"What if" scenario- what does BR without Beeching look like?

Backtrack Magazine this month carries a very interesting article on the 1968 Transport act and Barbara Castle's attempts to create a "stable" network for retention. This outlined a network of 11,000 miles (by 1982, the network was actually around 10,300 miles), and the proposed network for retention didn't even include various lines that survive today. As part of the plan, the remaining lines weren't automatically intended for closure, but would be reconsidered later on.

Personally, I think that this proposal should have been carried forward. If this network had, indeed been retained, along with the additional routes which were eventually retained, the network would be in a better shape now. Unfortunately the nefarious actions of various civil servants who believed in closures at all costs, served to undermine the basic network over the next ten years.

yorksrob said:

According to the 2008 study, you're wrong. It suggested that the single track option would cover its operating costs. And what's wrong with spending 259 million on a railway that would be able to cover its operating costs. We spend that much on road by-passes regularly. Why should my taxes pay for capital enhancements for new roads that I am unlikely to use, rather than a railway line that i probably will use ?

I would certainly prefer my money to be spent providing more transport options, than just speeding up a service that I already have.

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The report certainly said nothing of the sort. From NR's Executive Summary:

The benefits of the reopened link are relatively low based on current assumptions for growth in population and employment in the area (contained in the draft South East Plan’s Regional Spatial Strategy. This leads to a negative Net Present Value (NPV) and a Benefit to Cost Ratio (BCR) ranging between 0.64 and 0.79 dependent on the service options modelled. The projected annual operating ratios (annual revenue to cost ratio) range from 0.69 to 1.63.
In order to make the case for the reopening of the line, the benefits realised need to be at least double that forecast in order to meet the absolute minimum BCR required of 1.5, and treble to meet the usual minimum BCR of 2.0. This in turn will require a significant increase in population along the corridor as a whole and/or a fundamental shift in the travel behaviour of the existing population.

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The project had a NEGATIVE Net Present Value (translation - 'You're throwing your money down a drain') and a Benefit-to-Cost Ratio which was less than one. Government will only supply the capital for such projects if the BCR is two or greater. (Unless, of course, the project is HS2...!) This is enough to add the project to the 'Don't Do' list even if the very simple option might have had a operating ratio greater than one.

Well , part of what it would look like ,presumably, would be the retention of the better Southern route to the West, and the chance to catch an invigorating train-ride to Ilfracombe (I never knew this line during it's use, but saw quite a bit of it before the track was then ripped-up; some incredible inclines!). Ok, admittedly it was the old Western Region who ultimately closed these lines, but I should think Beaching planted the seed!

coppercapped said:

The report certainly said nothing of the sort. From NR's Executive Summary:


The project had a NEGATIVE Net Present Value (translation - 'You're throwing your money down a drain') and a Benefit-to-Cost Ratio which was less than one. Government will only supply the capital for such projects if the BCR is two or greater. (Unless, of course, the project is HS2...!) This is enough to add the project to the 'Don't Do' list even if the very simple option might have had a operating ratio greater than one.

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As I said, the line as a single route would cover its operating costs. That's what an "annual revenue to cost ratio" of 1.63 means.

yorksrob said:

As I said, the line as a single route would cover its operating costs. That's what an "annual revenue to cost ratio" of 1.63 means.

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It would cover its' operating costs, but not the cost of capital - so the net present value is negative. Whoever was being asked to fund it would get a better return on their money by keeping it in a shoebox.

Roughly speaking, projects can be divided into four groups:

• Positive NPV and BCR greater than one - brilliant idea, likely to get done as long as there aren't higher priorities
• Positive NPV and BCR less than one - won't get government backing, might go ahead as a private sector project if NPV is high enough but will be taxed and/or regulated to mitigate its' disbenefits
• Negative NPV and BCR greater than one - beneficial but will need subsidy, the government may fund this if the BCR is high enough and the funding is available
• Negative NPV and BCR less than one - nobody is touching this with a bargepole unless there are other seriously compelling factors

This reopening falls into the fourth category. It doesn't benefit the financiers, and it doesn't provide a net benefit to the public. So it isn't worth doing.

RLBH said:

It would cover its' operating costs, but not the cost of capital - so the net present value is negative. Whoever was being asked to fund it would get a better return on their money by keeping it in a shoebox.

