Progress?

From yesterday's Daily Telegraph comes this letter comparing the overrunning work on the railway this Christmas and New Year with the work carried out on the Great Western Railway to change gauge along the whole length of the railway in 1892 and the repair work carried out in 1952.

"Sir - Over the weekend of May 20 to 23, 1892 the Great Western Railway converted 177 route miles of broad gauge and 252 miles of mixed gauge (roughly 900 miles of track) to standard gauge between 5pm on Friday and 4am on Monday.

In the 1952 Harrow and Wealdstone rail disaster, 111 people lost their lives and wreckage was piled up to 30 feet high. The slow lines were running again within 21 hours and all lines within five days.

Today we are unable to relay around 10 points and a mile of track in an uninterrupted week. We will now be locked into months of recriminations and litigation. In times past the GWR or British Rail would have taken the whole blame and sorted it out internally.

Tony Baker, Edinburgh"


Progress?