Hi Iona, glad to see I tempted you out, sorry about the static.

By 1961 losses were running at £300,000 a day; since nationalisation in 1948 3,000 miles of line had been closed, railway staff numbers had fallen 26% from 648,000 to 474,000, and the number of railway wagons from 1,200,000 to 848,000.

The Beeching report starts by quoting the brief provided by the Prime Minister from 1960 "First, the industry must be of a size and pattern suited to modern conditions and prospects. In particular, the railway system must be modelled to meet current needs, and the modernisation plan must be adapted to this new shape" and with the premise that the railways should be run as a profitable business

The Prime Minister at the time was Harold Macmillan, and the Minister of Transport was Ernest Marples. Where the Tories have always gone wrong is flogging off all the family silver as in the Countries utilities i.e. Gas, Water, Electric, Telecoms, Railways etc. Those utilities provide the daily backbone of a country. They are not there to make a profit, they should be there to break even on a sensible budget for the benefit of the country. This notion of opening up competition in the various sectors is just rubbish.

Some companies like East Coast Main Lines are being run making a profit, but are few and far between. I have always said re nationalise British railways, but the government can't afford to buy out all the private shareholders. Beeching carried out his brief, it was the brief that was wrong not him.

Pretty soon, we will have a railway infrastructure to be proud of

We had one under British Rail, inefficient though it was. Then politicians decided that the railways should make a profit rather than break even as a public service. All Beeching did was carry that policy out. Now we are spending millions reversing it all.

Think you need to get out of the Victorian age you seem to be stuck in.

Blasting me for living in the past? Stuff British Rail, I was talking about now! A Government Department known as Direct Operating Railway running their own railway and making a profit

A profit of £600m handed back to the taxpayer just from the East Coast Mainline alone.

So where are these millions being spent in reversing it all? All the rest are private franchises!

@Iona

And if it's a boy they're calling him Rodney after Chris".

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Smoke in the mirrors, Chris. The Minister for Transport at that time (Beeching Report), would probably be behind bars, if such a thing were attempted now. The 'Rt Hon' had so many links to the road building industry, that I'm astonished that no-one did see the inside of a prison cell! Justifiably so. At the end of the day, it will be the likes of you and I, who will be expected to pay for and tolerate a dreadful service at a premium cost. British Rail had it's faults, but at least you could easily buy a ticket from one station to another station at the other end of the country - even, Heaven forbid, travel on a ferry to the Channel Isles.

This is the major problem with the Tories. If it works, sell it. If it doesn't work, sell it. To my mind, that makes the Tories no different to a certain gent with the surname of, Trotter. Off topic, nice going Trigger.

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Don't take life too seriously, as you'll never come out of it alive!

Pretty soon, we will have a railway infrastructure to be proud of

We had one under British Rail, inefficient though it was. Then politicians decided that the railways should make a profit rather than break even as a public service. All Beeching did was carry that policy out. Now we are spending millions reversing it all.

Further proof that those in Westminster are nothing but muppets!

ECL shortlist of bidders released

"This is nothing short of economic vandalism by a chancellor who does not want voters to know the truth about the East Coast line - it is a public sector success story," said Manuel Cortes, the TSSA's general secretary.

"It has been the cheapest franchise to run for the past five years and it has produced the greatest return to taxpayers - over £600m.""

So why privatise? This just proves that getting the right people into the right government departments actually works.

It would be nice if someone sensible, suggests that the government employees in the DOR train others in their techniques and eventually take over the other franchises.

Pretty soon, we will have a railway infrastructure to be proud of

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He has a point. We humans do tend to interfere with the landscape far too much.
It's had millions of years to find a balance, we should work with it, not against it.
It's also symptomatic of another problem in politics, putting ministers in positions of power who don't know anything about the things they're in charge of.
Owen Paterson was shadow minister for transport then the shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in opposition before becoming the SoS for NI then SoS for DEFRA in government, and his qualifications for these, he read history at Cambridge. How about putting a Geologist in charge Mr Cameron?
I know that DEFRA will be being run by the same collection of civil servants it always has been, but the minister is responsible for policy and direction, and it seems he doesn't know where he's going.

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Life on earth is the global equivalent of not storing things in the fridge.

Here's another problem. We spend millions on flood defenses, to protect property built, and shouldn't have been, on flood plains which then cause problems further down stream. When wht we should be doing is looking for solutions upstream. Like planting tree's which soak up rain faster than grassland, except of course the tree authoriy is being closed and according to the CAP it is illegal to pland more trees on farmland. Drowning in money: the untold story of the crazy public spending that makes flooding inevitable

Amazing what bribery can do......

