British Rail was a failure
From CroziervisionWiki
| Author: Patrick Crozier |
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Comparing BR with what went before (both before 1914 and 1939) the striking things are:
- the losses and how these became institutionalised
- the lack of pride
- the decaying structures
- the neverending reorganisations
- the cockups. Sure, there were cockups before but nothing like on the scale of the Modernisation Plan or the APT.
I wouldn't want to blame BR for the Beeching Cuts. It was its bad luck to be born in an age where its main competitor ie road was getting very good at its job and it found that it couldn't compete.
Questions
But what about privatisation - doesn’t that prove that railways should be state-owned?
But surely, if the railways had remained private there would have been even more closures?
- Yes, there would have been. We can be pretty sure of this because no one has been able to re-open a stretch of line on a commercial basis. Even so, the state should not subsidise unprofitable lines
- Maybe, these lines should have been closed. Don't forget that keeping an unprofitable railway open costs money. That money could have been used elsewhere - preferably in the form of tax cuts. When people spend their own money they are doing so in ways that they believe that will make them better off. Clearly people (or, at least, not enough of them) did not think that train journeys on what are now closed routes were worth their while. The reason, of course, is that they found the automobile. You could start a journey from your front door and when you liked. You could carry the shopping and although cars are usually slower than trains because they are door to door, journeys were usually faster. And you didn't have to put up with other people (apart from your nearest and dearest of course).
But, what if you can't drive?
- Well, there are already all sorts of parts of the country that don't have much of a rail service. Clearly, the people who couldn't drive organised their lives so that they didn't need to. Maybe, they moved, maybe they found a job that didn't need them to drive, maybe there were bus services, maybe they relied on friends, whatever the case it hasn't been a major problem.
Comments
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