On 21/04/17 11:04, Roger Hayter wrote:
Tim Streater wrote:

In article , charles
wrote:

In article ,
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Another John wrote:
In article ,
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:

Surely there is no point in running empty buses just in case someone
need it?

That was the whole point of public services: they were there. You knew
they were there, and you knew you could rely on them, and (in the case
of buses), you could rely on a regular, frequent service. So people
used them -- and I for one would use them again, if any of those
attributes still existed around here.

But if the busses are running empty, it's rather obvious people aren't
using them. And saying you would use them if they were there it what
everyone says - but strangely didn't use them when they were there.

This was the argument used by Beeching to remove branch lines. Change the
train times so that they are useless - don't make connections, etc, and
then claim nobody uses them.

Ah was that what he did, then? You know this do you?

I suspect that would have been completely unnecessary, there was no
shortage of tiny branch lines with no traffic already.

But he didn't just close "tiny branch lines with no traffic". He
closed, for instance the only North-South routes in Wales, which had,
and have, very poor road competition.

But I don't think he needed to artificially reduce traffic. The policy
at the time was to just close even very busy routes, on the vague
grounds that road vehicles would turn out much cheaper and more
convenient.


Utter ********, Beeching, unlike his detractors, was not motivated by
ideology.

He was a pragmatic engineer with a remit to get the best benefit out of
a massively loss making railway system.

He wasn't even in power. He was commissioned as chairman of British Rail
to do a report as a consultant. He was closely allied with the Labour party.


Like coal mining, the government found itself with a nationalised
legacy of failed private companies, that couldn't just be left to die,
because the ruddy things had been nationalised.


Like coal mining, adherents to this day refuse to understand the deep
structural problems of running the business in the face of alternative
and competing technologies.

Railways serve a niche market: when all you had were coal powered steam
trains or stage coaches, that was not the case.

Road maintenance to an acceptable standard is far cheaper per mile than
railways are. Spending public money on roads and letting railways lapse
on all but the most profitable routes was a sensible move.

As it was for coal mines.

Fundamentally railways are pretty crap. Driverless cars under computer
control will take over in due course. For longer distances they can be
glued together as 'trains' anyway.








--
"Anyone who believes that the laws of physics are mere social
conventions is invited to try transgressing those conventions from the
windows of my apartment. (I live on the twenty-first floor.) "

Alan Sokal