A good time to renationalise the railways? Transport journalist Christian Wolmar seems to think so. Of course the old nationalised railways did some excellent things but huge and often strategic mistakes were made, with matters being aggravated by political interference. It does not altogether matter how the railways are run if they have incompetent managers, of which there were too many in BR days, and they got in the way of the good ones and morale was often low. How they held down their jobs is a mystery but there was, reputedly, a masonic lodge at the old British Railways Board HQ in Marylebone Road. If this was true, it would explain quite a lot. The main problem now is that important decisions are being taken by the technically illiterate, but that isn't new either - eg the proliferation of different types of incompatible rolling stock, all under the eye of successive rail regulators, who are the people who would end up running the nationalised railways. Had there been sound...
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