on the other hand, been influenced by major differences in the more measurable aspects of service quality, such as speed and reliability. They have also been influenced by major disparities in cost arising from the inherent characteristics of the various forms of transport, and by major disparities between the value of the service provided, measured in terms of what people are prepared to pay for it, and the cost of providing it.
It is, of course, the responsibility of the British Railways Board so to shape and operate the railways as to make them pay, but, if it is not already apparent from the preceding paragraphs, it must be clearly stated that the proposals now made are not directed towards achieving that result by the simple and unsatisfactory method of rejecting all those parts of the system which do not pay already or which cannot be made to pay easily. On the contrary, the changes proposed are intended to shape the railways to meet present day requirements by enabling them to provide as much of the total transport of the country as they can provide well. To this end, proposals are directed towards developing to the full those parts of the system and those services which can be made to meet traffic requirements more efficiently and satisfactorily than any available alternative form of transport, and towards eliminating only those services which, by their very nature, railways are ill-suited to provide.
The point at issue here is so important that it is worthwhile to emphasise it by expressing the underlying thought in a different way.
The profitability or otherwise of a railway system is dependent on a number of external influences which may change markedly from time to time, important among them being decisions affecting the freedom of use, cost of use, and availability of roads. For this and other reasons, it is impossible to plan the maximum use of railways consistent with profitability, for years ahead, without some risk that it will prove, in the event, that services have been over-provided and that overall profitability is not achieved. On the other hand, to retain only those parts of the existing system which are virtually certain to be self-supporting under any reasonably probable future conditions would lead to grave risk of destroying assets which, in the event, might have proved to be valuable.
Confronted with this dilemma, arising from the impossibility of assessing future conditions and future profitability very reliably, the Railways Board have put forward proposals for reshaping the system which are conservative with regard to closures and restrainedly speculative with regard to new developments, but which are all directed towards shaping the system to provide rail transport for only that part of the total national traffic pattern which costing and commonsense consideration show to have characteristics favourable to rail transport.
The plan is not carried to the stage where it purports to answer the question, ‘How much of the railway can ultimately be made to pay?’ This answer will emerge only after experience has shown how much benefit springs from elimination of those parts of the system which are obviously unsound, and the extent to which the good parts of the railways’ system and traffic can be improved by: cost savings, better quality of service, better operating methods, and attraction of favourable traffic. Nevertheless, the firm proposals included in the plan are expected to lead to substantial improvements in the financial position. Perhaps even more important, they set a clear course for the railways, in a general
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