😂
Scotland and Wales nationalised their trains, time for England to do that too
And they are no better.
@@stevo728822They’re putting in more effort than us, which have the Department For Transport here in England fucking it up
Excellent episode mate. I agree (how couldn’t you) with the comparison with mainland European train services. Our offering is pitiful while being expensive.
Keep it up!
I occasionally travel Birmingham to Manchester and have defected to using a coach. 30 years ago the train route that carries on beyond Birmingham to Bournemouth was 7 or 8 carriages. Now it's 4 carriages and cramped and overcrowded. Coach takes longer but much more pleasant, a comfortable temperature and half the price. Railways are so slow to react; despite Sunday Trading laws changing 30 years ago we still have a limited, pretty much unchanged service. Nearly 20 years ago pub hours were extended and yet the trains run no later.
Thanks for the vid
And the irony is I’m travelling by train today. Well possibly, maybe or something depending on whether it is a train or replacement
Either way I need to get to Birmingham
Has the same problem last Thursday, ended up chatting to a nice Chinese lady, she said UK trains were a massive shock!
The irony is Bradford interchange and Bradford forster square stations are only Half a mile apart, they are near perfectly aligned that they could be connected giving Bradford a "Through Station", but no doubt there would be no will to do so or lack of funding for "essential infastructure" but Hundreds of Millions of Pounds can be wasted on vanity projects.
City's gone
The old platform is at the back of the Midland Hotel. Hotel guests could get their luggage taken directly to their room by the railway porters.
@@stephenscales353 it's a pipedream
@@stephenscales353 When I stayed at the Midland Hotel a few years ago I got the train to Brighouse. It literally took me minutes to walk from there to Interchange.
It's not so easy otherwise the two train stations would have been connected long ago. There's a significant elevation difference.
When I was a little girl and we visited my Nana in Widnes, our greatest joy was to run to the back of her garden, where there were rail lines, and hang off the fence and wave at passengers. We emigrated in the middle of the 60s, so I’m guessing dear Mr. Beeching ruined that for everyone.
Yay a new Turnip video.
The last time I went by train to Liverpool there was standing room only and it got so packed we could not move - could not make it to a toilet. Luckily I didn't need to go but I vowed never to go by train again - it was scary and even the train staff could not make it through the coaches. To pay for this felt like an insult.
I think that the trains were longer in North Wales, in the 1970's and 1980's. Although there were only 3 trains a day direct to London then. Now the trains are newer, but just as dirty. There are about 9 direct trains a day, although you can still take a train, and connect to a train to London Euston every half hour.
Under British Rail, the local train from Manchester, would consist of 3 or 4 DMUs, each of 2 carriages. From 1990 onwards, you are lucky if you have more than 2 carriages on a train.
Under Richard Branson, the journey time to London, from Colwyn Bay, was reduced by half an hour, but it went back up to 3 hours, as Virgin Trains reduced the delays that they were having.
The trains are smaller, and more expensive than they have ever been.
4:01 - Class 195 sets off, the volume of the sales pitch increases 😂😂
Thanks
I love your work. It’s so uplifting!
A lovely gesture
1960s Beeching cuts instead of investing and building up. Meaning a run down system was ripe for privatisation 20 years later. :( Like this video.
Lol yes, your content might be 'boring' but it does document an incredible period of history. I'm not even British and your ancestors went to war with mine, but fuck me you guys did a number on technology and we should all be grateful. Rule Britannia and keep making these videos dude.
fantastic video. Strange that they never had connected the two railway station in Bradford, I actually visited the city 30 years ago, and even then was it a depressive city, might be most depressive places in UK, but I can still remember taking the train north to Carlisle and seeing the football stadium, that had burnt down some years before. Thanks for advising the Trainpal app because it not easy to find which ticket to which ticket.
