One day many years ago, the managem

One day many years ago, the management of Britain's Southern Railway (as it was then called) announced its intention to close the branch line from Lynton to Barnstable in North Devon. The proposal was received by the local inhabitants with angry protest. For them, the tall-chimneyed locomotives and the little flower-bordered stations of Devon had become as much of an institution as the village church or tavern. Moreover the line ran through the heart of a popular tourist district. What would the holiday maker do without it? Closing down the railway line had been unthinkable, yet now some busybody official in remote London was threatening to destroy it with a stroke of the pen.
Mounting local opposition resulted in a meeting at Barnstaple,where the crowd was joined by very vocal protestors from the other end of the line at Lynton. The meeting seemed to be going well for the railway supporters until the chairman politely inquired how many people from Lynton had traveled to Barnstable by train. Out of the embarrassed silence that followed emerged the painful truth that, all of those who had come from Lynton to fight for the railway had come by highway. The fast of the Lynton and Barnstable branch line was sealed.
This sad little story is typical of the attitude of many Englishman toward their railways. Dissatisfied with the age of sheet metal, plastics, and reinforced concrete in which we find ourselves, we long more and more for the substantial, self-confident, and inspired products often Victorian era. Of that age, Britain’s railways are the most eloquent and enduring reminders.