Remember in 1976 and 1977 seeing rakes of Mk 1 Coaches being set light to at Bird's Yard in Long Marston - some of the coaches scrapped were better than those on the main railway sometimes! Birds set light to the whole rakes when they arrived and then cut them up wholesale - Asbestos contaminated vehicles went straight to the Snailwell (Cambs) incineration tunnel
As a child and teenager, it was a common site to see roads closed as a brand new coach was transported by road on the start of a journey that would see it going to one of many countries around the world. They were built a short distance from where I lived. I remember once 5 going in convoy.
In many ways those of us born between the mid 50s and mid 60s are the luckiest generation. Old enough to remember the original 'horsepower', young enough to be almost able to work out how to use our mobiles…with a little help from the grandchildren.
More Government Stupidity - and scrapping all of them by 1968 without retaining any for a strategic reserve - shame the 9f's were not kept for freight workings!
@@richardsymonds5159 they had more than enough diesel locomotives, so there was no need for a strategic reserve of steam locomotives. A few years later with further reductions in freight and passenger numbers non-standard diesel locomotives were heading for the scrap yards.
@2:44, Largest fleet of diesel locomotives in the world? In the States, after 1960 there was not a single steam locomotive being used in regular commercial service.
The Reshaping of Britain's Railways revealed that 6,000 coaches costing £3.4 million pounds per year to provide were used less than 18 times per year earning a revenue of £0.5 million after other movement costs were taken into account. Some 2,000 coaches were used 10 or less times per year. BR had started the cull of excess coaching stock long before Beeching wrote his report. The intention was to introduce reservations and higher fares for peak travel periods as used by the airlines. Other coaches were life-expired and were no longer required as DMUs and EMUs had taken over the lines they had been used on. In the case of the mainline coaches, the introduction of the multiple units had taken away the lines they would have been cascaded to.
5:10 Classic British scrooges, so cheap that there was probably a serious discussion at one point to just use motorized shelving units as transports and scrap the buses all together.
I think it might be the Avon causeway. Near Christchurch. They have train carriages in that colour that used to be used as restaurants. No idea if it's still there,
