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British Rail: A New History

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Your personal information will be properly safeguarded and processed in accordance with the requirements of privacy and data protection legislation. This history lesson is complemented by two picture sections that show the evolution of logos, national marketing, and staff uniforms. By the 1990s, Wolmar argues that British Rail was an excellent industry, one that “did not deserve the fate it suffered” throughout the privatization process (329), and that it was government intervention that slowed British Rail’s development toward the end of its life. By signing up, you are accepting our terms and conditions and our privacy policy and cookie policy *exclusions apply.

The “victim of its history” argument is certainly a clear and powerful one that pulls together the essence of what many railway studies scholars have been. The writing here is excellent, likely because it is written in a straightforward and logical manner, much like Wolmar’s many other works. Charts the progress of British Rail up to privatisation with the changes bought about by the move from steam and the battles with the governments. Ultimately, Wolmar contends that British Rail’s downfall was a result not of managers but of politicians. In this comprehensive history, Colin Maggs, one of the country's foremost railway historians, tells the story of over 400 years of British railway history.They are former BR chairman Peter Parker’s memoirs and also David Lawrence’s book on British Rail design. The book is a trenchant defence of the concept of keeping large-scale transport service organisations in the hands of the state and also a defence of the many much-maligned dedicated BR staff who kept the organisation. Most purchases from business sellers are protected by the Consumer Contract Regulations 2013 which give you the right to cancel the purchase within 14 days after the day you receive the item.

Steam engines were finally withdrawn in Britain in 1968, four years after Japan’s bullet train had made its debut. However, I can't deny that the politics, management and strategy (or lack of it) that are explored here are central to understanding what happened to British Rail, why it got better - and why it wasn't far better still. Much of the first part of the book is centered around the events surrounding the two major plans for British Railways: the Modernization Plan and the Reshaping of British Railways. No doubt this book will be read voraciously by trainspotters and weirdos (salt of the earth, lovely people), but it should also be read and reread by the people around the next Labour government whose stated aim is root and branch reform of the railways. I would have appreciated more statistics and graphs (there are no graphs at all in the book) and in general a more skeptical outlook.

The bottom line, or cost, was always foremost, with railway managers under constant pressure to make savings while starved of the investment they required to make the improvements necessary to turn the system around.

The author weaves in a lot of political background whilst recounting the history in which gives a great insight into Britain during the decades covered. One of the striking aspects of Christian Wolmar’s new history of British Rail (BR) is how prominent its leaders were on the public stage.Certainly not the one engineered by George Stephenson – one of the first was laid down at Wollaton, near Nottingham, open by 1610, long before Stephenson's birth in 1781.

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