Bibliography for Tokyo Jan 2024
The published literature on railways is vast. Much is aimed at “tetchans” and need notconcern us here. Some of the serious books I have found particularly useful are listed below.
`Transport in Britain, From Canal Lock to Gridlock, P Bagwell & P Lyth, Hambledon & London,
2002
A comprehensive overview of UK transport from the canal age to supersonic air transport.
The Railway Age, M Robbins, Routledge & Keegan Paul, 1962, Penguin 1965.
An authoritative and well written account of the Railway Age up to the end of the Victorianera.
Bradshaw, Continental Railway Guide, 1853, Adams London, facsimile Collins, Glasgow,
2016. Bradshaw’s Guides are well known and contain much of huge interest as well ascomprehensive timetables. This is the first European version
The Victorian Railway, J Simmons, Thames & Hudson, 1991.
The pre-eminent author on early railway history, this concentrates on the UK.
Post-war Government interaction is well covered by
British Government and the Railways , 1948-2002, G L Huxley, Back Track, 18, 1&2, 2004.
The next two volumes cover the British Rail era in monumental detail:British Rail, 1948-73, A Business History, T Gourvish, Cambridge university Press, 1986
British Railways, 1974-97, From Integration to Privatisation, T Gourvish, Oxford UniversityPress, 2002.
A History of Japanese Railways, 1872-1999, well covers its tile, Aoki et al, East Japan Railway
Culture foundation, 2000, whilst Early Japanese Railways, 1853-1914 by Dan Free discusses
the Engineering Triumphs that Transformed Meiji-era Japan.
Of the many books outlining the limitations of rail privatisation in the UK, the following aregood representatives:
Signal Failures, Politics & Britain’s Railways, D Wragg, Sutton Publishing, 2024Broken Rails, How Privatisation Wrecked Britain’s Railway, C Wolmer, Auram Press, 2001.
For a realistic optimistic view from Japan:
From JR East
Success Story, The Privatisation of Japanese National Railways, S Sumita, Profile books, 2000.
And from a huge influence of modern times in Japan:
Japanese National Railways, Its Breakup and Privatisation, Y Kasai, Global Oriental, 2003.
Early progress on European rail unification is provided by
Reforming Europe’s Railways- An assessment of Progress, Eurailpress, Hamburg, 2005.
European Rail policy
Official policy and its development is covered in great detail in the following:https://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/sheet/130/rail-transport
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/rail-transport-policy/
in early 2024, it is clear that much remains to be done, that the money for reform will mainly
come from public funds, that throughout Europe the concept of the national state railway isstill strong and whilst rail’s mode share struggles to increase beyond 6%, many ambitions
targets remain unattainable with attractive competition coming from the low-cost airlines
and the ubiquitous automobile.

I own and have read many autobiographies of UK politicians of the post-war era. The plie ofbooks is 2.5 m high and contains approximately 30,000 pages. There is scant mention in thismountain of literature of railways, rail policy and the role of railways in public life andcertainly no serious informed discussion of these topics.
Trade magazines and newspapers contain many articles on railways and railway policy. Not
all such information is reliable.
Increasingly information arrives by mobile phone services. I receive daily messages on thestate of the service between Oxford and London provided by Great Western Railway,
operated by First. As I write, (11/01/24) today’s messages are:Train services may be delayed after leaving due to a points failure, The 08:46 will becancelled due to more trains than usual needing repairs at the same time.
In the last two weeks, the following were received:
The 16:23 will be cancelled due to a broken-down train.
Services are affected by a speed restriction over defective track.
Services are disrupted due to urgent repairs to the track.
Train services may be cancelled due to flooding.
Services may be cancelled or delayed due to a tree blocking the railway.
Train service may be cancelled or delayed due to a problem currently under investigation.
Train services may be cancelled or delayed due to the emergency services dealing with anincident earlier today.
It is left to the reader to imagine the punctuality and reliability of the service.

Additional note:
In JNR Its Break-up and Privatization, Kasai, above, a Panel discussion on rail privatization
held on 6 September 2002 is reported:
What were the objectives of privatization in the UK?
Sir Steven Robson, former Director of Finance, Regulation and Industry of the UK TreasuryWell, I think, the motivation for privatization in the UK was to improve efficiency and also toimprove service to the users of the railways. These improvements were seen to come from
replacing the flaws in state ownership. I think there were seen to be four. Firstly, there was alack of clarity about the objectives oof all enterprises in the state sector in the UK, and hence,
there was no definition od success and so no real accountability for performance. The second
problem was the interference in the activities of the enterprises by civil servants andpoliticians, which is obviously part of the lack of clarity of objectives. The third aspect, I think,was that the public sector generally in the UK is motivated by aversion to risk and this meansthat it is motivated to avoid doing new and different things, so effectively it was motivated
not to improve. And finally, the finances of state enterprises in the UK are often constrainedby the state’s own fiscal position.
He thinks, he should have known!
Christian Woolmer writes: https://www.christianwolmar.co.uk/2009/02/robson-missingfrom-the-dock/
Robson is a serial offender when it comes to wasting taxpayers money. A very cerebral andself-confident mandarin, he pushed through the structure of rail privatisation, insisting on
the separation between operations and infrastructure that is at root of so many of therailway’s problems and so heavily criticised by rail managers from Japan who know how to
run a railroad. Robson was obsessed with the notion of open access and stimulatingcompetition and had no knowledge of operating practices of the railway. With the Tory
politicians unable to agree on a new model for the industry, Robson was able to pushthrough his scheme ignoring the protests of all and sundry in the industry. It was he who had
the notion that every train path should be sold individually which fortunately never came tofruition. At the Treasury, he also blocked moves to regulate the banking industry more tightly
and then got his reward by being made a non-executive director of RBS. The role of nonexecs is to safeguard the interests of shareholders. With RBS shares having gone done from£17 50 to 22p in the past four years, he has obviously done as good a job with the banking
industry as he did on the railways.

roderick.smith@imperial.ac.uk
11 January 2024