Roughly speaking, projects can be divided into four groups:

• Positive NPV and BCR greater than one - brilliant idea, likely to get done as long as there aren't higher priorities
• Positive NPV and BCR less than one - won't get government backing, might go ahead as a private sector project if NPV is high enough but will be taxed and/or regulated to mitigate its' disbenefits
• Negative NPV and BCR greater than one - beneficial but will need subsidy, the government may fund this if the BCR is high enough and the funding is available
• Negative NPV and BCR less than one - nobody is touching this with a bargepole unless there are other seriously compelling factors

This reopening falls into the fourth category. It doesn't benefit the financiers, and it doesn't provide a net benefit to the public. So it isn't worth doing.

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I don't see why people keep repeating what I have said - which was that the study found that the line would cover its own operating costs.

Anyhow, this discussion illustrates precisely why Beeching, and the longer closure programme that continued beyond him, was such an unmitigated disaster.

Routes which had already been built, and which could have ticked over quite acceptably with a little imagination, and could have been paying their way today, were torn up. This has added a fairly large capital cost to any reopening proposal, which makes it so much more difficult to open a line than to maintain one, particularly with our thoroughly inadequate way of assessing the benefits of a railway line to local communities.

This was an avoidable mistake that occurred because people in power were too ideologically transfixed with cutting route milage at all costs.

yorksrob said:

I don't see why people keep repeating what I have said - which was that the study found that the line would cover its own operating costs.

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It would now. It didn't in 1963, and probably wouldn't have done for another thirty or forty years until traffic picked up enough.

Routes which had already been built, and which could have ticked over quite acceptably with a little imagination, and could have been paying their way today, were torn up. This has added a fairly large capital cost to any reopening proposal, which makes it so much more difficult to open a line than to maintain one, particularly with our thoroughly inadequate way of assessing the benefits of a railway line to local communities.

This was an avoidable mistake that occurred because people in power were too ideologically transfixed with cutting route milage at all costs.

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There was no ideological obsession with cutting route mileage at all costs. There was a decision to cut capital costs, which were a result of the physical assets that British Railways held. Operating costs could have been reduced in any number of ways, but the debts had to be paid regardless of how comprehensively the operating costs were covered. The way that the railway was structured, and the political environment within which it operated, meant that to get rid of the debt it had to get rid of the assets. Under those circumstances, which assets do you lose?

The choice wasn't between closing a third of the railways and closing none. It was between closing a third, closing two-thirds, or closing them all. Beeching could very well have proposed that not only should the obviously unremunerative lines be closed, but also those that were marginal. Then we would have wound up with something resembling one of the more extreme Serpell proposals, and he'd probably have got political support had that been recommended. That he didn't do so indicates, to me, that he was making an honest attempt to save as much of the railway as possible.

If he had refused to tackle the debt crisis that British Railways was facing, he'd have been replaced with someone who would. Or, indeed, the government might have decided to give in to the Railway Conversion League and convert old-fashioned railways en masse into modern roads.

RLBH said:

It would now. It didn't in 1963, and probably wouldn't have done for another thirty or forty years until traffic picked up enough.


There was no ideological obsession with cutting route mileage at all costs. There was a decision to cut capital costs, which were a result of the physical assets that British Railways held. Operating costs could have been reduced in any number of ways, but the debts had to be paid regardless of how comprehensively the operating costs were covered. The way that the railway was structured, and the political environment within which it operated, meant that to get rid of the debt it had to get rid of the assets. Under those circumstances, which assets do you lose?

The choice wasn't between closing a third of the railways and closing none. It was between closing a third, closing two-thirds, or closing them all. Beeching could very well have proposed that not only should the obviously unremunerative lines be closed, but also those that were marginal. Then we would have wound up with something resembling one of the more extreme Serpell proposals, and he'd probably have got political support had that been recommended. That he didn't do so indicates, to me, that he was making an honest attempt to save as much of the railway as possible.

If he had refused to tackle the debt crisis that British Railways was facing, he'd have been replaced with someone who would. Or, indeed, the government might have decided to give in to the Railway Conversion League and convert old-fashioned railways en masse into modern roads.

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In terms of Uckfield - Lewes, we don't know whether the route could have been made to cover its operating costs before closure. It was never singled. The stations at Isfield and Barcombe Mills were never de-staffed. Infact, the whole Hurst Green to Lewes section was considered for closure, and this was found to be too problematic and had to be reprieved North of Uckfield, so would have had to have found savings anyway.

