In article , Paul Weaver
wrote:
Looking at the history of the tube, the vast majority of it was built
between 1890 and the first world war. Obviously this was all
entrepreneurs, capitalists that produced the finest public transport
system of its day.

Whats happened since the end of the second world war? Nothing. Thanks to
centralisation, lack of competition and general socialist policy.

It makes me sick.

What is this "centralisation" you complain of?

If you read Croom & Jackson's wonderful book "Rails through
the clay", at least in it's earlier editions before it become just
another publicity handout for LT, it is plain that the tube has never
ever made a commercial return on capital.

An American called Yerkes (Rhymes with "Turkeys") started the
tube in the early 1890s as a string of separate railways, one of the
reasons why they still don't interconnect very well. They were going
to be cable-hauled in the manner of San Francisco cable cars, this
accounts for the small crosssection of the tube, but while the tunnels
were being dug, electric traction was developed, so the system was
finished as an electric railway. But technical progress had also
reached street transport, there were now electric trams and petrol
buses, and the tube never pulled in the passengers that had been hoped
for.

It was still a city-centre system, in the 1920s and 30s, the
tube was extended into the suburbs, as unemployment relief.

Post-war, it was recognised from the start that lines like the
Victoria line would never make money, but they were built as a public
service.

This is of course quite separate from the argument about
whether public transport in cities OUGHT to at least break even. But
the foreknowledge that no return on capital will be made, and there
might even be an operating loss, inevitably reduces enthusiasm.

By the way, I was struck to read over the weekend that the
government now spends MORE money on railways than on roads. When you
consider that much smaller amount of total traffic that is carried on
the railways, I can feel for Alistair Darling's refusal to spend more
money on them and his comment "The railways have to live within their
means, like everybody else". Bring back British Railways!

--

Michael Bell