The book I read to research this post was BR in the Eighties by Patrick Whitehouse et al which is a very good book that I bought at a local secondhand bookstore. At the beginning of the eighties Britain was heavily in debt and many thought the railways which they subsequently privatized and split off in separate companies like Virgin Trains and Arriva was going to be cut back much further in terms of railways closed. Actually very few railways were closed and for example they became quite profitable and even the viaduct at Barmouth which collapsed was rebuilt. By the end of the 80’s Britain had the only freight train service in Europe that was actually profitable. A reduction in the type of goods they delivered had to done though. The old British Rail made huge losses and with freight it could take a long time to deliver something. This was remedied by imposing penalties if something wasn’t delivered in a certain period. There was also a problem with trains in general running late which now is much better than it used to be. Also there are campaigns to get people to use train and bus and certain unprofitable routes are still subsidized. A lot of the rail stock in this decade was upgraded and many of the private railways were able to buy coaches which they could use for as little as £1,000 each. On the freight routes many of the locomotives were 30 years old or more and they did buy class 59 trains from General Motors which were better on fuel and faster. A little later they also purchased a lot of class 60 locomotives. By the end of the 80’s more people were using the train than in the Pre-Beeching era and don’t forget this was over less routes. Express trains often called Pullmans which only stop at limited stops became very popular. Stations that were more junctions than anything like Crewe were downgraded and many trains now don’t stop there. I really enjoyed this book and although it is probably well out of print would recommend. It is probably available as a book on Amazon.
