Comments by "" (@Bungle-UK) on "BBC Archive" channel.

  1. You realise that Beeching didn’t close a single station or mile of track? Ministers did, and the bulk were in the Labour government long after Beeching had gone.
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  2. Before everyone blames Beeching and Marples, remember that the bulk of closures were signed off by the Labour government long after they had both gone.
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  3. Marples didn’t sign off the majority of closures…Castle did in the following Labour government.
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  4. I just love all the comments from idiotic rail fans who haven’t got a clue about facts.
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  5.  @gaycha6589  nobody forced them too. The following Labour government promised to halt closures but actually delivered the majority of closures, including some lines Beecing recommended keeping open.
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  6.  @steveday4797  yet it was a different minister in a Labour government that authorised the majority of closures long after Beeching was gone 🤷‍♂️
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  7. Ah, this old chestnut. The annual tax take from motorists is far higher than the budget for road building and maintenance, so the road network essentially does generate a profit. Plus, everyone in the country directly or indirectly uses roads everyday.
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  8.  @gaycha6589  The railways have enjoyed a boom over the past 20 years with unheard of levels of patronage and capital investment, yet you’re trying to spin that as failure and a negative legacy of the Beeching era. Nice try.
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  9.  @utterlee  closing many lines that weren’t needed in the first place is hardly a ‘wrecking ball’.
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  10. @ Some would have been but the majority were not to be missed. Closures begin before the First World War, so decades before Beeching. The overwhelming majority of closures were taking out lines that had very little rationale for being there in the first place.
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  11. I love ignorant comments like this - pure comedy gold. Subsidy/Investment has risen over the past 20 years because infrastructure investment has gone through the roof and the number of services and capacity has almost doubled from BR days, and someone has to pay for it. As for these legendary profits, most rail operators make 1-2% if they are lucky, so these shareholder payouts are largely non-existent. The only companies that did well were the rolling stock owners.
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  12.  @Onhere6381  so, you don’t like personal freedom? There’s a reason why people chose to buy cars in their millions.
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  13. He didn’t do anything. Ministers make the decisions.
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  14. Left wing people moaning about change…..now, there’s a shock. Most of the country would have loved even a fraction of this investment.
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  15. @ He was paid to produce a report and did just that. He wasn’t asked for suggestion of how to make lines pay, not that most of them could anyway. On the flip side he championed intercity and freight lines which were both successes.
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  16. @ and Mrs T was right. Buses carry five times more passengers than railways but receive ten time less funding. There no logical justification for this.
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  17.  @analogueman123456787  yet the number of interested companies has fallen over the past 10 years. Care to share the name of the TOC in question so I can verify your claim?
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  18.  @chriswalford4161  of course you can - every TOC’s accounts are published online each year through Companies House, just like any other business. People just prefer to make stuff up rather than researching the truth.
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  19. @ would you have predicted it?
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  20.  @pj100565  exactly this. Careful though, those blinded by ignorance rely on these mythical fat cat shareholders to be their bogeymen.
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  21. “In the Provences”. How patronising.
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