British Transport Commission

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 29 November 1962.

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Photo of Mr Roger Cooke Mr Roger Cooke , Twickenham 12:00, 29 November 1962

Naturally, I have sympathy with some of the points made by the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, West (Mr. Steele), but at the beginning of his speech he attacked several paragraphs in the first chapter of the British Transport Commission's Annual Report. I regard the first chapter of the Report as historically one of the most important chapters on transport ever written. I believe that in future it will be looked on as a landmark in taking the railways into the second half of the 20th century. This is a cool and exact analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of the railway system which alone would justify Dr. Beeching's appointment.

The analysis tells us that the railway system was developed against only one competitor—horse-drawn vehicles on poor road surfaces, with stations spaced only about 2½ miles apart, with operations based on the use of the individual wagon and not a train load, and with the disadvantages of high capital cost, high cost of maintenance and the inflexibility of the system. On the other hand, there were the advantages of exclusive track use, and low movement cost when used for dense flows and bulk movements in train-load quantities. This characteristic of high capital cost and inflexibility is at once seen as a characteristic also of mass production plant generally. Therefore, it shows that the railways are suitable in the age of mass production in which we live today.

That appreciation of the situation is most encouraging, and represents a great step forward, but many hon. Members opposite seem to oppose the entry of the railways into the modern age. Some of them seem to be almost obscurantist, relics of Victorian conservatism, and a great force holding us back. That reminds me that an extreme Right-wing friend of mine, not in this House, after hearing the Leader of the Opposition speak on television about the Common Market, said, "What a wonderful speech. I agree with every word."

That seems to be the attitude of some of our Victorian friends opposite. The Victorians liked stopping trains. There were no bus services then, so they had to have the "Parliamentary"—the train that stopped at every station by Act of Parliament. I suppose in 25 years' time—[Interruption.]—I have already heard two hon. Members opposite oppose this, and they have even quoted sentences from Chapter 1 on the removal of stopping trains—