Customer Reviews

Eleven Minutes Late: A Train Journey to the Soul of Britain

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
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Trains and the history of the railways in Britain are the excuse for an examination of the British temperment. I am an expert on neither trains nor the British people, so I have no idea of the accuracy of every fact, but I enjoyed every minute of the read. From the absurd to the ridiculous, from the suprising to the touching, this book is filled with lots of little observational gems. Uniquely about the British, it also provokes thoughts about ones own national foibles. Some pointed critique at government and business alike, with lots of chuckles and quite a few laugh out loud moments, too. It's arranged in a vaguely thematic way, and it moves right along, so it's good for taking in short bursts--or on your next train or plane ride? Lots of fun.

When the British have to find conversational platitudes, in the apparent belief that these are better than silence, their usual topic of first resort is the British weather. Next after that is Britain's railways -- like the weather, this subject of discourse invites inane and stereotyped criticism, receives conventional and thoughtless assent, and provides a handy and inoffensive way of closing down a dialogue that has nowhere further to go.

On the other hand, there is more than one category of Briton for whom the railways are a matter of intense interest, sometimes verging on fanatical. Matthew Engel's very interesting new book seems to be directed at two such classes, those whose interest is historical, antiquarian or nostalgic, and those who see railways as a serious political and social issue. Engel hangs his tale round a long journey taking in as much of the surviving network as possible. This occupies most of the book, it is full of picturesque details and digressions, and it conveys the feel and 'flavour' of rail travel in Britain in the noughties quite well and fairly, so far as I can judge from my own less systematic sampling. This is the stuff for the anoraks and enthusiasts among Engel's readers, a category in which I had better include myself.

You can belong in this grouping and also among the serious-minded so far as British railways are concerned. The author belongs in both classes, I like to think that I also do, and I am in no doubt that the whole matter is now better understood than before among the British public generally, simply because it impinges more directly on increasing numbers of us, and when it does it is no side-issue far less any joke. Matthew Engel takes time out from his easy-going railway safari, or Odyssey or whatever we choose to call it, to offer a thoughtful and quite penetrating analysis of the history of our railways since the war, the politics of the last 3 or 4 decades, and the the shape of railway things to come. For me, this is what puts the book in the 5-star league. History being history, you can always dissent from this or that individual judgment or from any particular piece of assessment. However I shall risk the view that Engel is going to get a lot of thanks from quite a few people for helping to focus and concentrate our thinking.

What was wrong with thinking about the railways, he explains, is that there was little or no thinking about the railways. They just plodded on without anything much in the way of 'management' as we might understand the term nowadays. Were they a public service like health electricity and water, or should they be meeting some kind of financial targets? If anyone was asking, nobody much was listening let alone attempting an answer. They were subject to fashion and superficial perception, the fashionable perception c 1960 being that they were 'losing' a lot of money. The towering and visionary insight started to prevail that Something Must Be Done, something was done, and I don't propose to summarise what it was here, because it is Matthew Engel's account that deserves to be read and considered with proper attention.

Whatever you think of The Reshaping of British Railways in the 1960's, it's hard to disagree with the view that the privatisation of the railways in the 90's was a gratuitous PR exercise by a government that had no real agenda -- good God, do you remember the Cones Hotline? As just above, don't let me spoil Engel's account of that exercise and what has followed it. I shall say only that he does not take political sides.

Now here is something odd. The early origins of Britain's railways were about as devoid of planning or strategy as can be imagined. The Reshaping had a strategy, albeit a blind and bad one overly influenced by contemporary thinking and missing altogether the imminent expansion of passenger rail travel consequent on road congestion. Privatisation was another shambles. Governments were at fault, managements were at fault, the civil service were at fault. However in the wars Britain's chaotic network gave Britain's war effort better support than Germany got from its own methodical planning. I suspect that we, the public, were most at fault of all. If we had just gone along with our Heath Robinson sprawl of lines and actually used the service more, complaining as we did so, then urban, rural and road planning might have followed instead of obliterating much of the system. Just think of the saving to both the taxpayer and the environment.