Beeching closures

[The Ham]

There was little or no effect on the overall financial position - by 1960 losses had grown to around £100 million per year, about £4 billion in today's money which is roughly equivalent to the grants and payments made by the DfT to today's railway industry. These losses showed no signs of slowing - and the amount of money paid to service the increasing debt was also inexorably increasing

Although the industry receives about £4bn in government money only about £175 million is needed for the day to day running of the network, with the bulk being spent on enhancements to the existing network (a figure which appears to be trending downwards).

 

[yorksrob]

The 'Network for Development' document of March 1967 was produced jointly between BR and the Ministry of Transport. It was 'signed' by both Barbara Castle (minister) and Stanley Raymond (BRB Chairman). This included the first map to show 'complete' closures (including of through freight lines) as the Reshaping Report maps of closures and withdrawals concentrated on passenger.
The 1967 map, showed clearly that the S&C was NOT envisaged to continue as a through line (along with Okehampton-Bere Alston, the Waverley Route, Bedford-Cambridge, Uckfield-Lewes, the Forfar line, Matlock-Chinley and several others). It was very lucky to survive. Ironically the Reshaping Report did have an indicative map of new Freightliner services, which I think did include Leeds-Glasgow and suggests that Dr Beeching envisaged a continued role for the S&C for freight.
The history is so complicated.

Like lines on a world war one battlefield - you might gain one bit of territory this year, then lose it for another next. But the overall destruction remains.

 

[yorksrob]

Have people on here forgotten while Marples was transport minister and closing the railways he was also building the M1?...

Indeed. I'm sure that wasn't the only road construction going on at the time.

 

[tbtc]

Plenty of people use the S&C to get to work (and play)

It's a long double track line that is only sustaining a two coach Sprinter every couple of hours (with relatively unremarkable passenger numbers at intermediate stations).

There's certainly demand for a mid-morning departure from Leeds and afternoon return, especially school holidays/ weekends, but the line really isn't that busy the rest of the time. But of a luxury, when you consider how much busier other lines are day in, day out

However, if it had closed under BR in the 1980s (the same 1980s BR who are routinely praised for other decisions they were making at the time) then people on here would be suggesting the line could sustain a long train every half hour, and how (if only we re-opened it), it'd be used for regular diversions (rather than bussing passengers up the M6)!

The S&C hasn't let "no growth" franchises, or demanded swingeing cuts to public subsidy from all TOC's.

Strange comment. I suppose, by the same token, the S&C hasn't done a lot of things...

But funny how we've gone from "privatisation is bad because it requires higher subsidies than under BR" to "privatisation is bad because the Government are trying to reduce subsidies", eh?

 

[yorksrob]

It's a long double track line that is only sustaining a two coach Sprinter every couple of hours (with relatively unremarkable passenger numbers at intermediate stations).

There's certainly demand for a mid-morning departure from Leeds and afternoon return, especially school holidays/ weekends, but the line really isn't that busy the rest of the time. But of a luxury, when you consider how much busier other lines are day in, day out

However, if it had closed under BR in the 1980s (the same 1980s BR who are routinely praised for other decisions they were making at the time) then people on here would be suggesting the line could sustain a long train every half hour, and how (if only we re-opened it), it'd be used for regular diversions (rather than bussing passengers up the M6)!



Strange comment. I suppose, by the same token, the S&C hasn't done a lot of things...

But funny how we've gone from "privatisation is bad because it requires higher subsidies than under BR" to "privatisation is bad because the Government are trying to reduce subsidies", eh?

You say the S&C can only support a two carriage sprinter every couple of hours. Some, including the friends of the S&C agree with me that the S&C could actually support somewhat longer trains, although availability of rolling stock seems to be the limiting factor.

I find a lot of things strange. Not least the idea that because one might think that an organisation is generally 'on the right track', one would be expected to think that everything that organisation does must be absolutely right without exception.