As a transport enthusiast, I love the railways and try to enjoy travelling. But as someone with a disability, who uses a small mobility scooter, the assistance has let me down so many times. Whether I book ahead or not. Left on trains, luggage in wheelchair spaces and even faced abuse from other passengers due to them refusing to move their luggage. The train company did not care one bit. It's gotten that bad, that I've been forced to take legal action!
What about the rolling stock? I remember the carriages with individual compartments and wide, comfy, sprung seats. The train I get now from Wolverhampton to Wallsall has hard, narrow seats that won't fit two grown men side by side. About as comfortable as a builder's crew bus.
they jacked the compartmental trains for womens safety
The Chinese have built a railway on the Tibetan plateau, we cannot build a high speed rail to Manchester from London .
I'm 56 and it's sad that your films hold a mirror up to what this country is becoming
Was suprised you didnt end up in Crewe Railway heritage centre, the privatization really did a number on the town, used to have one of the biggest railway works I remember going to their open days
According to ORR Data Portal, in the quarter from April to June 2024, 70.1% of station stops in Great Britain arrived on time, or within one minute of the scheduled time. 87.4% of trains arrived at their final destination on time, or within five minutes of the scheduled time. 3.5% of trains were canceled, with full cancellations counted as one and partial cancellations counted as half. The network is also at full capacity.
Excellent stuff As a frequent visitor to Bradford I can confirm just how shit using the Interchange is. You really are getting stuck into some important topics. Love it.
I remember about the Thames Link back in the '90s...It was really so expensive... about 30 quids for a 50 miles track. I think David's dog was a good help in those spooky tunnels.
Piratisation is the biggest problem. Prior to that BR wasnt the most glamorous railway in Europe but it was the most cost effective.
He preferes the coach to a train? I know they are expensive, but I would still get the train and not the coach to London from 'up north'. Great video as always. Love the interviews.
Really enjoy the down to earth, honest presentation of you videos, which is why it's disappointing to see a blatantly AI generated image used in this one, especially without a disclaimer when discussing historical facts. Maybe it was an honest oversight, and it's up to you what you want to do with your videos but I'd rather no image at all than an AI generated one.
My little town was basically built by one man Mr Pease. He was big in ironstone and iron. He built the Zetland Hotel in Saltburn and also the train line from Redcar. Saltburn had a station built by Mr Pease, but he also added a private station to the Zetland hotel so the riffraff got off at the station, the train then pulled into the Zetland to let his guests off in style. the track was only 200m long if that.
I use a train to commute to work on weekdays and though I only travel one stop and the journey is only 9 minutes long, an open return ticket costs a little shy of £11 meaning I spend over £200 on rail travel. I'm optimistic about the re-nationalisation because I live in Somerset where so many lines were stripped away by the Beeching cuts and so often there are delays because of the weather or 'trespassers on the rails'. But, as the HS1 debacle has confirmed the modern-day costs of building or rebuilding infrastructure are often so high that they become albatrosses hanging from the necks of future generations. The government will need to spend so much to fix and futureproof the rail network, but even the people who want that will likely baulk at having to contribute to paying for it through taxes and so on. This will leave a need for investment from private entities, which will lead to a national network that still has to cater to the interests of investors.
Another Gem of a video and a subject I am sure you could get much more mileage (pun intended) out of it. I am from Grimsby and back in the day, there was direct trains to London. They were affordable and comfortable so people could go for a day in the capital. Not anymore. In 2015, I needed to get a passport and looked into going to London for a same day one. It cost an arm and a leg. My other options were Peterborough (what was I gonna do for four hours there??!!), Liverpool (same astronomical price as the capital) and Durham. I ended up going to the latter.
I have just been to Japan and the bullet trains are in a different league. Clean and spacious with staff that have pride in their jobs. Will we ever get back to that? I don't think so. As somebody has mentioned most of our rail network is run by foreign companies. I was told that they use the profits in the UK to subsidise the trains in the companies' countries. The rest of Europe must be laughing at us. Or, should I say we at the laughing 'stock' of Europe.
