The cutting of train services between Watford and London would mean “people will have to travel during the rush hours in conditions which the RSPCA would never permit for animals,” Mr Raphael Tuck MP for Watford told the Commons on Thursday.

Speaking in the debate on the Queen’s Speech, which sets out the Government’s new legislative programme, Mr Tuck protested against cutting, by over half, the number of trains on the slow line between Watford and Euston.

He said that not only the number of trains would be cut but the number of coaches on each train would be reduced to three.

Mr Tuck: “These trains are already vastly overcrowded and if they go on overcrowding them much more they will have to push the passengers in with bulldozers.”

He added: “This is worse than Beeching.”

[From the Watford Observer of November 25, 1975]