This whole narrative that "there was no other option to closure" isn't borne out by history, as there clearly was an alternative for cases such as Hurst Green to Uckfield from an operational point of view.

From a political point of view, the alternatives were cancelling some debt and supporting socially necessary services. These were both changes that were brought in, in the late 1960's.

There's no question that marginal lines were a large proportion of the closures. York - Beverley was clearly marginal and that was a worked example. I've seen referance that the Swanage branch actually made money, yet it was closed to satisfy the requirement to get rid of milage.

yorksrob said:

This was an avoidable mistake that occurred because people in power were too ideologically transfixed with cutting route milage at all costs.

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This is a commonly-held view, but I see no evidence whatsoever to support it. I see people faced with a serious problem, attempting to resolve it as best they could, with somewhat flawed and limited data. This idea that people with evil intent were gleefully ripping up railways because they hated them is patently false.

RLBH said:

The way that the railway was structured, and the political environment within which it operated, meant that to get rid of the debt it had to get rid of the assets. Under those circumstances, which assets do you lose?

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You don't. You lose the structure that imposes this self-destructive debt bondage in the first place.

yorksrob said:

In terms of Uckfield - Lewes, we don't know whether the route could have been made to cover its operating costs before closure. It was never singled. The stations at Isfield and Barcombe Mills were never de-staffed. Infact, the whole Hurst Green to Lewes section was considered for closure, and this was found to be too problematic and had to be reprieved North of Uckfield, so would have had to have found savings anyway.

This whole narrative that "there was no other option to closure" isn't borne out by history, as there clearly was an alternative for cases such as Hurst Green to Uckfield from an operational point of view.

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As I've said, the impression I get is that the British Railways Board really was committed to creating an economically viable railway network. If the goal was just to close things, they'd have been able to get rid of a lot more. That some sections proposed for closure on economic grounds were reprieved doesn't disprove that - the economies made on those sections may very well just have reduced losses to a palatable level.

Do we know that it couldn't be made to pay? No, of course not. But the available statistics supported a view in 1963 that it didn't pay its' way. In 2008, with operating economies compared to the pre-closure line and national rail passenger numbers about 35% higher than in 1963, it could. Anything in between is supposition. Given that passenger levels fell consistently from the early 1960s to the late 1970s, didn't really start recovering until 1993, and took until 2000 to get back to pre-Beeching levels, assuming that an operating ratio from 2008 applies to the 1970s and 1980s is decidedly optimistic.

On a very cursory assessment, even with economies I suspect that the line would have become totally uneconomic in about 1972, might just about have covered its' costs for a few years in the late 1980s, but wouldn't really have started paying its' way until 1997.

From a political point of view, the alternatives were cancelling some debt and supporting socially necessary services. These were both changes that were brought in, in the late 1960's.

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They were indeed. In fact, the line you keep referencing was closed after the debts were written down and support for socially necessary services became available. The decision to close the line was taken after studies into the potential for economies. It still closed. The line was given every chance to prove that it could be worked at a reasonable cost, but never did.

True, they never actually tried working it as a single line - but they didn't need to, the costings could have been done fairly accurately and the traffic levels were known. There was no point spending money on an experiment if all the evidence suggested that the line would still prove uneconomic.

There's no question that marginal lines were a large proportion of the closures. York - Beverley was clearly marginal and that was a worked example. I've seen referance that the Swanage branch actually made money, yet it was closed to satisfy the requirement to get rid of milage.

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More likely, it was closed because of faulty data, or because other factors made the Swanage line impracticable. I don't argue that all the closures were correct, only that they were made with the best interests of the railway at heart.

Pigeon said:

You don't. You lose the structure that imposes this self-destructive debt bondage in the first place.

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Not an option. The railway couldn't force the government to hand it a blank cheque. The British Railways Board was required to run the railways as an economically self-sustaining operation, and that meant servicing their debts.

Of course it was an option. The requirement was set by the government and the government could have changed it.

The whole idea that a nationalised industry still somehow "has" to be crippled by the same requirement to pay interest that applies to a private body which has of necessity to borrow from usurers is up the creek in any case. It should go without saying that a public service can borrow from the government instead and avoid the interest millstone. Especially in the case of railways where even a casual glance at the history shows innumerable examples of railways where it was that millstone that sunk them, but once that had been dealt with by the original company going bust were taken over by the nearest big outfit and operated successfully for years.