Trains here in Perth, Western Australia are clean and pretty good value in cost 👍🏼
I took London to Leicester this summer and I was surprised that it was about $100 for a roundtrip. Granted it was nonstop and took about an hour. Now I understand why that was the case. As you pointed out, the local trains from Leicester to the surrounding towns were less frequent and stopped often but all in all I didn't mind. Thinking of staying in Leeds next summer to explore Liverpool, Manchester, and York. Not sure if Leeds is the best place to stay for that zone, but I think it will be the best value for the region. If anyone thinks otherwise, please let me know.
A lot of people in England don't have £100 or $100 spare lol.
Leeds have less beggars than Manchester,York have the least mate
If you stay in Sheffield you can do all those things as easily and comparable cost, but you are also minutes away from the peak district. It depends how well you value a town center over access to a national park. Leeds has retained theirs much better than Sheffield. Leeds to MCR on the Victoria line is a nice journey, but so is Sheffield to MCR through the peaks. Typically the slower routes will take in the more attractive journeys
@@thathurt yeah I thought it was expensive and I wondered how anybody commuting for work could justify it. Maybe it's cheaper with a monthly pass or something.
@@rodneyhull9764 yeah plus York is expensive. I'm looking for relatively cheap lodging like a found in Leicester so I think it's a tossup between Sheffield and Leeds.
Finally, Trainpal, a sponsor I will actually use.
Check the Spain RENFE (our national train service), delays every single day, trains which don't show up, no explanations on what's going on. Inside, well, people smoking, no security service.
We are told to use public transport, but it's falling to pieces.
As somebody mentions on your video, I have also changed to using the bus (yes it takes longer) but there are no people smoking, it is quieter, you fell safer and the driver is seen so you feel a bit more calm.
Spanish raiways are great - stop whingin!
valid comment mjci, Tories wanted rid of the guard here,fortunately defeated
We did have a few double decker trains… the Class 4DD. Well, sort of 1.5 decker as the lower deck was kinda with the bogies and not much headroom on the top.
The issue was that our network is extremely busy and requires trains to stop as briefly as possible to get people on and off. Having two decks slowed this down as more people had to file through the same number of doors. In the end they decided not to make more and they extended platforms instead, to have more carriages.
I wanted to travel by train to the BP Pulse Venue, Great I thought - going up, 3 trains an hour - yippee. Then I looked at coming back, granted this is on a Saturday night. The last train home is 23:30 and then the next is 8:47 on Sunday. What is the point? Car Parking is only £2 more and I don't have to walk home in the early hours and if anyone thinks staying at the local Genting hotel its £374 a night!
I've no idea why you popped up, but you've just got yourself a sub! What a great channel! 👍
Its cheaper to get a flight to majorca than getting on a f=£%_g train
But you still need in many cases to use a train or transport to get to the airport it leaves from!
And the airlines are private businesses, unlike the trains.
it is cheaper for me to fly Slovakia and back compared to a train ticket from London to Brighton. Imagine wanting to go on a family day out, horrendous.
£22.70 for a off peak return London-Brighton on the day ticket. Try getting that on the day for a plane ticket..
sod the planet eh ?
I grew up in Germany and Holland in the eighties...you could go anywhere on time and in comfort for today's equivalent of £30 month....
I like Bradford; was there on holiday last week. I like Interchange station, with the old hydraulic buffers still in place, with the flowers around them. Trains to Manchester, Leeds, Blackpool, London, Huddersfield and Hull, with some extended to Chester. From Forster Square trains go to Leeds, Ilkley and Skipton. With one change you can get to many other places. Lots of bus services, but they really do need to get the bus station open again.
Some of the trains are too short, the Leeds to Manchester one’s for example are often overcrowded. Bradford has 7 platforms, with an eighth one being built at Forster Square.
The Lines serving Interchange could do with electrification, but there are a lot of tunnels which may be a problem.
