Article View: scot.general
Article #74Re: Edinburgh Waverley station improvements
From: angus_creech
Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 11:45
Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 11:45
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3760 bytes
> The Big 4 had been closing branch lines during the 1930s (and earlier) > as road competition bit. WWII obviously meant other things took > preference, but I think we can reasonably assume that post-war the > closures would have recommenced as more and more people got cars, more > and more freight went onto the roads and the service levels offered by > the railway became less and less attractive to users. I won't deny either that nearly all your points are valid, nor that many lines were kept open that were uneconomic, but clearly the Labour government at the time had an agenda -- one that did not include railways. Further to that, Beeching's criteria for closing lines/keeping them open were crude at best: when do you use a physicist to provide economic evaluations? (You don't.) Secondly, while road strategy may have been important, large parts of Scotland suffered a serious economic decline (and still do) that was either provoked or strongly enhanced by their disconnection from the vital rail network. Beeching did not factor this into his equation, with his belligerent 'the railways must pay': private firms I suspect, would've more likely looked at raising their levies /first/, before dismantling a potential source of profit. Lastly, remember that Beeching was removed before he could implement the 2nd phase of his plan. He intended to rebuild the railways -- once he'd stripped them to the bones -- as new, modern, profitable. But he was never given the chance. He'd done the job he was required to do, the government was done with their axeman; he had to go. While the British railway system was indeed a hulking, overweight behemoth, it's my belief that were it not nationalised it would've simply shed a few pounds, rather than going for drastic surgery. That Ross, is the irony. Angus
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X-Google-Thread: 105844,faafb5bc0d8bd17a X-Google-Thread: 109765,faafb5bc0d8bd17a X-Google-Thread: f86e1,faafb5bc0d8bd17a X-Google-Thread: f73ba,faafb5bc0d8bd17a X-Google-Attributes: gid105844,gid109765,gidf86e1,gidf73ba,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!g2news1.google.com!postnews.google.com!i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: angus_creech@hotmail.com Newsgroups: scot.general,ed.general,free.uk.scotland.transport-railways,uk.railway Subject: Re: Edinburgh Waverley station improvements Date: 7 Apr 2006 04:45:28 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com Lines: 36 Message-ID: <1144410328.642461.71090@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> References: <slrne35n5m.cvh.david@pepper.local.lan> <uhc832p5b730fqle5btqev0573mja1rjk7@4ax.com> <1144278575.451045.309810@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> <de9a32dgbkljem62m71mrbuncofeq1583m@4ax.com> <1144335744.031477.175250@g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <e13bdb$o8h$1$8300dec7@news.demon.co.uk> <ccednWvyWPmD2KjZRVnyiw@bt.com> <1144343167.112533.226380@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com> <slrne3b0v6.gmc.david@pepper.local.lan> <1144363742.668886.193580@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com> <k8cc32ppjng1bn388308gp1pbvljkaq0lk@4ax.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 80.192.62.46 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" X-Trace: posting.google.com 1144410333 6706 127.0.0.1 (7 Apr 2006 11:45:33 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2006 11:45:33 +0000 (UTC) In-Reply-To: <k8cc32ppjng1bn388308gp1pbvljkaq0lk@4ax.com> User-Agent: G2/0.2 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.1) Gecko/20060111 Firefox/1.5.0.1,gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com; posting-host=80.192.62.46; posting-account=vqSSGA0AAAAMvFr69AXiBC_c7Nq2mFym