Great British Railways to Derby

[Buhar]

The announcement leaked today obviously begs the question does this mean frequent punctual expresses or a new small engine policy.

 

Alan 

[AMJ]

4F

[John-Miles]

It means superbly turned out comfortable coaches, frequent trains  with restaurant cars (remember those??) and an efficient service (I continue to dream).

[wombatofludham]

From what I've read elsewhere, the "HQ" is likely to be nothing more than a registered address, mail and call handling centre rather than the vibrant "guiding mind" of a railway renaissance.

[woodenhead]

You’d have thought they would have put it in Birmingham right next to Curzon Street.

 

Then at least someone might use it from London

[Peter Kazmierczak]

1 hour ago, John-Miles said:

It means superbly turned out comfortable coaches, frequent trains  with restaurant cars (remember those??) and an efficient service (I continue to dream).

Ah, The Midland Railway - "The Best Way".

[Oldddudders]

As a Southern sort of cove, I nevertheless applaud the choice of Derby. I see this as having been a particularly important railway centre in the post-war period, unconnected to any Pre-Grouping loyalties, with loco and coach manufacturing, and the RTC, as well as the former Railway School of Transport, to which I had occasionally to travel on a Sunday evening about 50 years ago. I see it as central in England - and since Wales, Scotland and NI all have their own railway funding, policies and management, that's just fine. If the railways are indeed to be brought under a new regime, more vertically-integrated, it would seem, then Derby is a good choice as a centre.

[melmerby]

5 hours ago, Buhar said:

The announcement leaked today obviously begs the question does this mean frequent punctual expresses or a new small engine policy.

 

Alan 

All I remember of Derby were forlorn lines of geriatric MR locos in various states of dismemberment☹️

(late 1950s)

[Enterprisingwestern]

1 hour ago, woodenhead said:

You’d have thought they would have put it in Birmingham right next to Curzon Street.

 

Then at least someone might use it from London

 

I admire your optimism!

 

Mike.

[hexagon789]

5 hours ago, Buhar said:

a new small engine policy.

Funnily enough, that was the very first thing that popped into my mind when I read - 'Derby'. Seems that history does repeat itself ;)

[Michael Hodgson]

When I read "Great British Railways to Derby" I assumed it was a horse racing tip, like on Radio 4.

It would be a good name for a horse though.

[roythebus1]

The Midland Railway built some splendid hotels.

[phil-b259]

I have read somewhere that the railway industry has always favoured Derby as the base for the new entity - but not for the first time the DfT ignored the industry and wasted huge sums of money on consultants to carry out what amounted to a beauty pageant before deciding to do what the industry had wanted right from the start.

 

Not that GBR itself is anything to celebrate - As the modern Railways journalist Roger Ford has drawn attention to in his recent blogs, since the ousting of Boris (we will skip over the disastrous Truss premiership)  the way GBR is talked about in Government circles has significantly changed. A year ago it was being heralded as 'essential' to driving reforms of the rail system yet more recently ministers have been saying the fact that the promised parliamentary legislation (needed to transfer statutory powers set out in the privatisation legislation away from the DfT) is now not essential as many of the reforms can apparently be done anyway through existing procedures / structures

 

And thats before we get to the rumblings from various Tories who think think the state run GBR will stifle innovation and are lobbying hard for a return to franchising and the perceived freedom it will bring for private sector operators to innovate thus delivering a better passenger service for less taxpayer cash - or so they say...

 

So you will excuse me from being very much underwhelmed by the announcement of what amounts to yet another talking shop stuffed with suits sucking funds away from the front line. What was that thing about fiddling while Rome burns or altering the seating on the Titanic...

 

Edited March 25, 2023 by phil-b259

[The Stationmaster]

So why pay loadsa dosh to move folk . and all their IT baggage, from Milton Keynes - which is not really a good place from which to commute to Derby?  If you think of railway managerial centres in teh BR era and then in the privatised age Derby hardly figures in the list except for M&EE and all the 'railway  management' was at laces other than Derby - and still is.  Crewe would be a far more logical choice or even Birmingham but what really matters is the location which involves minimum relocations costs - and that won't be Derby.

