And what of Britain’s Railways?
Once proud and competing,
For style and for speed, the rivalries heating.
Upstaging, challenging, records to smash,
The task of great gleaming monsters that galloped and dashed
Over field and fen, up hill and through dales,
With business expresses, and fast goods and mails.
Blackouts, evacuations, carters wailed,
The bid for peace in Europe inevitably failed,
Pushed close to breaking, the blitz fires raging,
Constantly giving and bare necessities taking.
American engines, and the D-Day landings,
The pressure on the railways no less demanding.
Victory won but not for the railways,
Now nationalised, scrutinized, choked by the byways,
Of trunk routes of tarmac from the South to the North,
From London to Scotland, Thames to the Forth.
New lorries and wagons, making claim the new roads,
Passing whole sheds of engines, war-weary and old.
Modernisation, the reaper, swept away classes,
After years of loyal service, scrapped in the masses,
So too were the standards, each class hardly old,
removed and destroyed and returned to the mould,
For a desperate attempt to present to the people,
A modern British system, with transport unequalled.
The Human aspect too, jobs more of an art,
With many a man forced to depart,
From an honest day’s work, done for all his life,
Taken from his grasp, in his back thrust a knife.
Signalmen, porters, looking forward to futures,
Suddenly gone, replaced by computers.
Small lines full of character, to village and farm
Torn up after years of doing no harm,
Later regretted, mourned, lamented,
Their replacement bus service not doing as intended.
And the villagers, waiting in rain and in cold,
Long for the service, the railway of old.
Rest in peace you manual signalboxes, hump yards and shunters,
Rested are the cheap fares, too, who drew in the punters.
Now the only way you’ll get there on time,
Is if your destination is on preserved lines.
![Well that’s…different. ]8](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3nva5DAKq1qkx0yeo1_1280.jpg)