Cameron urges fracking opponents to "get on board"

"The prime minister said English local authorities would receive all the business rates collected from shale gas schemes - rather than the usual 50%."

So can we expect a reduction in council tax Del-boy?

Lawrence Carter of Greenpeace added: "Having had their claims that fracking will bring down energy bills and create jobs thoroughly discredited, the government is now resorting to straight up bribery to sell their deeply unpopular fracking policy."

When and by whom? All studies and evidence concerning fracking from reputable sources has shown it to be safe, cheap, and economically sound. What more do they want? Blinkers off people!

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Life on earth is the global equivalent of not storing things in the fridge.

Amazing what bribery can do......

Cameron urges fracking opponents to "get on board"

"The prime minister said English local authorities would receive all the business rates collected from shale gas schemes - rather than the usual 50%."

So can we expect a reduction in council tax Del-boy?

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I think dragging Mandela into this is a bit much, they only used him in the headline to hook people into reading it.

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Life on earth is the global equivalent of not storing things in the fridge.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2537834/UKIPs-vile-Mandela-slave-rant-exposed-New-racism-storm-following-remarks-former-South-African-President-murdered-teenager-Stephen-Lawrence.html
How does a political party that has no racial agenda or racial policies
manage to acquire idiots like these in the article above?

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The Kite Fliers

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Kite fliers: An imaginary club of solo members, those who don't yet
belong to a formal team so "fly their own kites" - as the saying goes.

Write Caption Here

Stop surfing the Seti boards and pinching ideas from the "Nick & Sirius" Show.

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I knew the Mail was written in a hurry!

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Life on earth is the global equivalent of not storing things in the fridge.

The "Nick & Sirius" Show brings another exclusive to the fore......

The Nick & Sirius show is doing quite well...

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The Kite Fliers

--------------------
Kite fliers: An imaginary club of solo members, those who don't yet
belong to a formal team so "fly their own kites" - as the saying goes.

The "Nick & Sirius" Show brings another exclusive to the fore......

It's called, "Being ignorant", and that's all she is!! Totally chooses to ignore the fact that her choice of having a large family was made possible only by the child allowances paid to her for all her children. Had child allowance been limited to just the first two children only....she most probably would only ever have had two children and no more. This woman is clearly an idiot and no doubt her children will turn out to be the same. Unfortunately for them by the time they start the game of mass issue this child allowance, free en-mass for all, will have been curtailed and limited to the first two children only.

Nickerless Clegg disagrees with Sir Nick, believes we'll end up like Maoist China

Edit:

Oh dear

"And Mr Jenkin said that instead of attacking UKIP leader Nigel Farage, the Prime Minister should be copying his policies on issues such as immigration – because grassroots Tory supporters back them.

In private remarks to fellow Conservatives, leading Eurosceptic Mr Jenkin said: ‘On present trends we are going to lose 50 seats – and most of them don’t even realise it.

'It has got to the ridiculous position where Nigel Farage is telling us what our policy on immigration should be – and he is right.’"

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Aw, c'mon WK, you really think they give a toss about normal workers?

nickerless clegg spouting off again

If he wore some, he might make sense.

UKIP must be really worrying the Con-Artists

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Personally we should forget about the minimum wage and really start to think about setting limits on the maximum wages/salaries of those in the upper end.

Some might not agree with me, but let's face it that at the upper end those wages/salaries are getting excessive, outrageous (greedy even) and can't be sustained in the long run.

Cheers.

They'll always find ways around it, as this proves......

Bankers using sneaky ways to dodge limits

Might any regulations to control bonuses for jobs spoil it for all the "normal" workers. We used to get bonuses if we completed a contract under budget and/or early.

Personally we should forget about the minimum wage and really start to think about setting limits on the maximum wages/salaries of those in the upper end.

Some might not agree with me, but let's face it that at the upper end those wages/salaries are getting excessive, outrageous (greedy even) and can't be sustained in the long run.

Cheers.

They'll always find ways around it, as this proves......

Bankers using sneaky ways to dodge limits

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He has a partner, just proves that the two biggest aphrodisiacs are power and wealth.

I see you've added while I write this....

Oops, sorry no blue ones for you, try a pink one.

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France's Hollande attacks report of affair with actress

Fair dinkum on Hollande's side as he isn't married hence entitled to his privacy.

Gosh!!! I've gone and said something nice about a French politician....can I have
one of them blue Sirius/Chris pills please!!

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The Kite Fliers

--------------------
Kite fliers: An imaginary club of solo members, those who don't yet
belong to a formal team so "fly their own kites" - as the saying goes.