More than 40 years after its publication, the 1963 Beeching Report on British railways remains controversial for recommending the closure of a third of Britain’s railways. In this book, Charles Loft examines: why the nationalized railways were in such dire financial straits by 1963 how government work on future transport needs led to conclusions which would have cut Britain’s railways down by thousands of miles what difficulties eventually halted attempts by Conservative and Labour governments to implement these cuts. This book will be invaluable to anyone interested in how transport policy is made or how it has arrived at its current state and sheds fascinating new light on the working of government, the economy and the mood of the times under Churchill, Eden, Macmillan and Wilson.

This work explains the background to, and politics behind, the infamous Beeching Report, which recommended the closure of a third of Britain's railways.

This work explains the background to the infamous Beeching Report, which recommended the closure of a third of Britain's railways.

Originally published in 1986, this is a business history of the first twenty-five years of nationalised railways in Britain. Commissioned by the British Railways Board and based on the Board's extensive archives, it fully analyses the dynamics of nationalised industry management and the complexities of the vital relationship with government. After exploring the origins of nationalisation, the book deals with the organisation, financial performance, investment and commercial policies of the British Transport Commission (1948-2), Railway Executive (1948-53) and British Railways Board (1963-73). Calculations of profit and loss, investment, and productivity are provided on a consistent basis for 1948-73. This business history thus represents a major contribution not only to the debate about the role of the railways in a modern economy but also to that concerning the nationalised industries, which have proved to be one of the most enduring problems of the British economy since the war.