Break Up
By the late 1950s the BTC was in serious financial difficulties, largely due to the economic performance of the railways. It was criticised as an overly bureaucratic system of administering transport services and had failed to develop an integrated transport system (such as integrated ticketing and timetabling). It was abolished by Harold Macmillan's Conservative government under the Transport Act, 1962 and replaced by five successor bodies:
- the British Railways Board (railways, hotels and some shipping)
- the British Transport Docks Board (docks)
- the British Waterways Board (inland waterways)
- the London Transport Board (London buses and the London Underground)
- the Transport Holding Company (remaining interests, in shipping, travel and road transport)
These changes took effect on 1 January 1963. Notwithstanding the abolition of the BTC, the British Transport Police continues to exist. The BTC heraldic shield is still displayed on the BTP badge.
Read more about this topic: British Transport Commission
Famous quotes containing the word break:
“I will die a hundred thousand deaths
Ere break the smallest parcel of this vow.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Night City was like a deranged experiment in Social Darwinism, designed by a bored researcher who kept one thumb permanently on the fast-forward button. Stop hustling and you sank without a trace, but move a little too swiftly and you’d break the fragile surface tension of the black market; either way, you were gone ... though heart or lungs or kidneys might survive in the service of some stranger with New Yen for the clinic tanks.”
—William Gibson (b. 1948)