Comments by "Phil Aypee (Philip Potter)" (@philaypeephilippotter6532) on "Abandoned: How The Beeching Report Decimated Britain's Railways | Timeline" video.

@florencegomer7937 And Marples was a crook who fled the country to avoid what would almost certainly have been a significant (but probably inadequate) prison sentence.
17
@jackharrison6771 One thing people don't realise - Beeching tried to make the cuts as small as he could. He knew that if he didn't do it the government would appoint someone who would make far more drastic cuts. Good examples of some things he could have cut but didn't are the Marlow and Looe branches, both still going.
14
@jackharrison6771 Jack, I'm not sure that I understand. I decry the cuts just as much as you - I lived on one of those branch lines and ended up relying on the even sparser (and unreliable) buses. What I meant is not that Beeching did well but that the alternative would have been worse . Marples wanted to close the entire network and later Thatcher wanted to close most of it. Where I live now there was a station and the line went between two of the two main settlements in this part of Surrey, Guildford and Cranleigh. We're lucky in that we have an excellent bus service but most other such places don't. For far too many people the only practical alternative is, sadly, to buy and run a car.
5
@analogueman123456787 Though you have a point I disagree about language. Shakespeare's English still matters and probably will for a few centuries yet, Chaucer's English too. Dickens' English is not 20th/21st century either but that matters just as much.
4
@analogueman123456787 Having been a railwayman here in the UK I can say categorically that you're wrong. Whilst the far more common term is railway the term railroad is used by railwaymen occasionally. When we were learning the road (route learning if you prefer) we always referred to railway routes as roads and very occasionally a route would be a railroad as well. I'll certainly grant you that, in my time, it wasn't a common locution but it did, and presumably still does, exist. But I definitely know that railway routes are still known as roads by railway employees as I still know quite a few.
4
@analogueman123456787 In the nineteenth century in the UK railroad was used although railway became the norm. Similarly in the US railway was used but railroad was the norm. But it has nothing to do with fish prices.
3
@alexhayden2303 Ernest Marples.
3
@analogueman123456787 'Our Iron Roads' was written by Frederick Smeeton Williams in 1852 and is about railways in Britain - I know as I've read it.
2
Actually it was the criminal Ernest Marples ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Marples ), a road-builder who was Minister Of Transport and wanted all railways in Britain closed. One thing people don't realise - Beeching tried to make the cuts as small as he could. He knew that if he didn't do it the government would appoint someone who would make far more drastic cuts. Good examples of some things he could have cut but didn't are the Marlow% and *Looe branches, both still going.
2
@emilyhankin9203 Indeed there was. In fact there were three railway lines to Barnstaple and now there is only one. But none of them were part of the Somerset & Dorset. The two Bridgewater stations were almost one joint station.
2
It wasn't that simple. Beeching knew that if he didn't prune the network as his political masters wanted he'd be replaced by someone not at all sympathetic to the railways.
2
Tom Sanders ..sadly.
2
@analogueman123456787 The South-Western Division of the Southern Region, Guildford depot. As I said, the term wasn't commonly used. One of my comrades was originally at Edinburgh Waverley, another at Plymouth Laira, a couple from Salisbury and one from Lancaster as well as many others from various areas. I can't remember how many of them used the term but I'm quite sure that most understood it. But my railway heritage does go back nearly to the beginning of passenger railways in Britain. My father was with the LMS from the early 1930s until nationalisation and then with BR until his retirement. One of his ancestors was with the original London & Birmingham Railway and his uncle started with the LNWR. On my mother's side one of my ancestors was a driver at Reading, GWR. It's not one-up-manship on my part, not in any way, but I thought you should know how far back on railways my family goes and why, at 66 and a congenital stroke victim, I can't remember all the details as I once did!
1
Barnstaple? I think you mean Bridgwater.
1
@neildahlgaard-sigsworth3819 I imagine Raf means the pseudo-TGV line to the Chunnel.
1
Ernest Marples ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Marples ) was a road-builder who was also Minister Of Transport and wanted all railways in Britain closed. One thing people don't realise - Beeching tried to make the cuts as small as he could. He knew that if he didn't do it the government would appoint someone who would make far more drastic cuts. Good examples of some things he could have cut but didn't are the Marlow and Looe branches, both still going.
1
@michaelhearn3052 Marples' interests in road construction were transferred to his wife on his appointment. So of course he had no interest in road construction after that.
1
@michaelhearn3052 Read the Wikipedia entry about him.
1
@michaelhearn3052 So you don't trust Wikipedia even though you can easily check the sources and the original reports. Ernest Marples fled 🇬🇧 to avoid a tax bill and prosecution for tax crimes and an investigation for fraud. He was a crook.
1
Have you heard of Ernest Marples?
1