This is so cool. I did not know about Dr. Beeching. However, my wife (Hendon-born) educated me. Here, we had a state/city offical named Robert Moses who was involved in Highway Planning, among other things. He amassed so much power, that his suggestions were ALL mandated by the city government. Two of his biggest projects: The creation and building of the Cross-Bronx Expressway which displaced thousands of residents, destroyed countless properties and changed life in that part of the city forever. He also saw fit to build the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. That just stopped the building of an already started subway tunnel connecting Brooklyn to Staten Island. He was a tyrant, a prick and a bad dude all 'round. He was unstoppable and didn't care about the future of mass-transit. I will do some research of my own on Dr. Beeching, as I love transit history. I do have pix of interiors of our stock. I'll send you the best. I have never had the pleasure of riding in an Underground carriage. I have seen so many images and heard loads of stories from my wife that I'd feel right at home in any of them. My favorite surface carriages were the Dreadnaughts from what I've read of them. They look like very formidable units. The newest tube stock looks stunning and I hope to get to London sometime in 2011 for holiday. "We shall scrimp and save!" I will send a few shots for now and I will gather together additional examples as well. Thanks for your interest. The first two from the left are very old Pre WWII units. The one with the green is an overlay for adverts and the last I believe is PATH from New Jersey.
Here is NYC/MTA. The pale blue are the R-160 and R-142. The yellow and rec are R-110 experimental units. The darker seats are from an older unit that I mistakenly added.
Exactly the same story with Robert Moses and the Mayor of New York City. Dr. Beeching gets hired from a chemical company (oil?) by a road builder (Marples) and they set out to make highways. Not thinking about the bigger picture of course. Who cared if 20, 30 or 40 years into the future you might need that mass-transit was destroyed. Nah, they won't notice it, they'll be too busy buying petrol and tires and repairing their British Leyland saloons in the driveway. From the film "Wall Street", they said that "greed is good" and these guys wanted to see for themselves. We are not talking about train spotting or rail fanning, we're talking about clean, efficient transit for the masses who keep the countryies operating. In your part of the world, steam lived on long passed it's decline here. By the 1950's it was all but gone. Too many resources being used. Not efficient enough. Then the trolley lines across the company closed down being replaced by bus lines. Right, stop an exisitng, profitable and clean mode of transit and supply oil eating buses to do the job. They were some of the most unsafe, poorly designed and built machines of their time. Yeesh! I'm ranting! So, yes, the hipocracy of government rules all over the world. Keep quiet, do your part, and go home. Don't make waves and wait for everything you need. Nice. I also read that Beeching removed 3 out of 4 lines from his home town but kept the most direct one to London so he could get to work. ****e!
Yes, I am tea loving Yankee. Have been for nearly all my 56 years. Check these out.