[black and decker boy]

34 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

So why pay loadsa dosh to move folk . and all their IT baggage, from Milton Keynes - which is not really a good place from which to commute to Derby?  If you think of railway managerial centres in teh BR era and then in the privatised age Derby hardly figures in the list except for M&EE and all the 'railway  management' was at laces other than Derby - and still is.  Crewe would be a far more logical choice or even Birmingham but what really matters is the location which involves minimum relocations costs - and that won't be Derby.

From trade press reports (and confirmed by Derby City themselves), the HQ is expected to be home for a dozen or so people

 

 

more a rented room than headquarters 

 

management functions will continue to be devoted to the regions 

[roythebus1]

Surely the move to Derby from MK will work wonders for the fortunes of the Bletchley-Bedford line? :)

[Wheatley]

York City Council were having a tantrum on one of the breakfast new programmes  the other day about the "1600 jobs and £100m of investment" they've lost. 

 

From the TOCs' point of view the exodus of Network Rail staff to MK was horrific. Suddenly all the admin people we worked with who knew what they were doing had taken redundancy/early retirement and we were left explaining (repeatedly) to a load of newbies how the railway worked. It was exhausting.  

Edited March 27, 2023 by Wheatley

[John-Miles]

On 21/03/2023 at 18:08, woodenhead said:

You’d have thought they would have put it in Birmingham right next to Curzon Street.

 

Then at least someone might use it from London

I presume you are referring to the Old Oak Common to Aston high speed railway. 

[woodenhead]

16 minutes ago, John-Miles said:

I presume you are referring to the Old Oak Common to Aston high speed railway. 

That's correct the OOC&AR

[ess1uk]

Has anyone yet confirmed where this office will be?

or is the same PO Box as used for Channel 5 competitions?

[melmerby]

On 29/03/2023 at 16:39, John-Miles said:

I presume you are referring to the Old Oak Common to Aston high speed railway. 

What's this Aston bit?

[gismorail]

In my humble view the whole ‘rebranding’ of Network Rail is a total waste of time and money. Once again people are going to be shunted from one office to another one to push paper or nowerdays computer files around in ever decreasing circles. There will of course be those valued experienced staff who will make the decision to either move to pastures new or take early retirement leaving vacancies that will be filled by younger people with a degree that means ‘dot’! and who have no railway experience or management skills. 
When will the people in charge of such decisions earning megga salaries learn that this is not the way forward time and time this happens and nobody seems to learn from past mistakes 🤐

[Mallard60022]

 Many of the comments here and on my post about GBR Freight Hub, have highlighted how ill thought out this whole scheme was anyway. I reckon purely throwing out scraps to areas the Government want to try to retain not unlike the bidding for Levelling Up Funds.

Phil

[30368]

If I recall correctly there used to be a well established and fairly successful Railway HQ in Derby prior to the madness that was called Rail Privatisation kicked in. The Railway Technical and Research Centres. It produced some rather successful products like the HST etc...

 

More importantly it supported a critical mass of skilled and clever scientists and engineers and continually renewed its skill base by supporting graduate and technician training in the industry. The country is crying out for such skills if it is ever going to re-establish a significant engineering industry to mitigate the very likely national financial and economic disaster when banking and financial services moves to Europe, USA and Asia. City types don't give a monkey's for the UK*, just the next bonus.

 

Kind regards,

 

Richard B

 

* No judgement intended, it is their job to do so.

[phil-b259]

19 hours ago, 30368 said:

If I recall correctly there used to be a well established and fairly successful Railway HQ in Derby prior to the madness that was called Rail Privatisation kicked in. The Railway Technical and Research Centres. It produced some rather successful products like the HST etc...

 

 

 

Indeed - but that sort of expertise is a long way from what GBR is proposed to be (particularly since the current Government is heavily back-pedalling on what GBRs remit and various back-benchers are pushing for the private sector to be given far more freedom (aka a return to 'proper' franchising) to 'innovate' and lower taxpayers bills.

 

As things stand GBR will simply be a talking shop for bunch of overpaid executives (and their support staff) producing reams of silly paperwork and 'stategy' documents that will have zero effect in delivering a better railway system.

Edited April 24, 2023 by phil-b259