Journeyman said:

This is a commonly-held view, but I see no evidence whatsoever to support it. I see people faced with a serious problem, attempting to resolve it as best they could, with somewhat flawed and limited data. This idea that people with evil intent were gleefully ripping up railways because they hated them is patently false.

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There is evidence all over the country, in the form of all the routes which supposedly "had to close" but didn't.

Without the pruning Beeching did, I think a lot of investment later would not have been government approved. Stuff like Merry go Round, Mk3 coach and HST, Continuous Welded Rail (Yes, that was investment then, not renewal), new signalling, Freightliner. But he went too far and didnt examine the lower cost railway with paytrains for example. And would he have shut the railway to tourist honeypots to places like Keswick had he known how these places would develop?

A read of Gerard Feinnes' book 'I Tried to run a railway' gives a nice insight into the management of the railway at that time.

RLBH said:

As I've said, the impression I get is that the British Railways Board really was committed to creating an economically viable railway network. If the goal was just to close things, they'd have been able to get rid of a lot more. That some sections proposed for closure on economic grounds were reprieved doesn't disprove that - the economies made on those sections may very well just have reduced losses to a palatable level.

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What they considered to be an economically "viable" network would have been a disaster. It was just slashing away. We have Dr Beeching's second report, in which "not being selected for development" supposedly doesn't mean closure, yet twenty years later we have the man himself being interviewed suggesting that we could probably do without London to Birmingham via Banbury or Newcastle to Edinburgh.

RLBH said:

Do we know that it couldn't be made to pay? No, of course not. But the available statistics supported a view in 1963 that it didn't pay its' way. In 2008, with operating economies compared to the pre-closure line and national rail passenger numbers about 35% higher than in 1963, it could. Anything in between is supposition. Given that passenger levels fell consistently from the early 1960s to the late 1970s, didn't really start recovering until 1993, and took until 2000 to get back to pre-Beeching levels, assuming that an operating ratio from 2008 applies to the 1970s and 1980s is decidedly optimistic.

On a very cursory assessment, even with economies I suspect that the line would have become totally uneconomic in about 1972, might just about have covered its' costs for a few years in the late 1980s, but wouldn't really have started paying its' way until 1997.

They were indeed. In fact, the line you keep referencing was closed after the debts were written down and support for socially necessary services became available. The decision to close the line was taken after studies into the potential for economies. It still closed. The line was given every chance to prove that it could be worked at a reasonable cost, but never did.

True, they never actually tried working it as a single line - but they didn't need to, the costings could have been done fairly accurately and the traffic levels were known. There was no point spending money on an experiment if all the evidence suggested that the line would still prove uneconomic.

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Well, we have to remember that Uckfield to Lewes wasn't originally considered on its own, but as part of Hurst Green to Lewes. That section of line was closed after the North section had been reprieved. Any calculations as to whether the whole was viable became meaningless once the northern section was to stay. Removal of that section to the South, could only damage the utility and sustainability of the remaining line to Uckfield.

I'd be interested to know the details of your "cursory" assessment, and whether it included the effect that removing journey opportunities to the South would have had on the rest of the line.

Your assertion that the line was given "every chance" to prove that it could be worked at reasonable cost is fantasy.

RLBH said:

More likely, it was closed because of faulty data, or because other factors made the Swanage line impracticable. I don't argue that all the closures were correct, only that they were made with the best interests of the railway at heart.

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But if this line was closed because of faulty data, how are we supposed to believe that "costings had been done fairly accurately and that traffic levels were known" on other routes such as Uckfield - Lewes. I'm curious as to what these other factors could have been. The fact that nobody knows what they were suggests a lack of transparency, but then this was pre-freedom of information.

I'm afraid that I don't believe for one moment that those civil servants who colluded to try to instigate more closures during the 1970's had the best interests of the railway or its passengers at heart.

Ken H said:

Without the pruning Beeching did, I think a lot of investment later would not have been government approved. Stuff like Merry go Round, Mk3 coach and HST, Continuous Welded Rail (Yes, that was investment then, not renewal), new signalling, Freightliner. But he went too far and didnt examine the lower cost railway with paytrains for example. And would he have shut the railway to tourist honeypots to places like Keswick had he known how these places would develop?

A read of Gerard Feinnes' book 'I Tried to run a railway' gives a nice insight into the management of the railway at that time.

