Nationalisation good or bad ? (ex cheerful 2015 thread)

What you call gossip I feel confident in calling reliable testimony. I suppose we shouldn't be nasty about that nice Mr Saville either?

 

Have you read it?

 

I confess I haven't, only seen the press coverage thereof, must try and get hold of it...

 

Worth reading.

 

I've skimmed through it. It offers the same old stuff reheated.

 

It's a mistake to be so dimissive of an argument that you haven't actually read. Be a bit open-minded and you might be surprised. Do you think the author hasn't researched his subject as well as the book you advise others to read?

 

I see that there has not been any comments about the closure of many lines in the 1980s. Some of these lines would be very useful for the movement of freight now.

 

I am a fast reader when I want to get the jist of something. I sat in waterstones and speed read it. It reheats the old arguments about Marples etc.

My believe is the author hasn't researched it very well.

It's my opinion, others are welcome to have theirs, but I don't subscribe to the conspiracy theory of life as, like John Stewart, my life experience has shown me conspiracies are rare.

There are plenty of books out there that purport to show conspiracy over this that and the other. the overwhelming number don't hold water.

 

Are their fairies at the bottom of your garden? I ask as I fear you may be away with them.

 

Same here. If you go looking for conspiracies, you'll normally find them, whether they are there or not.

 

What do you find about the research that was lacking?

 

Equally if you are convinced no conspiracies exist then you won't won't find them.

 

Over what, Thatcherism (you cannot deny that she was either anti-railways nor massively unpopular) or the GN/GE joint? A lot of people said, even at the time, that it was needed to take freight off the ECML. That is even more true now.

 

Both boil and chill the blood? I'm not sure I can cope with the pressure ... (*)

Bring on the popcorn - are the Albigensians involved as well? They are normally somewhere in the background of all good freemasonry conspiracies. And there was I thinking the holy grail referred to a golden chalice when actually it was rail ossification ...

Tom

(*) Sad thermodynamics joke ...

 

I've got friends in the railway industry who were no admirers of Maggie but they grudgingly admit that the railways got investment nonetheless. ECML electrification being one major project. March - Spalding was probably a mistake but that's chicken feed compared to the closures overseen by Wilson's mob.

 

I would assume that there is a good deal of evidence given the resources being expended by the Met on that particular investigation.

 

Investment in the wrong places and of the wrong kind (OHLE on both coasts for example).

 

March to Spalding was a huge mistake. Even today I wonder if reopening it might be better value for money (which is not the same as cheaper) than the proposed Werrington grade separation. BR was under pressure to display even more economical working of the system and demonstrated that the traffic then on offer didn't need it. It would take a very brave SoS to have refused closure because that would be seen as micro-managing BR's business and not allowing them to become more efficient. The more infamous example is Woodhead but in all these cases the mistake was compounded by the obstruction of the route by what were usually small pieces of development - but strategically placed so the re-instatement costs became prohibitive. A significant part of the Borders Railway costs has been to deal with this, and there is of course not only the hardship caused by compulsory removal but also the political embarrassment of land compulsorily acquired by Act of Parliament for a railway, closure of the said railway, selling of its land, followed by compulsory acquisition by another Act (or TWA Order) to build the railway a second time.