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BR only came into existance in 1948. As I said in 1909 Railways were the form of transport. The rot set in after WW1 ie 1918 when there were a lot of Army surplus lorries available and men who knew how to drive them (ex servicemen) Thus was laid the foundations of the road transport of goods over longer distances. The Railways were also very run down after the war effort (1914-18) and the investment to repair the damage did not happen very quickly.
The same happened after WW2. The damage done was not made good.
BR and the end of steam was the last ditch attempt to run the railways as a intergrated transport system. Also Road transport was Nationalised at the same time as the railways in an effort to develop a fully integrated transport system. Rightly or wrongly there was never the will to make it work.
So often peolpe do not look at the full history of the decline of the railways to gain an understanding of what went wrong including the gross under investment in the railways from the 1970's to the early 1990's while there was massive investment in roads. No level playing field!
Best wishes,
John H-T.
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