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The low-cost basic railway was fiercely resisted by the unions for the job losses involved, so BR really had its hands tied in what it could do, and it's a classic case of unions shooting themselves in the foot (much like the current DOO dispute). In any case, it was usually only possible to operate an infrequent service for a limited part of the day on heavily rationalised lines, at which point it became unattractive to use, and people started using alternatives because they were more convenient.

The argument that lines shouldn't have closed because Beeching should have been clairvoyant enough to know how busy they'd be in 50 years' time is a bit ridiculous. No-one could easily have foreseen how much travel patterns would change, and the closures came about because of an urgent need to turn financial performance around immediately. Long-term planning was a luxury the railway just couldn't afford at the time.

yorksrob said:

There is evidence all over the country, in the form of all the routes which supposedly "had to close" but didn't.

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I'm not buying that one. There's also plenty of routes that Beeching didn't target (Oxford to Cambridge is one) that subsequently closed. All that happened is that closures slowed down and petered out once it was decided to subsidise certain routes and write off BR's historic debts. The "evil anti-railway minion of Marples" is an enthusiast bogeyman, nothing more.

Pigeon said:

Of course it was an option. The requirement was set by the government and the government could have changed it.

The whole idea that a nationalised industry still somehow "has" to be crippled by the same requirement to pay interest that applies to a private body which has of necessity to borrow from usurers is up the creek in any case. It should go without saying that a public service can borrow from the government instead and avoid the interest millstone. Especially in the case of railways where even a casual glance at the history shows innumerable examples of railways where it was that millstone that sunk them, but once that had been dealt with by the original company going bust were taken over by the nearest big outfit and operated successfully for years.

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The railway wasn't a public service. It was a commercial entity that was owned by the government, and (at first) expected to make the government a financial return. The railway couldn't change that requirement.

yorksrob said:

I'd be interested to know the details of your "cursory" assessment, and whether it included the effect that removing journey opportunities to the South would have had on the rest of the line.

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Operating ratio was estimated in 2008 as 1.63, take that as read. Assume that traffic levels on the line would be proportional to those in the country as a whole, which are readily available, that income varies directly with passenger numbers, and that inflation on income and expenses cancels itself out. It's an incredibly basic assessment that wouldn't last five minutes in a serious study.

yorksrob said:

Your assertion that the line was given "every chance" to prove that it could be worked at reasonable cost is fantasy.

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What other chances do you want to give it? The desktop studies of economy measures clearly found that the cost couldn't be reduced far enough, since the line was closed despite significant effort trying to find ways to make it viable. 'Try it and see' is not an acceptable answer.

yorksrob said:

I'm curious as to what these other factors could have been.

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As an arbitrary example - the branch may historically have been worked from a depot that was rendered unnecessary by modernisation of the main line. Revising working arrangements for the branch, or fully burdening it with the cost of the otherwise unnecessary depot, may have made it uneconomic under the new circumstances.

yorksrob said:

I'm afraid that I don't believe for one moment that those civil servants who colluded to try to instigate more closures during the 1970's had the best interests of the railway or its passengers at heart.

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If there was a sinister anti-railway cabal, why have we got such an extensive network?

Journeyman said:

The low-cost basic railway was fiercely resisted by the unions for the job losses involved, so BR really had its hands tied in what it could do, and it's a classic case of unions shooting themselves in the foot (much like the current DOO dispute). In any case, it was usually only possible to operate an infrequent service for a limited part of the day on heavily rationalised lines, at which point it became unattractive to use, and people started using alternatives because they were more convenient.

The argument that lines shouldn't have closed because Beeching should have been clairvoyant enough to know how busy they'd be in 50 years' time is a bit ridiculous. No-one could easily have foreseen how much travel patterns would change, and the closures came about because of an urgent need to turn financial performance around immediately. Long-term planning was a luxury the railway just couldn't afford at the time.

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Someone was obviously "clairvoyant" enough to realise that Hurst Green to Uckfield was needed, and that was in the same decade.

Beeching isn't solelyto blame for the debacle. But he had an important position forming policy before becoming Chairman.

Journeyman said:

I'm not buying that one. There's also plenty of routes that Beeching didn't target (Oxford to Cambridge is one) that subsequently closed. All that happened is that closures slowed down and petered out once it was decided to subsidise certain routes and write off BR's historic debts. The "evil anti-railway minion of Marples" is an enthusiast bogeyman, nothing more.

