ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to develop a critical understanding of the geography of the railway network and its relationships with patterns of urban development, and to evaluate the degree of integration and/or dislocation between the two by 1947. It will also consider how town planning ideology developed during this period with regard to its stance towards the relationships between railways and urban development. The chapter will develop an explanation of these findings by reviewing the development of political ideology concerning state intervention in management of the railways and the land development process, and how professional ideologies with regard to railway management and town planning came to view the relationships between the two sectors. The chapter concludes with: consideration of how attitudes to governance and industrial management influenced the way in which the two sectors were structured at the start of the post-1948 period; a policy overview which will be used as a point of departure for the core of the book; and the production of a set of criteria to be utilised in the subsequent analysis of the 1948–94 period.
