Re: Definitely make Luton a hub - and another thing
Yes, brilliant Beeching closed the Buntingford to St. Margaret's line which made a loss of a few thousand a year, failing to notice that passengers were almost all going to London and contributing £24000 a year to the London line. Oops...that's what happens when you try to do operational research in the days before spreadsheets.
Where railways run is a very chicken and egg situation; house prices tend to rise and people commute where there are good transport links.
But in any case, and I am perhaps sorry to have to write this to someone with whom I often agree, anybody who defends steam locomotives is in my view unqualified to write about railways. Unreliable and expensive Diesels? Compared to the overall costs of steam? Pull the other connecting rod, it has a Walschaerts valve drive on the end of it.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