I also find it strange the way we have gone from "BR must be privatised because it is deeply inefficient and requires too much subsidy" to "The railways had to be privatised because that was the only way to enshrine public subsidy of the railway, as opposed to health and education". A double standard from the privateers I think.

 

[chorleyjeff]

Plenty of people use the S&C to get to work (and play).

Don't blame the S&C for Westminster's inability to fund decent public transport in cities. The S&C hasn't let "no growth" franchises, or demanded swingeing cuts to public subsidy from all TOC's.

" Plenty" is relative. To Manchester, Liverpool, B'ham etc plenty would be no crush loading when there is no alternative means of getting to work.

 

[chorleyjeff]

You say the S&C can only support a two carriage sprinter every couple of hours. Some, including the friends of the S&C agree with me that the S&C could actually support somewhat longer trains, although availability of rolling stock seems to be the limiting factor.

I find a lot of things strange. Not least the idea that because one might think that an organisation is generally 'on the right track', one would be expected to think that everything that organisation does must be absolutely right without exception.

I also find it strange the way we have gone from "BR must be privatised because it is deeply inefficient and requires too much subsidy" to "The railways had to be privatised because that was the only way to enshrine public subsidy of the railway, as opposed to health and education". A double standard from the privateers I think.

You would expect the Friends of the S&C to say that.
Re. BR I think the debacle of the modernisation plan including marshalling yards for disappearing traffic and mass introduction of expensive unproven unreliable locos maintained in steam depots did not encourage politicians to throw more money their way.

 

[yorksrob]

" Plenty" is relative. To Manchester, Liverpool, B'ham etc plenty would be no crush loading when there is no alternative means of getting to work.

It is, but if we were to continue down that route, we'd probably only be left with the London Underground.

 

[yorksrob]

You would expect the Friends of the S&C to say that.
Re. BR I think the debacle of the modernisation plan including marshalling yards for disappearing traffic and mass introduction of expensive unproven unreliable locos maintained in steam depots did not encourage politicians to throw more money their way.

Yes, I would expect the FOSC to say that because they're local and know what's happenning on the ground.

Even if one does wish to repeat the propaganda about the modernisation plan (by ignoring all the important improvements in rolling stock etc that took place at the time, and fixating on the less successful loco designs, and declining traffic flows which the railway had to serve by law), I don't see what relevance this has to lack of investment in the later 1990's and noughties.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Have people on here forgotten while Marples was transport minister and closing the railways he was also building the M1?...

Ah, that old myth gets another outing.
Would this be the same M1 whose construction was first envisaged under the Special Roads Act 1949, inaugurated by Harold Watkinson (the Minister of Transport before Marples) and built by John Laing and Tarmac Construction?

 

[Journeyman]

I wonder how easy it would have been, had the Great Central been mothballed rather than demolished, to upgrade it to 125 mph once the HSTs became available. Probably Paddington as the London terminal though and using the "joint" line via High Wycombe.

Perhaps you have to go back to 1923 and amalgamate the GCR into the GWR rather than the LNER.

The GC was an enormous white elephant right from the start, and there was no need to have built it. If it hadn't been built, I guarantee there would be no-one clamouring for a route along that alignment today.

 

[quarella]

Have people on here forgotten while Marples was transport minister and closing the railways he was also building the M1?...

It must also be remembered how many towns were being choked as the aspirational car had become a reality for many. With hindsight some lines/stations perhaps shouldn’t have been closed, but there were other factors involved that would make them now potentially viable. The brief was to “Make the Railways Pay.” Perhaps a less drastic approach could have been made had there been an earlier intervention.

 

[A0wen]

I wonder how easy it would have been, had the Great Central been mothballed rather than demolished, to upgrade it to 125 mph once the HSTs became available. Probably Paddington as the London terminal though and using the "joint" line via High Wycombe.

Perhaps you have to go back to 1923 and amalgamate the GCR into the GWR rather than the LNER.