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All that illustrates is how random the process of closing railways was. Take a railway that closed and you could easily find that it was in a better position to generate traffic than one which survived. It just goes to illustrate what a poorly executed and futile exercise it was.

RLBH said:

Operating ratio was estimated in 2008 as 1.63, take that as read. Assume that traffic levels on the line would be proportional to those in the country as a whole, which are readily available, that income varies directly with passenger numbers, and that inflation on income and expenses cancels itself out. It's an incredibly basic assessment that wouldn't last five minutes in a serious study.

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Well, it's not really enough to justify closure of it or the hobbling of the remaining section to Uckfield with a dead end service.

RLBH said:

What other chances do you want to give it? The desktop studies of economy measures clearly found that the cost couldn't be reduced far enough, since the line was closed despite significant effort trying to find ways to make it viable. 'Try it and see' is not an acceptable answer.

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What chances was it given exactly ?

The route had full track and full station facilities to the end from the pictures I've seen. I've read various potential factors including the wish to build a by-pass across the route (without the road protagonists paying for a bridge, naturally), the need for repairs on the viaduct through Lewes (where have we seen that excuse before), a grant available towards the Northern section not being available South of Uckfield due to it being too far from London.

I wouldn't mind betting that this desktop study didn't evaluate the traffic lost to the South of Uckfield, just as no one bothered to evaluate how much money these closures were actually saving.

RLBH said:

As an arbitrary example - the branch may historically have been worked from a depot that was rendered unnecessary by modernisation of the main line. Revising working arrangements for the branch, or fully burdening it with the cost of the otherwise unnecessary depot, may have made it uneconomic under the new circumstances.

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Well, by the time it closed it was worked by a Southern Region thumper which presumably lived at Bournemouth with heavy maintenance at Eastleigh. Hardly a circuitous ECS regime by any stretch.

Anyhow, according to "Rail Magazine" 835, September 13-26, 2017, page 68, even the Southern Region Area Manager at the time of closure felt that the closure was a "great mistake" due to the number of passengers using it. Isn't it shocking that even he couldn't influence the powers that be to moderate their belief in cutting route mileage.

RLBH said:

If there was a sinister anti-railway cabal, why have we got such an extensive network?

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There was indeed a sinister cabal, which is why we have such a moth eaten, not fit for purpose network that we're unable to expand today.

yorksrob said:

...the wish to build a by-pass across the route (without the road protagonists paying for a bridge, naturally)

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This. Great conspiracy involving Lewes council and other governmental bodies to get the route closed so they could put their bridge on it, instead of, you know, like, putting it somewhere else, or building it bigger so the railway could go underneath.

What is it with councils thinking they can build bypasses on top of other people's stuff and make the people whose stuff is getting destroyed pay for it? Like the Severn Valley having to pay for a bridge over Bridgnorth bypass to avoid having Bridgnorth station cut off, instead of the council paying for it and also paying the SVR compensation for the disruption. No wonder Douglas Adams picked bypass construction as the Vogons' excuse for destroying Earth.

Pigeon said:

This. Great conspiracy involving Lewes council and other governmental bodies to get the route closed so they could put their bridge on it, instead of, you know, like, putting it somewhere else, or building it bigger so the railway could go underneath.

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Indeed. Sadly I get the impression they were pushing against an open door at the time.

People who don't believe that there was an establishment prejudice against the railways surviving ought to read "Holding the Line" by Faulkner and Austin. (Thank-you whoever recommended it here.)
I haven't finished it yet, but it's clear that totally different justifications applied then (as now) to the costings of a rail service being judged for survival (or reopening) and road schemes.
I think this is mainly because a) there is a powerful well-entrenched road lobby with most academics and engineers brainwashed into their way of thinking, plus b) it is possible to cost a rail scheme or judge its survival and then to see all the fares income, whereas most of the current costs of a road or the benefits of the scheme are dispersed onto lots of different payers, so it's easy to hide the road price or exaggerate its wider benefits.

AndrewE said:

I haven't finished it yet, but it's clear that totally different justifications applied then (as now) to the costings of a rail service being judged for survival (or reopening) and road schemes.

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I strongly believe that this is the case, but not because of an institutionalised dislike of railways.

I think this happens because government sees roads as something it is expected to provide for the common good; railways are seen as basically a commercial enterprise that should more or less cover their costs and ideally return a profit. That bias will, in turn, benefit road over rail, as will the natural advantages of roads. And yes, they do have natural advantages - you can easily keep a road vehicle of your own, and use it on the public highway whenever you want.

