UK - the old spirit on the railways

[John Ashworth]

This quote is from a weather-related website, in the context of a particularly heavy snowfall that covered much of Britain in mid-January 1968, and was posted on the uk.railway newsgroup today with the comment, 'However, this extract from the Times' leader is interesting, given the various comments we see... from time to time bemoaning the lack of a real "railway spirit" these days'.

The Southern Region was in confusion. Other commuter lines had their troubles: so did the Underground. Of course, there has been no lack of excuses, and some of them have been entirely valid. But this failure to solve difficulties reveals a more basic weakness ... the responsibility yesterday was a common one. The day's events were on the one hand a reflection of poor managerial capacity and inadequate staff supervision; on the other, they showed that little is left of the old spirit on the railways - the zest and determination to provide a satisfactory public service.

I hear people bemoaning the lack of a real railway spirit in South Africa all the time these days (and usually blaming it on the "new" South Africa) - perhaps they need to widen their geographical and historical areas of reading a little?!

[Nathan Berelowitz]

There was and will always be a blame on the system, from previous employees who were dedicated, to previous employees who just have a job, to current day employees who are dedicated, to current day employees who just have a job.