Re: Dr Beeching

[ajc@isd.canberra.edu.au]

In article <916012549.13661.0.nnrp-02.c1ed9b54@news.demon.co.uk>,
  jsr@bcs.org.uk (John S.Robinson) wrote:

>
> All this addresses the previous comment about the overall or published
> accounts. I do not know if anyone has published any information on
> what internal management accounts the old companies had. However, a
> competent senior manager in a small to medium sized company could
> probably tell a great deal from travelling around, keeping his eyes
> open, quizzing those on the ground and poking his nose into secluded
> offices and quiet corners. All techniques probably lost by modern
> managers with an accountancy background.
>
> Cheers,
> John

It's interesting to compare John's professionally-informed remarks with the
policy of big US railroads selling off their unprofitable branches as
"short-lines" where multiskilling is the rule, management staffing levels are
at lemonade-stall levels and local knowledge is probably as good as you'll
ever get.

As for earlier railway accounting, wasn't the LMS's Lord Stamp something of a
pioneer in this regard? Before that, one really does wonder -- look at the
masses of pre-grouping lines competing for the wealth of places like Barnsley
or Aylsham, not to mention such extravaganzas as the Withered Arm, the
Waverley Route or the Mid-Wales Line.

It's also interesting to read articles in 1950s magazines about the goings-on
in places like Bournemouth and Clacton, where grossly inefficient use of
rolling stock was dictated by the requirements of seaside landladies, whose
rules were about as inflexible as their gravy.

Andrew Clarke
Clerical Outfitters to the Gentry


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