Re: Dr Beeching

[jsr@bcs.org.uk (John S.Robinson)]

ajc@cts.canberra.edu.au wrote:

>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.

This introduces questions relating to the construction rather than the
retention of unprofitable railways.

There is an argument that a state-planned system would have been
constructed better to serve the country. The counter-argument is that
it would merely have served marginal constituencies, or ministers'
power bases, better.

Certainly the competitive nature of railway construction in some areas
seems to us now rather as if the directors of the more powerful
companies were playing a game to control territory rather than
analyzing the merits of each proposal. The same spirit still seems
alive in boardrooms today.

However, many other proposals came about from local inhabitants who,
whilst no doubt hoping for a reasonable profit on their investment,
also saw the construction of a railway as vital to the future of their
communities. There is still a statue of David Davies in Llandinam. No
doubt they were encouraged by engineers and contractors wanting work,
and fly-by-night professional promoters. There also seems to have been
far more available capital in middle-class hands in the early to mid
nineteenth century than either before or since.

[I might add that I live in Bishop's Castle, where someone keen to
rebuild the railway was told not that it was a project worthy of
cloud-cuckoo land but that local farmers would remember that their
forebears had lost money on it the first time round.]

>Andrew Clarke
>Clerical Outfitters to the Gentry

Are there any gentlemen left in the Church?

Cheers,
John