'On the Move' - CIE history

[Mol_PMB]

Recently I have been reading this heavy tome:

I have found it very interesting, although I suspect it may not be for everyone. Its 470 pages are heavy on text and light on photos, and the story is told from the point of view of the CIE board and their perennial battles with government about funding and strategic direction, and with staff unions about productivity. On the other hand it does mention many details of the transport innovations which occurred behind the scenes.

What I found fascinating was that it provided a context for all the other CIE history which we as modellers are more familiar with - loco and rolling stock orders, network rationalisation, changes in freight handling, relationships between rail, road and other transport modes. It gives the other side of the story from the normal enthusiasts' or travellers' point of view '## branch line should never have been closed' or 'why on earth did they try and introduce ## service without enough carriages?', or 'why is my bus always late?', and things that I certainly wasn't aware of, such as when CIE delayed publication of their entire accounts for over a year because the hotels subsidiary had been bankrupted by the effects of the Troubles.

Published in 1995 it ends on an upbeat note with increasing traffic on both rail and bus services, new stock being delivered and improvements to infrastructure. It would be interesting to hear this side of the story brought up-to-date for the 30 years since then.

The book is readily available secondhand.