Seller has stated it will dispatch the item within 1 working day upon receipt of cleared payment - opens in a new window or tab . Your personal information will be properly safeguarded and processed in accordance with the requirements of privacy and data protection legislation. The book covers some of that but rather than try to assemble a coherent systemic picture focuses more on telling the history of British Rail from nationalization to privatization. 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. Your details will only be used by the Museum and suppliers working on our behalf and you can unsubscribe at any time.

I started to become aware of news events and politics around John Major's Tory government as the various franchises took over the running of the railway, so it was interesting to read the whole history that led to that decision. This is an excellent account of the history of British Rail and ultimately the making and breaking of a national institution. What could have been a very dry subject was detailed in a manner which kept me interested in the main. The book cover has no visible wear, and the dust jacket (if applicable) is included for hard covers. He discusses early horse-drawn and gravity-operated lines as well as steam, electrical, and diesel-powered ones.He has been described as "our most eminent transport journalist" by The Spectator and "the greatest expert on British trains" by The Guardian. Furthermore, if those who decide the allocations of the real and unreal are cruel, mad or colossally wrong, what then? Despite the flawed “Modernization Plan,” which had undermined confidence in railway management and its abilities to deliver a modern railway, management faced an ongoing struggle against a growing deficit through rising staff costs as well as increasing competition from cars and lorries.

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The rushed sell-off that ensued dismantled an organisation that had, after half a century of existence, created a workable structure that had delivered a much improved service. Photographs and drawings appear at the end of the book almost as an afterthought, and with little or no direct connection to the main text. This history lesson is complemented by two picture sections that show the evolution of logos, national marketing, and staff uniforms.

Even on those lines still open, almost all of the intermediate stations have disappeared from the railway map. And after eight minutes of wild ascent, she was on orbit, crunched up with her two crewmates in a tiny spaceship that took them to the International Space Station. I really enjoyed this as I didn’t have much knowledge of BR beyond a few anecdotes and a surface level understanding. Even successes, such as the development in the 1970s of the High Speed Train (HST), the fastest diesel-powered train in the world, must be seen in the round. Managers had, after a number of years in the immediate postwar period and particularly after the 1965 modernization, learned to respond to political flak and efficiently defended the organisation.Finance is provided by PayPal Credit (a trading name of PayPal UK Ltd, Whittaker House, Whittaker Avenue, Richmond-Upon-Thames, Surrey, United Kingdom, TW9 1EH). Certainly not the one engineered by George Stephenson as one of the first was that laid down at Wollaton, near Nottingham, open by 1610, long before Stephenson's birth in 1781.

I was hoping for character studies of the major players, the political and financial machinations, the feuds but Maggs has stuck to chronicling it seems every construction and evolution. Wolmar is fair in his dissection of Beeching noting that along with the poorly thought through hatchet job he instigated against the network there were many key issues including the operation of uneconomic seasonal services, the common carrier albatros, and freight traffic more generally that required attention. Excellent book providing a comprehensive, fairly high-level but fascinating and compelling account of BR’s history. Although this did not eliminate all of the problems, managers grew wise to the shift to Thatcher economics rather than resisting it.Along the way, some of the other locations which were once railway served – such as docks, quarries and industrial works – are also illustrated. I certainly have vague memories of British Rail and of course the iconic double arrow logo still lives on today. With Peter Parker there came the first in the line of very public and media savvy managers who fought for the railway tooth and nail deploying modern marketing and managerial techniques to win public support and counter government and Treasury intransigence. Having some awareness of UK history and politics alongside a hint of business acumen is a major benefit when reading through. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products.