The railway workshop at Derby, a pioneer in manufacturing rail coaches, including the path breaking HST (high speed trains) and a DMU (diesel multiple unit) configuration, is struggling. It is the last of half a dozen rolling stock manufacturing units of the erstwhile British Rail that survived the axe of privatisation.
Owned by Bombardier after privatisation of the British Rail more than a decade back, the workshop reportedly had to cut 1,429 jobs for the lack of orders, the unsuccessful bid for a $2.4-bn order for 1,200 train sets for Thameslink having been won by its rival Siemens of Germany. What is worrying for the workshop is that it will end up losing nearly 500 of its highly skilled permanent old workers who are just irreplaceable.
Britishers are indignant that while the UK government, in a hands-off approach, professes to get the best value for money for its travelling public, Germany and France, if faced a similar situation, would have factored in social costs and tailored the EU tender to keep the order for themselves, and saved the jobs at home. Undoubtedly UK is a unique example of a PPP (public-private partnership) model wherein the private companies make all the profits while the public (passengers and government) ends up paying the bill. In the ever growing search for profits private companies have no qualms about job losses, even when long-serving employees have to be shown the door.
Not that the Railways in Britain were not privately held. During the initial stages, scores of companies were created, logging up 6,100 miles route length by 1851, and 19,500 miles by 1907. However World War-I saw these 178 independent companies being brought under the state control, allowed by the Regulation of Forces Act of 1871, which had been enacted exactly for such an event.
In 1923, at the end of World War-I, the government was required to pay compensation for the war effort carried out for over four years and to complete asset renewals and deferred maintenance works. A large number of railway workshops had been converted into munition factories and they had to get back to their normal functions.
However, during the war important lessons had been learnt of the economies of scale which could be obtained by operating the railways as a single system instead of as independent entities. Time was ripe for nationalisation, though it was to eventually come many years later. Meantime, Sir Eric Edders, and ex-railway man, who had become the minister for transport, came up with the idea of forming seven groupings. Scotland and London was to have its own networks with Ireland, which had a civil war going, was to be left out. Edders was finally able to bring it down to four groups viz. GWR (Great Western Railway), LNER (London & North Eastern Railway), LMSR (London Midland & Sheffield Railway) and SR (Southern Railway).
The GWR simply took over 26 minor lines, and before the deadline of July 1923 other three also had many of the smaller lines voluntarily joining them. However, this reorganisation was very much more a painful and difficult exercise than a similar reorganisation of the Indian Railways carried out by the late Lal Bahadur Shastri, involving a dozen government-owned and scores of private & princely state railways in the 1950s.
Unfortunately in the UK, the old company rivalries persisted and soon after World War-II the government realised that the existing system was struggling to survive, what with the road haulers muscling in to take away high-value business with home-to-home deliveries as their strong point. Being a common carrier the Railways were also obliged to carry anything and everything offered by the public, while the private road haulers could pick and choose their cargo. The compensations given by the government went promptly towards payments of dividends as the Railways were anticipating nationalisation since now the Labour party was now in power. As anticipated, on January 1, 1948 the Railways were nationalised and the British Rail came into being with six regions made out of the four private companies.
However, perhaps the most critical factor viz. the independence of British Rail Board was denied and it continued to function under the ministry of transport, which looked after not only the railways but roads, ports, and waterways, all under the Transport Commission. with the civil service calling all shots!
The writer is a former member, Railway Board.
(The second part will appear in the next issue of this page)