All this, fare wise makes me pleased to live in Victoria, Australia where the maximum fare is AU$7.50 or £3.90 which gives up to 800miles of rail/bus travel in one day, half this for OAP's. Aussies travelling to the UK always purchase a Britrail pass in advance for the cheapest fare.
You pay for it in your taxes.
Thanks for this interesting video. As a small overcrowded country Britain has really suffered from all those line closures; imagine how much nicer this country would be now if it had kept them all and the Beeching axe had never been swung!
Thanks for another fantastic video. Could you do a video on hotel dynamic pricing, particularly in London? It seems to be a huge problem that isn't being covered anywhere.
One week a hotel will charge £1k the next week it goes up to £2500 for no reason and it's been like this since covid x
You should come to Chelmsford where they are building the first new train station on the Great Eastern main line for over 100 years. Probably should have been built 40 years ago, but at least it's happening now.
Another good vid mate.
I have to say I preferred how you did you audio in previous ones though, this new mic separates you from the ambient sounds a lot, sounds like you're in a studio
Hey thanks for this mate. Someone else actually pointed this out as well, it seems that the built in mic is actually a lot better, I’ll save the externals for specific situation, very windy and stuff 👍
Trains in cornwall are a disgrace too. Barely on time, often dont stop at correct stations and super expensive. Its cheaper to fly when i travel from cornwall to yorkshire.
In Australia I can travel return on a intercity train 648km in total for £5.49
I watched a video by bald and bankrupt recently where he used the train in India & it made me actually appreciate how good ours still is. It may not be the best, but it's in no way shape or form the worst 😂
To keep the trains running long-term and to keep the system up-to-date would require that the *private* companies running them use some of their profits for that purpose, rather than give them to shareholders. Which is pretty much anathema to the kind of companies who currently run our trains. And it's going to get worse. The rail companies are seeing falling profits and rising maintenance costs due to their neglect. They can see that their contracts are about to be removed and so there is every incentive to gouge every last penny until the very last minute, then hand back a pile of wreckage.
Replacement bus service - shocking, no other country in the world needs to do engineering work only us 🙄
so when is it convenient to you for the engineering work ?
The feeling when You can buy a ticket for 10 quid to anywhere in Europe, but for a ticket train to the airport You will pay 10 times the price.
Would be interested in a similar video on buses in Britain
They carry far more passengers and in that respect are more important
I can just about remember the old Bradford station (that dates me!). Now that station was one serious statement, you were arriving at a major city that had great civic buildings. Sadly the modern toy town version looks like it belongs in a little town that's serving a few thousand people.
Closed railways makes great cycling routes, Im all for it
PBS used to have a show called Globe Trekker from the BBC... Turnip reminds me of that show I loved...
The Private Franchise contracts are still running & they wont be renewed when the current tenders expire. So it hasnt been "Renationalised" yet. Plus even when it has been nationalised then the Rolling stock will still be private rolling stock companies as they are the only ones that can supply the funding for the new rolling stock you have running around anyway.
Glad to see you again
WT... Nice video 👍🏿... I live in Birmingham and the only reason why I came to Birmingham is because of the train... One day from work from Birmingham to Northampton I went to get the train home and I went to the station at 6pm in Birmingham and I got home I got home to Northampton at 1am in the morning... Normally it takes 59 minutes... So I decided I need to get a house in Birmingham....
I live in Northampton and have had similar experiences 😂.
As someone who has previously worked both in the UK and the US on the railways, indeed was part of the management team that returned AMTRAK to New Hampshire and Maine. I really couldn't be more pessimistic about railways in the UK, thankfully I don't have a horse in the race so I can speak from a position of some knowledge without any degree of self interest.
Railways around the world have a fundamental problem which are exacerbated in the UK. They are dreadfully inflexible, this is compounded by the fact that as the UK is the oldest railway system and it was never designed to be a national network the UK basically has had to "make do" for 150 years and just think about how the towns and cities around the UK and indeed the kind of travelling people do has changed its actually remarkable if "functions" to the level it does, this is also hampered by the fact that large parts of the network are built in areas of land that are far from ideal... Think of all the new build housing estates that flood every year because it was built on historical flood plains because the land was cheap... put 10,000 miles of railway on top of that type of land and you have an idea of the day to day challenges.
