Railway Closures: Recent Changes in Machinery and Policy.

Major changes in the legislation relating to the nationalized transport industry are proposed in the Transport Bill published in December 1967. Among these changes is a new approach to the problem of unremunerative passenger railway services, and it is this particular change which is the subject of the present paper. Of course, the change in policy was evolved over a period of time, in fact from late 1964 to the publication of the White Paper Railway Policy in November 1967: the Bill is merely the formal conclusion of this rethinking process. In this paper we shall outline the changing policy since 1962 on the closure of passenger services, and changes in the machinery for deciding on railway closure proposals. This will lead to an examination of how far the final outcome amounts to a consistent, operational policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]