Introduction This dissertation questions the common viewpoint regarding the nationalisation of the railways after the Second World War. Numerous commentators have constructed a narrative description of the process towards nationalisation, which stemmed from inherent flaws in the private market model. For example, Richard Toye has outlined a progressive account of how nationalisation first received attention in the First World War, and then grew in popularity from the Great Depression before becoming truly implemented through wartime sentiment.[1] Similarly, economic historian Terence Gourvish has opined that the grounds for a nationalised railway network were set after 1920, when rail traction began to struggle in the competition against road transport.[2] This dissertation seeks to challenge these views, by demonstrating that the process was neither fluid nor inevitable, and that a private monopoly system could easily have developed had the War never occurred. The change in national sentiment, which warranted the implementation of Government control, only came about during the Second World War, and was a direct result of the conflict. The Southern Railway and the influence of the Second World War on railway nationalisation, by James Allen - The Brighton Toy and Model Index
