ABSTRACT
The moral which the Board appears to have drawn from the Transport Act was not, as the Government had intended, that British Rail (BR) must do its utmost to cut its costs and trim its investment, but that, if the need arose, more assistance would be forthcoming. The Transport Act of 1968 has failed in its objective: BR is once again heavily in deficit, despite the financial reconstruction and the receipt of a large subsidy. BR's failure to reach its financial objective cannot therefore be attributed to price restraint, unless what the railways are complaining about is that they have been prevented from putting up their charges by more than the general amount. A large programme of rail investment fitted in with the Government's general policy of national regeneration through enormous public and semi-public projects and programmes such as Maplin, the Tunnel, Concorde and the British Steel Corporation's development strategy.
