Page:The Reshaping of British Railways (Beeching Report).pdf/5



The formulation of plans for the reshaping of British Railways has been foreshadowed by numerous references in Parliament, and in other places, ever since the Prime Minister, speaking in the House on 10th March, 1960, said:—

‘First the industry must be of a size and pattern suited to modern conditions and prospects. In particular, the railway system must be remodelled to meet current needs, and the modernisation plan must be adapted to this new shape.’

It may appear that the lapse of three years between the date when the original reference was mate to the necessity for reshaping the railways and the emergence of a plan is excessive, but there are two reasons why it took so long.

Io the first place, attention was devoted to the reorganisation of the British Transport Commission structure. As a result, it was not until the latter part of 1961, after the first steps had been taken to give effect to the structural reorganisation described in the White Paper on Reorganisation of the Nationalised Transport Undertaking (Cmnd. 1248), that positive steps were taken towards planning the future shape of the railways.

Secondly, there had never before been any seem assembly of a basis of information upon which planning could be founded; and without which the proper role of the railways in the transport system as a whole could not be determined. The collection of this information was itself a massive task and it is, perhaps, more surprising that it was brought to a useful stage in just over a year than that it should have taken so long.

Throughout these investigations and the preparation of this report the British Railways Board has had it in mind that its duty is to employ the assets vested in it, and develop or modify them, to the best advantage of the nation. Also, because the ultimate choice of what is considered most advantageous must be made by the nation, it is a basic responsibility of the Board to provide, as objectively and comprehensively as possible, information which makes clear the range and mature of the choice.

In general, people will wish to base a choice between alternative modes of transport upon consideration of quality of service and the cost of obtaining it. It must be recognised, however, that, in the transport field more than in many others, the judgment of some quality factors is largely subjective, that individual convenience and total social benefit are not necessarily compatible, and that competing forms of transport cannot be costed on strictly comparable bases. For these reasons, none of the major proposals for reshaping the railway system which are made in this report is based upon attempted close judgments between ratios of quality to cost for competing systems of transport. Proposals have,