You don't need to go that far back - just go back to the early 60s when control of the GCR was moved from BR (E) to BR (LM) - that was when the rot really set in for the GCR because BR (LM) was run by ex-Midland men for whom the GCR had always been the enemy.

It's perhaps less surprising that once the remains of it got reallocated in the 80s from BR (LM) to BR (W) its fortunes started to improve again and refurbishment, service improvements etc all occurred.

 

[A0wen]

The GC was an enormous white elephant right from the start, and there was no need to have built it. If it hadn't been built, I guarantee there would be no-one clamouring for a route along that alignment today.

I don't agree - the GC was a purpose built high speed main line. OK, the background was Watkin wanted to get the MS&LR a route to London and didn't fancy trying to do it in partnership with the other operators - but when you look at how the line was engineered with minimal gradients, gentle curves and only 1 level crossing on the whole route from Sheffield to London, it was vastly superior to the hotch-potch approach the Midland had used to get to London - the price of which is still being paid today when you look at things like the alignment through Bedford, the curves at Wellingborough, conflicting moves at Leicester to name but a few.

Even the ECML in its original form wasn't that fast - it was only with modernisation in the 50s and 60s which removed some of the real speed constraints, the Selby diversion in the 80s removed another - but you've still got those curves at Morpeth for example.

 

[MarlowDonkey]

I guarantee there would be no-one clamouring for a route along that alignment today.

Apart from HS2 using same route out of London before diverging towards Birmingham.

 

[coppercapped]

The GC was an enormous white elephant right from the start, and there was no need to have built it. If it hadn't been built, I guarantee there would be no-one clamouring for a route along that alignment today.

Quite so.

Even at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway, the precursor of the Great Central was known by wags as the 'Money Sunk and Lost' and the GC became the 'Gone Completely'.

 

[coppercapped]

SNIPPED

I also find it strange the way we have gone from "BR must be privatised because it is deeply inefficient and requires too much subsidy" to "The railways had to be privatised because that was the only way to enshrine public subsidy of the railway, as opposed to health and education". A double standard from the privateers I think.

Once again you are inventing an argument to try to prove your position. Nobody suggested that "BR must be privatised because it is deeply inefficient and requires too much subsidy" - that is a figment of your imagination.

As I have tried to point out before - one of the main reasons for privatisation - as it was for British Airways, British Telecom, the electricity and water supply industries - was the supply of capital which, as the money for all the Government's spending comes from the Treasury, would always be limited.

The process of introducing private capital into BR started twelve or thirteen years before the 1993 Railways Act, in the early 1980s. Both the Department of Transport and the BRB favoured the introduction of private investment in BR's subsidiary concerns and in 1980 a new holding company, British Rail Investments Ltd (BRIL) was set up and the assets of Sealink UK, British Transport Hotels, British Rail Hovercraft (Seaspeed) and British Rail Property Holdings were transferred to BRIL. Modern Railways (issue 384) wrote at the time:

for BR, the benefits of privatisation is seen as being twofold: in addition to receiving proceeds of sales, BR will also face reduced calls on the finance available within its investment ceiling as the investment requirements of the subsidiaries in the holding company will be met in part from the private sector.

The issue of the on-going subsidy for the railway business at the time of privatisation was accepted - and built into the form of privatisation that was finally adopted. No double standard at all. Above all the franchise contracts ensured that the Treasury could not suddenly cut the amount of money available to the railways as had been the case for BR.

Make criticisms if you will - but please base them on facts and not on some figment of your imagination.

 

[PatBerridge]

It is certainly true that under public ownership BR funding for investment could be unpredictable and largely dependent on two things- the party in office and the state of the Economy.I worked for BR in Ops and in Financial Planning before and during privatisation and had dealings with the BRB team handling the transition.It was virtually a unanimous view from within the corridors of BRB power that the privatisation plan was driven almost entirely by ideological dogma( Private good-Public Bad) that by the 90s had taken hold of the Tories who had been in power for far too long and were by then running out of more things to de-nationalise and it became politically a choice between either Royal Mail, NHS or BR and BR drew the short straw despite John Major being warned that it would end up costing no less in subsidy than under BRB management, but as always with dogma, it was ideology that won that argument.And, we now know that the warnings from independent experts of many stripes were seen to be correct.Thatcher, having been given the exact same warnings in 1988 when Portillo briefly tried to revive the idea, refused to do it and indeed she issued instructions that it must never even be raised again in Cabinet!

