I write this in the unfamiliar post-gardening glow which marks my first foray into the garden for this year and, by the time you are reading this, all the Easter eggs will have been scoffed and the skis waxed and put away for another year. This edition's cover story (p12) examines the thorny issue of whether intra-UK routes are best served by air or by rail. Given that most of the opinions presented are from within the aviation industry, you may be surprised by some of the objective comments. Interestingly, it is 50 years this month (27th March 1963) since the Chairman of British Railways, Dr Richard Beeching, issued a report calling for huge cuts to the UK's rail network. This resulted in the closure of more than 2,000 railway stations and the loss of up to 68,000 jobs. Mark Dobson's article drawing parallels between a steam engine driver and airline pilot (p32) is therefore very timely.
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