ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to determine what labour force British Rail will require in 1981. If there is a slight reduction for departmental trains, British Rail's total requirement for drivers will, other things being equal, be about 12,400. British Rail should only need around 75,000 wagons, but it already possesses 105,000 vacuum-braked vehicles and ought to have atleast 33,000 air-braked wagons. By 1981 employment should be considerably lower, because British Rail's plans to reduce the network to about 100 depots, compared with the present 300, should lead to a better utilisation of sorting staff. At the end of 1972, British Rail had some 2360 stations, of which about 630. The Railways Board planned to eliminate 4500 to 6500 jobs by replacing the present Regions and Divisions by Territories and thus removing a whole tier of management. The resignalling on the Southern Region will not result in any great saving, so the overall reduction in manpower may well be only about 1400.
