ABSTRACT
Only one major closure has taken place since 1974, the by then freight-only Hadfield-Penistone section of the former Manchester-Sheffield main line, and relatively few minor lines have been closed. The chief inhibitor of closures in the 1970s and 1980s was the political price to be paid for relatively small savings. A commitment to maintaining the network has become an important test of government’s commitment to rail, yet the history of government-railway relations since 1974 has been dominated by the intractable problems of finance and the railways have come to be seen once again as indicative of national failure.
