BOOK REVIEW IN THE HOUSE MAGAZINE

Lord Fowler, transport secretary from 1979 - 1981 reviews Holding the Line - how Britain's railways were saved by co-authors Richard Faulkner and Chris Austin.

The book follows the process of railway closure which peaked in the years following the Beeching report of 1963.

Original research by the authors reveals plans to reduce the size of the railway network further and an assumption, in the early 1990s, that market forces would shrink the network where Government policies had failed. Had these been implemented, only a handful of lines would have remained with the network destroyed forever.

read the review here