 

[WesternLancer]

I know the history better than you. Your assertion that Dr. Beeching ". Equally, the fact that we still have
minimally used stations like Dent and Shippea Hill shows quite clearly that Dr. Beeching was not obsessive or ideologically-driven about closing down loss making activities. Dr. Beeching's views about surplus railway routes was not based on ideology.

But Dent WAS closed was it not? and re-opened during the S&C Ron Cottom regime I thought.

Yes Dent seems to be listed in the appendix to the report listing stations recommended for closure.

 

[yorksrob]

Once again you are inventing an argument to try to prove your position. Nobody suggested that "BR must be privatised because it is deeply inefficient and requires too much subsidy" - that is a figment of your imagination.

As I have tried to point out before - one of the main reasons for privatisation - as it was for British Airways, British Telecom, the electricity and water supply industries - was the supply of capital which, as the money for all the Government's spending comes from the Treasury, would always be limited.

The process of introducing private capital into BR started twelve or thirteen years before the 1993 Railways Act, in the early 1980s. Both the Department of Transport and the BRB favoured the introduction of private investment in BR's subsidiary concerns and in 1980 a new holding company, British Rail Investments Ltd (BRIL) was set up and the assets of Sealink UK, British Transport Hotels, British Rail Hovercraft (Seaspeed) and British Rail Property Holdings were transferred to BRIL. Modern Railways (issue 384) wrote at the time:

The issue of the on-going subsidy for the railway business at the time of privatisation was accepted - and built into the form of privatisation that was finally adopted. No double standard at all. Above all the franchise contracts ensured that the Treasury could not suddenly cut the amount of money available to the railways as had been the case for BR.

Make criticisms if you will - but please base them on facts and not on some figment of your imagination.

Interview given by Sir John Major to the Financial Times, referenced in the railway bill debate in the House of Lords, 05/07/1993

I understand that my right honourable friend the Member for Huntingdon gave an interview to the Financial Times not so long ago in which he said that British Railways was "deeply inefficient". It is rather hard to use such terms. If it is "deeply inefficient", the contradiction is that, at the same time, the people who are actually working the system are being asked to do a great deal of work on the shadow franchises which are to be the yardsticks.

Alas, I can't find the actual interview from the web, probably as it was written in the pre-web based newspaper era.

 

[Taunton]

It must also be remembered how many towns were being choked as the aspirational car.

Well of course, they were being used by people who actually wanted the free mobility provided by cars - not the fraction provided by the railway. It's like those complaining about urban sprawl - of course, people and their families want somewhere to live. That's people buying cars to travel round in, and buying houses to have families to live in.

If the railway wants to provide a service, they have to do better than the car. Which they can, but not on Victorian infrastructure at Victorian speeds and frequencies. I'm actually writing this rolling down the WCML at 125mph in a nicely filled train, because it's the best way to go.

 

[chorleyjeff]

It is, but if we were to continue down that route, we'd probably only be left with the London Underground.

Your logic escapes me.

 

[chorleyjeff]

Yes, I would expect the FOSC to say that because they're local and know what's happenning on the ground.

Even if one does wish to repeat the propaganda about the modernisation plan (by ignoring all the important improvements in rolling stock etc that took place at the time, and fixating on the less successful loco designs, and declining traffic flows which the railway had to serve by law), I don't see what relevance this has to lack of investment in the later 1990's and noughties.