There really aren't any easy answers about how to fix the railway in the UK, I think the very best that can be done is to keep patching it up and bumbling along.
erm whats your point?
@@rodneyhull9764 Don't be hopeful that there is any real chance of noticeable improvement
We’ve got new Turnip Hair !
Great video, always loved travelling by train, however it’s become expensive and oftentimes extremely difficult.
I realised how crazy Britain's railway history was when the Beeching Cuts happened. And they chose to shut down the Great Central Main Line. At the time it was the latest Main Line. All that engineering and beautiful railway stations and viaducts just GONE and demolished for good. And now they want to build HS2. Some of it is now being built ON the old Great Central Main Line.
Overall I'm like common? make your mind up.
You are great at doing the ads/promotions too. Normally I skip but you are really good at it. Love the new longer hair.
9:02 when your inner Partridge slips out
I've used Trainpal for all my journey for years and it's excellent - apart from it's missing a lot of obvious splits (eg Oxford to Leamington Spa) that used to work. I do like the regular discounts eg was 4% off everything a couple of weeks ago.
Worth getting Trainsplit also. These two often throw up different options/costs
They just reopened our line here in Leven, looked into how much it'd cost to get to Derby to visit family for Christmas, over £400!!. Journey time was nearly as long as a bus. No ta, I'll suffer the bus.
At least you have railways - try coming to Australia where there almost aren't any
Yeah that's the problem when you lead on things, I remember going to Vietnam in the mid 2000s - they never really had broadband but by that time they installed the infrastructure for gigabit...couldn't really get that in the UK until 10 years later.
enjoyed the vid. got a stonking price signing onto trainpal. Euston / Milton Keynes - less than half price on trainline. I love using avanti west coast and the service is getting better. even nothern is getting better. remember the pacer trains - on bus chassis? tickets are a nightmare. i saved 15 quid going from crewe to lancaster by booking to oxenholm. cheap tickets is an art form and i must admit I enjoy the chase - if i get the right price. look forward to your next vid
Get Trainsplit as well. Those two often find different options/costs
I’m so old I remember when “train” stations were called “railway” stations. #CulturalImperialism
PS I love the subtle irony of your video using foreign stock footage to illustrate the history of Britain’s railways. 😂
PPS Look up former Minister of Transport and road builder Ernest Marples and then ask yourself if Beeching really was to blame . . .
Another excellent offering from Our Turnip. The 3 things which made the UK the first railway country were the same factors which destroyed our train system: a national love of tinkering with things, geography, and ideological obsessions with private enterprise.
The person I hate the most in all this has to be Mr Underpants... apart from pulling them down off his skinny ar5 in order to give Edwina Curry a pounding (dismiss that image from your mind), that supremely unrememberable thicko did one other thing for which he'll be remembered.
I was in Korea years ago when strikes were happening. They even had staff in reserve to get the subway running and a quicker service.
Driving down to London soon. Train prices and services are daylight robbery.
wow, supports scab working!! what a awful human being
@@rodneyhull9764 nope. Just an observation ✌️
This is what happens when you put overpriviledged petrol-heads in control of traffic, who have never used a train in their life.
As far as I know Beeching also had relatives in the concrete business who profited massively from road building.
i find it rather funny how all the stock footage you used to describe the “golden age” of british railways showed exclusively trains from other countries
It’s lazy and sloppy.
@@xr6ladTurnip does his best to bring us these FREE uploads! He definitely isn't "sloppy" - he works on a budget, I am sure!
@@Magic-Florence Working on a budget doesn't justify getting your facts wrong.
@@andishawjfac Get a f*cking life
@@andishawjfac ffsssss get a life man