mr b's latest comeback

[Graham Breeze]

The outstanding example is the Settle - Carlisle railway which should never have been built, was always a financial calamity and was only built because two railway companies could not reach a sensible agreement.

The S&C is now a national treasure but its construction was utter financial folly.

A Victorian HS2?

But one I shall travel on to get to Glasgow in a few weeks time.

In the meantime on the train today I noted the work to extend the length of the platforms on the Wharfedale Line (Leeds to Ilkley) at Burley in W., Guiseley and Menston stations to accommodate trains of six carriages rather than the current four (which used to be only three).

Of course in the 1960s - post "Beeching Plan" - this entire line was scheduled to be closed and torn up in the destructive way that British Railways then behaved. However the good burghers of Ilkley were more than a match for civil servants and politicians and the line stayed open, and prospered and eventually was electrified and Ilkley can now have four trains arrive each hour from Leeds /Bradford.

In the days of steam all the above stations had long platforms to accommodate special summer excursions to coastal resorts but this sort of train disappeared with the growth of car travel and the platforms were shortened (ie "fenced off") to accommodate fewer carriages and allow the weeds to grow freely.

But now the football crowd intimacy on some of the trains on this line means these platforms are being rebuilt to provide a 50% increase in carriage space - which is obviously to be welcomed by we who need space to read our daily newspaper.

Now of course sixty years after Beeching things have changed and most of the decisions taken by the government post-Beeching were sound. So it would be unreasonable to criticise the aforementioned platform shortening as a lack of vision.

Although one might wonder why on the adjacent Airedale Line (Leeds/Bradford, via Cononley, to Skipton) that when a brand new station was opened at Apperley Bridge in 2015 (sixty years after the original station was closed - post Beeching) it was built with short platforms that are now having to be extended to incorporate the new six carriage trains.