British Rail's 1955 Modernization Plan | Bureaucracy, Bedlam, Balderdash | History in the Dark

When the United Kingdom's railways were nationalized into the single entity known as British Railways, a lot of growing pains had to be dealt with. At first, things actually went alright. But when the management attempted to bring the railway forward into the modern age, political complications and economic disadvantages caused their modernization plan to turn from a way to save the struggling rail network to something that nearly caused their total collapse.

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🎵 Cover by Luke Pickman --    / instrumentmaniac  

0:00 - Intro
1:14 - The Backstory
7:55 - The Balderdash
15:54 - The Diseasels
24:21 - Picking Up the Pieces

"The report, latterly known as the "Modernisation Plan", was published in January 1955. It was intended to bring the railway system into the 20th century. A government White Paper produced in 1956 stated that modernisation would help eliminate BR's financial deficit by 1962, but the figures in both this and the original plan were produced for political reasons and not based on detailed analysis. The aim was to increase speed, reliability, safety, and line capacity through a series of measures that would make services more attractive to passengers and freight operators, thus recovering traffic lost to the roads. Important areas included:"

🚂 Further reading 🚂
https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/art...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transpo...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History...
http://www.rail.co.uk/british-railway...

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