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However, Beeching failed by his own standards. He only saved £7 million, yet the cuts that he made deprived the network of vital links and passenger feeds. "Bustitution" was a monumental failure.

He could have, should have, reduced the original Midland line instead of the Central line. He completely failed to understand railways as a business, as a national resource.

You're possibly right that the deliberate indifference of later politicians played its part, but Beeching left a railway system that was too deprived of passengers to work properly

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Fri Sep 7th, 2007 at 03:39:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]
However, Beeching failed by his own standards.

I note so did his continental colleagues. This 'transport policy' of cutbacks was a monumental idiocy, yet it is an expectation on new EU members to boldly repeat it...

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Mon Sep 10th, 2007 at 05:05:04 AM EST
[ Parent ]
By the way, the exchange with Migeru reminds me that I thought of another reason in the meantime: electrification.

Britain decided in the fifties to follow the US example of dieselisation, rather than the continental route to electrification. But by the sixties, electric locomotives were clearly superior in speed and power, and economics, too. And it was the basis for further developments elsewhere (which also benefitted diesel-electrics).

Do you know how and who decided that, and whether Mr. Beeching had a role in that, too?

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Mon Sep 10th, 2007 at 06:41:46 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I think it was a need to create a shop window for British products in an international market. We had a large industrial diesel sector wishing to push into the global railway market, whilst the electrical manufacturers didn´t have the same vision seeing as it required expensive start-up costs for the infrastructure and other countries had got there first.

Things were already changing by the beginning of the 60s, but there was certainly a momentum that carried through to the 80s.

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Mon Sep 10th, 2007 at 12:50:15 PM EST
[ Parent ]
expensive start-up costs for the infrastructure

...indeed, which was in effect what made the future elsewhere -- also because once electrification was decided, modern electronic signalling and train safety systems could be done in the same go.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Mon Sep 10th, 2007 at 02:10:47 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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