Practicality of BR regions for federal-style government?

Perhaps a somewhat demented idea but I bought myself a book copy of the Beeching Report today (exciting life I lead) and was quite intrigued by the accompanying maps. It got me considering how successful a hard-left or full on socialist Post-War Britain could have governed using the BR regions as the basis for the divisions. Lets assume that Labour is somewhat more successful in the 1950 or 1951 elections and the extreme elements manage to dominate in the 1950s-60s and thus have free-rein. They seem like the kind of semi-irrational divisions that might be expected, almost akin to those of the SSRs.

Map link here - http://www.davidheyscollection.com/userimages/0000-0-a-br-regions-R.jpg

Now the first thing I would expect is some degree of rationalisation, for example giving all of Cornwall and West Devon either to the "Southern" or "Western" regions to eliminate the bizarre cross-over. The names would probably change too (god knows what the London-Midland monstrosity would be called).

Anyways I am curious to see what you think - is it possible and even practical or totally ASB?
 
Elaborating a little bit from that rather sketchy outline the federal-style localised government "states" would in my view, most likely be as follows.

(a) "Scotland" (based on the BR Scottish Region), with the capital in all likelihood in Edinburgh. In a real world situation this would most likely be like an embryonic Holyrood and eventually lead to a nationalist party emerging as alone of the BR regions it makes some logical sense as a unit.

(b) "Mercia ?" or perhaps "Midlands ?" (based on the BR London-Midland Region), with the capital in either Manchester or Birmingham. From an eyeball estimate this seems the most populous and ,at least pre-deindustrialisation, economically important region.

Northern Ireland would probably be lumped as a whole into either A or B.

(c) "Northumbria" (North Eastern Region), with the capital at Newcastle or York (the latter seems more likely as its a bit more prestigious and traditional capital material). This would quite controversially badly prune Yorkshire and there might be quite a miniature North-South issue with where the priority is.

(d) "Dumnonia ?" or perhaps "The West" (Western Region). Bristol would seem like a reasonable guess as to administrative centre although the balance of economic power might be more towards South Wales. Wales of course in this situation has been cleft in two so that might be an issue.

(e) "Wessex" (Southern Region) with the capital at Portsmouth. Unless it keeps the quirky toe-hold in the West Country the focus of this region seems quite European.

EDIT - And here is my best attempt at a QBAM of the resultant hideous borders from the Beeching Report map of the BR regions (in which the West Country situation has already been simplified).

BR regions attempt 1.0.png
 
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Thande

Donor
Oddly enough we discussed this on the UK politics thread a while back. The problem with the idea is that it's effectively cutting the country into slices radiating outward from London, which doesn't really key with any kind of regional identity.
 
The crossover in Cornwall is because at that time the Southern Region was the Southern Railway in all but name and the Western Region the Great Western Railway. London Midland Region was the English and Welsh part of the London Midland and Scottish Railway. North Eastern Region was the pre Grouping North Eastern Railway and the Eastern Region was the Great Eastern, Great Northern and Great Central Railways combined. More of less.

Later on in the 1960s everything west of about Salibury became part of the Western Region
 
After this USSR of GB breaks up into independent states based on its regions like Czechoslovakia, the real USSR and Yugoslavia a revanchist Wessex goes to war with Dumnonia for the territory it lost in Somerset, Devon and Cornwall in the 1960s.
 

Devvy

Donor
Northern Ireland would probably be lumped as a whole into either A or B.

Northern Ireland has been responsible for it's own railways since nationalisation - all of GB rail network came under Westminters, and all NI rails under Stormont. So in this scenario you posit, NI would be it's own "region".

But I can't see anything like that happening, it's far from logical as Thande points out. Radiating slices from London hardly form cohesive units; Wales is divided which isn't a great start. Yorkshire, the only real English region with at least some sense of identity is split again.

Scotland, Ulster/NI, and SR/Wessex are probably the only viable units, although the Eastern Region might be as well.

Rather then the original BR regions, if you're looking for "rail-region" regions, might be better to use the post-sectorisation areas:
- NSE (South East England)
- NIR (Northern Ireland)
- Regional Railways, from which we can get devolved conurbations of (using the PTE operations):
-- Scotrail (Scotland)
-- Network North West (an OTL very short lived at emulating NSE around Manchester and Liverpool)
-- "Yorkshire" (combined Leeds/Bradford and Sheffield operations and widened)
-- West Midlands
-- Bristol/South Wales
-- Tyne, Wear & Tees
 
Oddly enough we discussed this on the UK politics thread a while back. The problem with the idea is that it's effectively cutting the country into slices radiating outward from London, which doesn't really key with any kind of regional identity.

BR regions effectively reflect the 1923 grouping and are out of step with other regional structures of the time ( emergency planning / military, NHS ... )
 
Yeah, what Thande said. These regions had no real identities, and were based purely on railroad boundaries. A federal-style government would instead work around large regions with their own identities: Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales; Cornwall; East Anglia; Yorkshire.
 
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