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The Railways Archive 2854 documents listed
2549 documents published
Last updated 8th Feb 2010
 Opening up Britain's railway history
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Current vote:
Would longer franchises mean more investment and better services, or would franchises get lazy?

Longer means better
Keep em on their toes

or just view the results...
 
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 Document Summary
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Modernisation and Re-Equipment of British Railways
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Sample Quote "For reasons which are too well known to require repetition here, British Railways today are not working at full efficiency, mainly owing to their past inability to attract enough capital investment to keep their physical equipment up to date. This plan aims to produce a thoroughly modern system, able fully to meet both current traffic requirements and those of the forseeable future."
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Archivist's Summary This report, known as the 'modernisation plan' was commissioned as part of an attempt to stem the losses being incurred by BR due to competition from road and air traffic. Among the recommendations taken up were massive spending - £1.2bn - on the replacement of all steam traction with diesel and electric, and construction of vast marshalling yards using automated shunting. The failure of the plan was that nothing was done to address pre-war working practises, or the 'common carrier' requirements which meant road haulage firms could cherry-pick the lucrative freight traffic and leave BR with the rest. The diesel traction was poorly procured, with some types scrapped only 10 years after their introduction. The failure of the plan led directly to the Beeching reports and closures 10 years later, and was seen by government as a squandering of a once-in-a-generation spending plan; the failure soured the relationship between railway and government for decades after.
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Category Financial & economic reports
Related Event N/A
Date of Publication 1st December 1954
Author(s) British Transport Commission
Publisher British Transport Commission
Sourced? Yes
Source British Official Publications Collaborative Reader Information Service
Original Document Link Click Here
Source Format Scanned Images
Document Copyright BRB (Residuary) Ltd
Permission Requested? Yes
Permission Granted? Yes
PDF Available? Yes
PDF File Copyright Creative Commons License The Railways Archive
Creative Commons License
No. of Pages 35
Size of Download (Mb) 0.8
Download Link view document (small download) 
 
  Timeline:
Post-war modernisation 		 
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October 1951
Report of the Committee on Types of Motive Power

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1st December 1954
Modernisation and Re-Equipment of British Railways

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July 1959
Re-appraisal of the Plan for the Modernisation and Re-equipment of British Railways

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May 1961
Modernisation Progress Report

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May 1962
British Railways Progress

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1965
British Rail: Freightliner

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Rail Accident Report: Derailment of a freight train near Stewarton, Ayrshire - 27 January 2009
 

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