What's happening on the ground is shown by figures. Taking all costs of running the trains gross of subsidy and adding Network Rail costs how much per mile does each passenger cost and how much per mile do fares average?
Propaganda ? Really ?
How much common carrier traffic was there and could it have been conveyed by cheaper means ?
Anyhow back to the points in question.

 

[tbtc]

You say the S&C can only support a two carriage sprinter every couple of hours. Some, including the friends of the S&C agree with me that the S&C could actually support somewhat longer trains, although availability of rolling stock seems to be the limiting factor

Wait, what? A support group dedicated to promote the S&C think that the S&C should have a better service? There's still time to make tomorrow's front pages...

I say that the S&C can only support a two carriage sprinter every couple of house based on observed loadings plus the published passenger stats (and that's despite the fares being lower than other routes, hence the "Route - Appleby" tickets being cheaper).

Yes, if you doubled the frequency and doubled the length of trains, there'd probably be more passengers. But this is true of pretty much every line in the country. And any DMUs for additional/longer S&C services are DMUs that could be doing essential work on less scenic routes (however much people elevate lines like the S&C). If there was the rolling stock to improve the S&C then that rolling stock could be put to better use on everyday services like the Leeds - Knottingley circuit, or Manchester - Wigan, rather than the relative luxury of nice days out in the countryside.

I find a lot of things strange. Not least the idea that because one might think that an organisation is generally 'on the right track', one would be expected to think that everything that organisation does must be absolutely right without exception.

It's the good old blind spots that people have when it comes to BR. The BR who closed the Woodhead line in the '80s and then tried to close the S&C shortly afterwards were blameless because Big Bad Westminster forced them to do it. But 1980s BR were great because they introduced Network South East and all of the other sectorisation. And the fact that they replaced stock on a "two for three" basis at the time was the fault of Westminster. But BR deserve praise for building lots of 158s... essentially, people will always excuse negative things that happened under BR whilst giving BR praise for any positive things that happened. Magic!

" Plenty" is relative. To Manchester, Liverpool, B'ham etc plenty would be no crush loading when there is no alternative means of getting to work.

Agreed - I'm sure the people struggling to board a commuter service in big cities will be horrified to learn that some people on the S&C can't always get a double seat to themselves.

Ah, that old myth gets another outing.
Would this be the same M1 whose construction was first envisaged under the Special Roads Act 1949, inaugurated by Harold Watkinson (the Minister of Transport before Marples) and built by John Laing and Tarmac Construction?

True.

I suppose it's easier for conspiracy theorists to pin blame on just two people (Marples and Beeching) for all of the bad things that happened (and we'd have gotten away with it, if it hadn't been for that pesky meddling report), rather than a trend over a couple of generations that would have happened one way or another.

 

[yorksrob]

Wait, what? A support group dedicated to promote the S&C think that the S&C should have a better service? There's still time to make tomorrow's front pages...

I say that the S&C can only support a two carriage sprinter every couple of house based on observed loadings plus the published passenger stats (and that's despite the fares being lower than other routes, hence the "Route - Appleby" tickets being cheaper).

Yes, if you doubled the frequency and doubled the length of trains, there'd probably be more passengers. But this is true of pretty much every line in the country. And any DMUs for additional/longer S&C services are DMUs that could be doing essential work on less scenic routes (however much people elevate lines like the S&C). If there was the rolling stock to improve the S&C then that rolling stock could be put to better use on everyday services like the Leeds - Knottingley circuit, or Manchester - Wigan, rather than the relative luxury of nice days out in the countryside.



It's the good old blind spots that people have when it comes to BR. The BR who closed the Woodhead line in the '80s and then tried to close the S&C shortly afterwards were blameless because Big Bad Westminster forced them to do it. But 1980s BR were great because they introduced Network South East and all of the other sectorisation. And the fact that they replaced stock on a "two for three" basis at the time was the fault of Westminster. But BR deserve praise for building lots of 158s... essentially, people will always excuse negative things that happened under BR whilst giving BR praise for any positive things that happened. Magic!



