LET'S HAVE PLAIN SPEAKING 
THE IRISH SCENE 
BRITISH RAILWAYS IN 1961 - A WORKING LOSS OF £87m 
FULL LIVERPOOL-CREWE LINE ELECTRIC SERVICE 
LOCOMOTIVE RUNNING PAST AND PRESENT 
DARLINGTON TO KINGS CROSS ON A "CELTIC" 
THE NEW PATTERN OF WORKING ON THE L.T.S. LINE   
RE-SIGNALLING FOR THE KENT COAST ELECTRIFICATION - PHASE II 
THE MODERNISATION OF THE PLYMOUTH AREA - 11   
THE FASTEST TRAINS ON THE CONTINENT, 1962 
TRAFFIC CONTROL ON THE GREAT NORTHERN LINE - 11   
BEYOND THE CHANNEL
MOTIVE POWER MISCELLANY
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 
NEW READING ON RAILWAYS 

LET'S HAVE PLAIN SPEAKING:
THE Southern Region takes, in the main, a candid line with its public. It is not shy of boasting that it offers them the most intensive and highly organised electric passenger service in the Western world. When that service is criticised, its spokesmen see no reason to return instinctively the soft answer. An ill-informed attempt to black-guard the railway publicly is likely to see the complainant put politely - but very firmly—in his place

But there is a constructive side to the Southern's bluntness. Long before Dr. Beeching's unrehearsed —as we now know them to have been—threats to the Tyneside electric services, which set Newcastle in a ferment. Southern officers were seizing every opportunity that offered to bring home to their customers the harsh economic facts of commuting life. They are still taking any chance—the opening of the full Ashford line electric timetable is the latest instance—of stressing that two or three hours' traffic a day in trains crowded with passengers on cut-price season mileage rates does not generate enough revenue to support twenty-four hours a day the resources of men, rolling stock and track needed to cope in comfort with an ever- increasing peak passenger demand. We remember, to'o, those admirable reports issued to every passenger during the final stages of the Kent Coast electrification, which did not mince words about the disruption of normal working, but which often turned the situations into an instructive illustration of the complexity of modern railway working. It is interesting to learn that the Southern is about to take its public's education in the business of running a railway a stage further. But we invite them to give a still bolder lead—a lead in the formation of public opinion on current railway issues.

The Southern is keen to begin the next stages of its electrification programme. There are gaps in its Central Division conductor rail to be filled in; and there is, of course, the conversion of the Waterloo-Bournemouth main line. On the Kent Coast, the Southern has already demonstrated that, even in the 1960s, its electrification policy offers a good return on capital. It is confident that Phase II of the Kent scheme, although traffic may take a little longer to build up, will prove as paying a proposition as Phase I. It is being said that the case for the Waterloo-Southampton electrification promises a still higher return on investment. What is more, the Southern is. overall, the only Region of B-R- ai present shotting a favourable operating