Reshaping British Railways

In 1961 the railways were under close public scrutiny and the House of Commons commissioned several committees to investigate whether and how the network could make money. Alongside the Select Committee report, a unit of businessmen known as the Stedeford Group argued that the railways could and should be run as a commercially profitable undertaking. The solution, in their eyes, was to break up the unwieldy British Transport Commission and put the railways under a board that would be commercially driven and directly responsible to the Transport Minister.