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Brian Hughes says had it been left in service, an upgrade would have cost a fraction of the money poured into HS2. Plus a letter from Paul FoxallI congratulate all the people, most of them volunteers, who’ve worked so hard to restore parts of the Great Central Railway and now hope to reconnect the two reopened bits of the line (‘Heritage is the razzmatazz’: Great Central Railway plans to revive Victorian train route, 26 August). But what a scandal that it was ever shut. Had it been left in service, an upgrade would have cost a fraction of the money poured into Boris Johnson’s vanity HS2 project.The closure came about because of the Beeching report, published in 1963. Dr Beeching had been employed to produce it by the then transport minister Ernest Marples. Mr Marples had been managing director of, and was still involved with, Marples Ridgway, a company that made much of its money from building motorways. Can it have been mere coincidence that his appointee wanted to close mainline railways in addition to making more justifiable cuts to remote branch lines? Continue reading…
Brian Hughes says had it been left in service, an upgrade would have cost a fraction of the money poured into HS2. Plus a letter from Paul Foxall
I congratulate all the people, most of them volunteers, who’ve worked so hard to restore parts of the Great Central Railway and now hope to reconnect the two reopened bits of the line (‘Heritage is the razzmatazz’: Great Central Railway plans to revive Victorian train route, 26 August). But what a scandal that it was ever shut. Had it been left in service, an upgrade would have cost a fraction of the money poured into Boris Johnson’s vanity HS2 project.
The closure came about because of the Beeching report, published in 1963. Dr Beeching had been employed to produce it by the then transport minister Ernest Marples. Mr Marples had been managing director of, and was still involved with, Marples Ridgway, a company that made much of its money from building motorways. Can it have been mere coincidence that his appointee wanted to close mainline railways in addition to making more justifiable cuts to remote branch lines?