Agreed - I'm sure the people struggling to board a commuter service in big cities will be horrified to learn that some people on the S&C can't always get a double seat to themselves.



True.

I suppose it's easier for conspiracy theorists to pin blame on just two people (Marples and Beeching) for all of the bad things that happened (and we'd have gotten away with it, if it hadn't been for that pesky meddling report), rather than a trend over a couple of generations that would have happened one way or another.

Wow, stop the presses - people like companies for what they do well, but not for what they balls up. Is that really such a revelation ?

Personally I think I've been quite scathing of BR's proclivity towards closing lines. Beechings army of defenders on here certainly seem to get into a bit of a state whenever I mention it.

As for the S&C needing more carriages, yes it does. Do other lines need more carriages as well ? Yes they do.

Should we have been knocking out new carriages to cope with increasing demand over the last twenty years, instead of setting up no growth franchises ? Yes we should have.

 

[yorksrob]

What's happening on the ground is shown by figures. Taking all costs of running the trains gross of subsidy and adding Network Rail costs how much per mile does each passenger cost and how much per mile do fares average?
Propaganda ? Really ?
How much common carrier traffic was there and could it have been conveyed by cheaper means ?
Anyhow back to the points in question.

The reality on the ground is that two carriage 158's are often full and standing. No passenger group worth it's salt would find that situation acceptable, wherever they are.

Anyone who decries the problems of the modernisation plan without recognising its successes (electrification in Kent, the WCML, Glasgow, speeding up the ECML with the Deltics, dieselisation of local steam services etc) is guilty of peddling propaganda in my opinion. Anyone with an open mind will see that although it had its problems, there is a lot that it got right in terms of updating the railway.

The big failure as far as the Government was concerned was that it didn't improve the financial situation. But given the situation at the time, it's hard to see how any regime could have eliminated the companies defecit.

No one is denying that common carrier traffic could have been transported more cheaply by other means. BR had a legal obligation to carry it at the time.

 

[coppercapped]

The point that people seem to be missing about 'Common Carrier' traffic was that the railways' tariffs were published and publicly available.

So, exactly as yorksrob suggests, many goods, not 'could' but were transported more cheaply than the railways could offer - all the owner of these new-fangled 'lorries' had to do was to look up the railways' rates.

BR only had to carry the goods if they were offered to them - and, starting after the end of the First World War, they weren't being offered in ever increasing quantities.

 

[PatBerridge]

Historians will almost certainly see the reductions in overall rail capacity in the UK since the 1950s as a combination of political ideology, mostly imported from the USA which had done much the same thing in the 1940s in order to create the 'Great American Car Economy' as it became known, plus refusal of the Treasury to fund renewal of what was essentially a clapped-out system as a result of two world wars and severe shortage of capital during precisely the period when road usage in the UK began to rocket, rendering rail travel the second or even third choice of transport for millions once the road network developed post- 1960.At that time governments were reluctant to factor in social benefits when analysing railway costs and revenues, and the idea that ,e.g. cost should also include environmental and social isolation due to removal of rail lines, let alone that it should take a much longer-term view of railways as a strategic asset necessary in times of war, however unlikely. This explains why the vast majority of Public Closure Enquiries/Consultations ended up as basically a charade and were rubber-stamping exercises, with at all times the Minister in overall control of the process.
It is a rather bitter irony that Harold Macmillan, who was PM from 1957, inherited the 1955 Modernisation Plan and who hired in Beeching from ICI as a non-political appointee , had himself been a Director of the GWR prior to 1948 and was sympathetic to railways and made no attempt to de-nationalise whilst in office( although many Tories were still agitating for it having successfully lobbied for certain BTC peripheral businesses to be re-privatised after 1952). He viewed the exercise as purely a Profit and Loss calculation and simply left it to Marples, an Accountant by profession, to do the dirty work.Incidentally Marples had many friends in the USA and made several visits to examine their railway operations prior to and after being appointed as a Minister.It has been suggested in several accounts of BR history that he was corrupt and motivated by a desire to build motorways given his family business stood to and did make a fortune from it. It is not widely known that in 1973 he was formally charged with Fraud while in public office and had to pay a fine of around £10000 , but the precise details of this are not very clear and likely protected from scrutiny under the 50-year rule for Public disclosure of such matters.So on that basis one could say Yes he was corrupt, but he was much admired by Macmillan who would never have a bad word said against him.He removed himself from public life after the Macmillan Govt fell in 1964 by emigrating to the south of France where he remained for the rest of his days .Make of that what you will!

