On Apr 3, 3:24*am, Robert Cox wrote:
On 2011-04-03 08:45:43 +0100, 1506 said:

The question really should be, does running trains off the end of a
branch improve the finances or not? It's horses for courses - running a
two coach train up a busy main line to the next centre of population
may cost more than one thinks if it occupies a path that a fully loaded
intercity train could be using.

Point well made.


Regardless of one's personal opinion of Marples, I rather suspect that
due to the signal lack of success in the implementation of the
Modernisation Plan in returning BR's finances to an even keel, an
analysis of the railways' finances, such as Beeching carried out, would
have happened within a year or two anyway.

Again, you are probably right. Shame on the managers who handled
"Modernization".

The names may have been different, but the effect would have been the
same. Maybe even more drastic due to the delay.

Sadly so, but today we live in a different world and have to deal with
the resulting lack of capacity.

It's not that the politicians who came /after/ Beeching were bad for
the railway, the grevious fault lays with the politicians of the 1930s
and 1950s (the 1940s were a special case) in that the Common Carrier
obligation was kept long after its 'sell-by' date (so the railways had
no need or interest in setting up sales organisations or in identifying
the costs of the different activities) and rail fares and freight rates
were held down (in the 50s) to try to reduce the rate of inflation. Of
course all that did was increase the deficit, for which the railway was
blamed.

IMHO, there was still a lack of foresight in not mothballing the long
thin strips of land for future use. There were a unique asset.