British Rail had a magnificent work force in those days, men who were extremely loyal to the business and the people, the real problem was that just after WW2 the infrastructure (How I hate that) THE RAILWAY was knocked to pieces and our country had had little money available to invest and improve, as did the City... hence the Nationalisation.
There were numerous stories printed of trains running late and whatever but you would have had to experience the problems faced by the railwaymen to understand that things where never as easy to dismiss by a nagging line or two in the newspapers day after day.
The share holders hated the Nationalisation programme yet we as a nation needed a running railway and to nationalise was the only sane way forward.
Another jolly that held back rail's progress was the 'common traffic' law that forced the railway to carry anything from a box of matches to a ships boiler, they could not refuse to convey this any type of traffic to it's destination, sometimes with the added cost of slewing the track to gain clearance....and then relaying it to perfection... but... the road hauliers could refuse... whatever.
As such... Rail lost earning power to the betterment of road.
One other important hurdle was the fact that the Motorways began to gain ground, yet, these were funded from public taxes( Not many folk owned their own cars then so the tax payer paid not the road fund license)... whilst the Railway was expected to fund itself, even with those strangling millstones already mentioned around it's neck.(It was a political football) one term of government doing it's utmost against the hue and cry of the other in the Tory papers (Nothing has changed).
Then in the sixties along came Dr Beeching, who went wild, hammer and axe chopping of the feeder roots and branches until we have nothing but an A-B,C-D,E-F, green tube, tree avenue of a railway that is like a flight in the clouds, little too interest to the traveller and little chance of ever getting a timetable capable of running money earning freight, as he had seen to it, the extra four and six way tracks had been slashed away to nothing.
What he ought to have done is smashed the 'common traffic' laws and arranged for improved public funding until our nation would have had the modern rail network that could cope with all the container freight that now clogs our roads at great cost to the nation in delays, high repair bills, high fuel costs plus blocked commuter routes. (Who in his right mind would invest in a business in London these days?)
I used to work as a fireman on the steam engines during the period of British Rail and the changeover Diesel era and I have to say I miss that job from the bottom of my heart, the variance of locomotives and carriages gave the railways great interest to all who knew and used it, whereas now we have a nondescript boring railway with same,same Italian trains and Canadian loco's that all look alike and cost us greatly in import costs.
Our own endeavours politically chopped at source when they were on the very verge of fruition,(The tilting train technology trials were very good with a few teething troubles... well reported) and low and behold our competitors are let in using similar technology (Politics again)
We are a Nation of trusting fools.