"Chris" wrote
You forget the 1950s modernisation plan, where the railways were provided with enough money to rid itself of the steam locomotive in a little over 10 years. Sadly much of this cash was wasted on untried and unnecessary diesel locomotives, many of which were scrapped within a handful of years.
John.
The original plan was good but the growing losses the railways were making made them speed up the plan with a lot of waste. The plan was only catching up from deferred work from WW2 and the post war austerity. Funny that it was introduced under a Conservative government after pressure was applied by industry that still relied largely for the railways for transport.
Chris
One platform at Bradford Forster Square was lengthened in the early
1990s to accommodate anticipated through Eurostar service, which never materialised. I believe it does see the odd Class 91 hauled train from Kings Cross.
As you say, the "plan" was to deal with the costs of restoring the railways from the wear and tear of the war. However, the government (of any flavour) couldn't just ask how much and write a cheque (even if they could afford it) as *everyone* else would, quite reasonably, demand the same. So they came up with nationalisation, which apart from tying in nicely with the polotics of the time, meant that anyone else asking for compensation could be asked "Fancy being Nationalised?" to make them go away. The slight snag was that the government had no idea just how expensive the railway was going to be, and completely failed to realise the the whole transport dynamic had changed during the war, though to be fair, the railway companies probably didn't either. Thus no planning for the new future was done right when it mattered and they attempted to carry on as before, which let the road users straight in through the back door while the railway floundered about following the trend rather than setting it. As soon as you start playing ctach-up, you've lost the game.....
Obviously just my 2p.
Cheers Richard
Freight maybe, and that applies in most societies like ours - trains are good at moving bulk coal, less good at moving small high-value widgets. But passenger-km is up (though I suppose there is an element of people travelling a lot further)
Financial Billion passenger-km year
1952 38 1953 39 1954 39 1955 38 1956 40 1957 42 1958 41 1959 41 1960 40 1961 39 1962 37 1963 36 1964 37 1965 35 1966 35 1967 34 1968 33 1969 35 1970 36 1971 35 1972 34 1973 35 1974 36 1975 36 1976 33 1977 34 1978 35 1979 35 1980 35 1981 34 1982 31 1983 34 1984 35 1985 36 1986 37 1987 39 1988 41 1989 39 1990 40 1991 39 1992 38 1993 37 1993 37 1994 35 1995 37 1996 39 1997 42 1998 44 1999 46 2000 47 2001 47 2002 48 2003 49 2004 50 2005 52 2006 55
There aren't many places round here with shortened platforms, other than Epsom Downs (because of the demise of racecourse traffic). I don't think places like Barton on Humber Hauptbahnhof are quite where the biggest capacity problems are.
Which is where we were, really!
A while ago a freind-of-a-friend who drives for TransPennine stayed with me. Even he was quite shocked at what 8-car Southern trains are like at
8am.
The rail roads in the US had similar lack of foresight and bad regulation leading to lots going bust in the 1970's. The railways were quite innovative in the 60's in this country witness the birth of Inter-City since copied around the world and the introduction of MGR and Freighliner. But as you say it was managed decline.
Chris
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