>>1941207>More modern signallingit's really this. at privatisation in the early 90s, the WCML hadn't seen any serious infrastructure work or new rolling stock for roughly twenty years; whereas the ECML had literally just finished being rebuilt and electrified from top to bottom, with a brand-new fleet of state-of-the-art Intercity 225 sets whipping passengers back and forth.
Richard Branson wanted the WCML franchise so he could come zooming in with the Pendolinos, working hand-in-glove with Railtrack for 140mph running, blah blah 'unleashing the power of the private sector' blah blah you know the rest. can't fault his ambition, some of the results were genuinely revolutionary stuff, and it would be fascinating to peer into an alternate universe where Railtrack didn't collapse under its own hubris.
still - the ECML, on the other hand, just kept chugging along. nobody really did anything *wrong* - GNER's parent company, independent of the railway, collapsed, and then VTEC fucked-up their own tender and got out of their contract without being punished. LNER are doing a bang-up job of things, absent the same 'industrial action issues' suffered by everyone else, thanks to this failing government picking fights + legislating from ideology the year before a general election.
it's not the busiest line, it's not the fanciest, it's just there, by and large it works, and it's good: and that's all that matters in the end.
