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 words break up and/or break:
“Few things tend more to alienate friendship than a want of punctuality in our engagements. I have known the breach of a promise to dine or sup to break up more than one intimacy.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)
“But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon ploughed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool’s life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I’ve given parties that have made Indian rajahs green with envy. I’ve had prima donnas break $10,000 engagements to come to my smallest dinners. When you were still playing button back in Ohio, I entertained on a cruising trip that was so much fun that I had to sink my yacht to make my guests go home.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)