Re: Dr Beeching

["B.Rumary" <brian.rumary@virgin.net>]

> Don't think that was it, remember the fate of the doomed lines was
> decided by people who expected/wanted their careers to survive the
> downsizing and had an interest in re-inforcing the belief that the
> sourceof the problems lay in the lines to be closed and in making sure
> nobody else would ever be able to prove them wrong or
>  incompetant by making the doomed lines run profitably.
>
Which of course is why they did everything they could to scupper the 
West Somerest Railway and the Border Counties scheme. Both these were 
intended to run as "real railways", rather than tourist preservation 
lines. The brass didn't mind the "trainspotters playing trains", but if 
they ran a real railway and made it work, then people would start asking 
why they could do it but BR couldn't! So everything was done to sabotage 
such schemes. This was completely successful in the case of the Borders 
Counties plan, and mostly so for the West Somerset. I know the WSR did 
finally get going, but cutting them off from Taunton effectively stopped 
them running a "real railway" and nearly bankrupted them in the process.

In the case of the WSR, first they sold the trackbed to the enthusiasts, 
but the Minehead station site to the local council. They naturally 
assumed the council would insist on turning it into a car park, thereby 
"beheading" the WSR. When that failed, because the council rented the 
site to the WSR, they got those idiots in the NUR to do their dirty work 
for them at the other end of the line. The union blocked the entry into 
Taunton, because they said that it would threaten their members who were 
driving the replacement buses. It was obviously a lie, as a fully 
connected WSR would need more BR staff at Taunton, to handle the 
interchange traffic, and these would easily absorb anyone laid off the 
buses. Really the NUR were afraid that the more sensible working 
practises of the WSR might spread to the rest of the system. As I said 
before in an earlier posting, the rail unions were much more interesting 
in preserving traditional working practises than their members jobs!

Brian Rumary, England

http://freespace.virgin.net/brian.rumary/homepage.htm