What if Nationalisation didn't occur in 1948?

[Mr Bunt]

In a similar vein to the "What if Bulleid had stayed?" thread, I'd like to pose the question of what would have happened on the LNER in terms infrastructure, locomotive design, etc if the Big 4 continued beyond 1947.

What may we have seen? Would Peppercorn have stay on for much long? Would an increase in dieselisation/electrification had occurred, and if so, when?

How would the LNER had looked if it existed past 1948?

Probably threadbare and bankrupt. It had always been the least financially sound of the Big Four anyway and always found it very difficult indeed to raise finance against its own creditworthiness.

In either 1938 or 1939 its auditors refused to sign off its accounts, in particular the certificate confirming it had sufficient finance to maintain its undertaking in a fit and serviceable condition; the only one of the Big Four to achieve that dubious distinction.

Whilst, in common with the other mainline companies, it was owed a heap of money appropriated by the government under the standard revenue provisions of the wartime control arrangements at the same time its assets had been run into the ground. If released, that money would soon have vanished in essential repairs and renewals, then the company would have been back to square one with a very poor credit rating and unable to raise finance.

The reason the Attlee government nationalised the railways appears to have been 50% political dogma and 50% economic pragmatism; it was cheaper to buy them at then current stock market values by issuing Transport Stock than it was to find in cash the wartime control money they were owed and hand it over. A Churchill administration would probably have recognised and acted on the economic justification for nationalisation as well.

Stock market valuations can produce strange results though. For example the price paid by the government for the Southern Railway exceeded what it cost to nationalise the arrogant, nobody does it better "God's Wonderful Railway" As you might expect though, its most expensive railway purchase was the LMS.

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Seeing this all happened a couple of years before I was born, I don't know a lot about Nationalistion, except what I've read, so how much was paid the the railway companies, considering that they were run into the ground,and asked to give there everything for the GOOD of the country, did they, in reality get back what they were worth???????

manna

PS...... Probably not

[Nova]

hate to drag up a dead topic, but, whilst I have every intention of representing a more optimistic view of what might have been, I feel the following video paints a very real picture of what the big four may well have been like had Nationalisation not happened

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHmyYqfNYnc

by the time the video was taken in the mid-70s, Penn Central, comprised of the former Pennsylvania Railroad, New York Central Railroad and New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, had been in a state of bankruptcy for a number of years and was making a loss of about $70,000,000 per year, and operated with a fleet that comprised of at least 10% of rolling stock that was years past their condemnation point, and instead of major overhauls rolling stock was repared with simple patch jobs. to top it all off they had track work more bumpy than on a roller coaster

all the nitty gritty info on Penn Central can be found here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_Cent ... on_Company

[sandwhich]

What if ! two of the most famous words in the english language. We all have our own ideas about this subject s here' s mine. It has been said that if a Labour government had not nationalised the railways in 1948 then a Conservative one would have done it in 1951. Of course many years later a Tory government nationalised Network Rail. But if the big four had remained, line closures started again in 1947 there were a dozen that year on all the four so they would certainly have continued, The only one of the four that had real plans was the Southern with further electrification and diesel traction on all routes as soon as they possibly could, although to be fair the LNER had started the Shenfield electrification and the plans to transfer the Epping branch to London Underground before World War Two which was finished in 1949-51 under BR. In order to raise money would the four companies have been forced to sell off non railway assets such as more land, property, hotels, workshops and shipping. But having said all of this they would still have had to go to the government cap in hand anyway in order to modernise. The running of the railways has always been baffling, I doubt if that will change.