Railway to nowhere?

It being the Christmas period and therefore with time to myself I have taken the oppotunity to be self-indulgent and watch television.  Well, via iPlayer but it amounts to the same thing though needless to say does not include the dangerously alternative culture of ITV.  Anyway, something that jumped out at me was the number of documentaries about railways in Britain that have been aired over the last week or two.  This includes ones-off ('Off the rails', with Ian Hislop; 'Absolutely chuffed: The men who built a steam locomotive', 'Elizabethan express', a re-showing of a documentary made years ago), individual episodes of a series which share this theme (Time Shift, at least two episodes on railways), and even a whole series (Beeching's Tracks, that examines the country in regional sections).

         Whether this was planned or intended is not completely clear from their content, there are a few video clips that appear in several of them, though none of them is on quite the same theme.  Time Shift examines the 'poetic' aspects of rail travel and its history and perhaps best explains the painful struggle of the story of rail in one episode, and the change from steam traction to diesel and electric traction that was headed by Beeching in another.  This latter aspect does not over-lap with Ian Hislop's programme, which concentrated on the social aspects of railways and passenger travel.  Nor is there an over-lap with the episodes of Beeching's Tracks I have seen (5.  Midlands, with Pete Waterman, 6.  North, with Adam Hart-Davis.  Sadly this series has not yet made it on to P2P networks to my knowledge -- though Mr Hislop is now on youtube).

         I will freely admit to a more than passing interest in rail, though it interests me as a system rather than from a train-spotting perspective, the latter has yet to inspire me as much as it does some other people.  I suppose I too think that there is an inspiring side to it.  There is a sensory experience to them not afforded to electric trains -- despite steam traction being inefficient, costly, dirty and relatively slow, they can be smelt, heard, felt and so on.  This gives them a romance.  This 'romance' probably is rose-tinted but nevertheless, it inspires.

         All of these programmes interested me greatly.  The concluding thought I have however is why so many documentaries and why now?  A lot of mention of Beeching is made, but there is no obvious anniversary or anything like that at the moment.  I am afraid to make a comparison such as this, but comments that are made about documentaries in Britain (especially by those of an objective persuasion, normally because they are born abroad) is that there are at least as many documentaries on the second world war as we could ever need.  Is there a comparison, though, between cornucopia of war and railway documentaries?  The arguments are something about that war being Britain's finest hour and as nothing so significant or great has happened since.  This interests people and gives them a confidence.  However, this has limited application in the case of these programmes, because they all chart the demise of the railways, the demise of steam etc and although the high points are mentioned they are never the focal point of the programme, it is always the loss rather than the gain.

         So why are they there then, these programmes -- is it to satiate a wistful desire for Britain's heritage?  Possibly, though one or two would do for that, not several.  Is it because we are re-examining the way we are doing things, and becasue a rail infrastructure like the one lost might just be useful again?  Probably, though I suspect not consciously.  The cost of private motoring has increased out of all proportion (yours truly remains without a licence, and without any desire to get one, practical or otherwise -- and that is before we consider oil and insurance costs) and is not green, and so cheaper bulk travel like the railways is more practical in a lot of cases.  Is it a way of indulging ourselves in a world we would like to imagine?  Probably.  Is it the germ of more rail investment and an indication of a changing mood?  I would like to think so, but I am biased...