 

[tbtc]

The reality on the ground is that two carriage 158's are often full and standing. No passenger group worth it's salt would find that situation acceptable, wherever they are

Every "passenger group" is going to bleat that their favoured line is hard done by - that's what they do - that's why I'm generally sceptical of taking their PR as genuine news.

Anyone who decries the problems of the modernisation plan without recognising its successes (electrification in Kent, the WCML, Glasgow, speeding up the ECML with the Deltics, dieselisation of local steam services etc) is guilty of peddling propaganda in my opinion. Anyone with an open mind will see that although it had its problems, there is a lot that it got right in terms of updating the railway.

The big failure as far as the Government was concerned was that it didn't improve the financial situation

There you go again… BR were great because look at the amazing things that they did like Deltics and wiring the WCML… but all of the bad things that happened under BR are the fault of the Government (because they wouldn’t give BR enough money)…

…it’s like the football fan who defends the good signings made by their favourite manager but blames the Board/ Chairman for any poor signings (and, if only they’d backed the manager financially, those mistakes wouldn’t have happened).

If you’re going to excuse every bad decision that happened under BR because that was the fault of the Government (for either having an “agenda” or not spending sufficient money or whatever) then it’s going to be impossible to have any kind of reasoned debate about the Curate’s Egg that was BR. At the same time that they were ordering Deltics and wiring the WCML, they were closing lines elsewhere - you can't ignore what the left hand was doing whilst praising the right hand.

For example, if you want to give them the credit for the Regional Railways Renaissance, and all of the Sprinters that were built, then you need to accept that the same people were cutting/diverting orders (hence NSE getting the final SuperSprinters) and chopping up most 155s.

Yes, they did some fancy Artists Impressions of the trains that they’d like to have built, if they’d had the money, and we can daydream about how many 157s they’d have built (or 210s or 381s or 471s or whatever other speculative classes you want to discuss), but there’s no point in having these discussions if you want to treat Good BR (Kent modernisation, opened the Robin Hood line, lots of Sprinters) and Bad BR (the less transformative Dorset upgrade, closed Woodhead in the 1980s and tried to close the S&C shortly after, didn’t provide all of the 155s and 158/159s that Regional Railways were promised) as separate companies.

Can’t blame BR for any closures during the era of Beeching or Castle because that was the Government’s fault.

Can’t blame BR for closures in the 1980s (or proposed closures) because that was the Government’s fault

Can’t blame BR for any bad things that happened in the first half of the ‘90s were because the Big Bad Government closing/scrapping various uneconomical things in the run up to Privatisation – so BR can be excused.

Magic thinking.

 

[Journeyman]

I don't agree - the GC was a purpose built high speed main line. OK, the background was Watkin wanted to get the MS&LR a route to London and didn't fancy trying to do it in partnership with the other operators - but when you look at how the line was engineered with minimal gradients, gentle curves and only 1 level crossing on the whole route from Sheffield to London, it was vastly superior to the hotch-potch approach the Midland had used to get to London - the price of which is still being paid today when you look at things like the alignment through Bedford, the curves at Wellingborough, conflicting moves at Leicester to name but a few.

However well-engineered it was, it provided virtually no journey opportunities that didn't exist already, practically every town and village it served had a well-established station already, and the approaches to London were a nightmare.

The MML still has spare capacity on it.