Should that bias exist? No, of course it shouldn't. Would it have been helpful for the government to have recognised that the railways needed ongoing support in 1955, or 1948, or even earlier? Absolutely. But railway managers were faced with an environment where the bias did exist, and where they weren't getting ongoing support. They couldn't responsibly make decisions based on what the world should have looked like, only what it did.

Were mistakes made in deciding on which closures to make? Almost certainly - and this probably extends to some lines being retained that should have been closed, had better data been available. But I believe that the decisions were made in the best interests of the railway, simply because a lot of them were. The same people that closed idle branch lines approved the West Coast Main Line electrification, the HST, and Freightliner. If they'd wanted to cripple the network, they'd have refused any kind of expenditure on modernisation.

Since the late 1960s, there's been a recognition that some rail services won't cover their costs and need subsidies, which has stabilised the network. This is, broadly, a good thing.

RLBH said:

I strongly believe that this is the case, but not because of an institutionalised dislike of railways.

I think this happens because government sees roads as something it is expected to provide for the common good; railways are seen as basically a commercial enterprise that should more or less cover their costs and ideally return a profit. That bias will, in turn, benefit road over rail, as will the natural advantages of roads. And yes, they do have natural advantages - you can easily keep a road vehicle of your own, and use it on the public highway whenever you want.

Should that bias exist? No, of course it shouldn't. Would it have been helpful for the government to have recognised that the railways needed ongoing support in 1955, or 1948, or even earlier? Absolutely. But railway managers were faced with an environment where the bias did exist, and where they weren't getting ongoing support. They couldn't responsibly make decisions based on what the world should have looked like, only what it did.

Were mistakes made in deciding on which closures to make? Almost certainly - and this probably extends to some lines being retained that should have been closed, had better data been available. But I believe that the decisions were made in the best interests of the railway, simply because a lot of them were. The same people that closed idle branch lines approved the West Coast Main Line electrification, the HST, and Freightliner. If they'd wanted to cripple the network, they'd have refused any kind of expenditure on modernisation.

Since the late 1960s, there's been a recognition that some rail services won't cover their costs and need subsidies, which has stabilised the network. This is, broadly, a good thing.

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None of which explains or justifies the frantic and sustained efforts in Whitehall for example, often behind Ministers backs, to push ever more closures even when a settled policy to support socially necessary services was in place.

These were not people making a dispassionate assessment of the facts as they saw them, but people with an ideological belief that the railway network needed to be smaller, contrary to any statistical or political evidence to the contrary.

West Coast electrification is an interesting example to quote, not least because the first section was completed as a result of the modernisation plan, and the high priest of the closure programme himself, Dr Beeching didn't much beleive in electrification anyway (seeing it as too great a capital cost).

AndrewE said:

People who don't believe that there was an establishment prejudice against the railways surviving ought to read "Holding the Line" by Faulkner and Austin. (Thank-you whoever recommended it here.)
I haven't finished it yet, but it's clear that totally different justifications applied then (as now) to the costings of a rail service being judged for survival (or reopening) and road schemes.
I think this is mainly because a) there is a powerful well-entrenched road lobby with most academics and engineers brainwashed into their way of thinking, plus b) it is possible to cost a rail scheme or judge its survival and then to see all the fares income, whereas most of the current costs of a road or the benefits of the scheme are dispersed onto lots of different payers, so it's easy to hide the road price or exaggerate its wider benefits.

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It's also worth bearing in mind that the reason transport policy was pro-road in the sixties is because at the time, demand for road transport was increasing rapidly, while rail use was declining, and this is a reflection of increased prosperity at the time. The government was investing in roads because people wanted that.

Ken H said:

But he went too far and didnt examine the lower cost railway with paytrains for example. And would he have shut the railway to tourist honeypots to places like Keswick had he known how these places would develop?

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But Keswick wasn't a Beeching closure. It went in the early 1970s I believe due a combination of West Coast electrification and road plans.

Just look at the layout at Penrith today. The former Keswick line between Penrith and Redhills is now the Down Loop. Electrification would see faster line speeds so looping freight was essential. The loop was quite heavily used through so trying to path Penrith - Keswick shuttles amongst that would be problematic.

The road plans centred on work to turn the A66 (Scotch Corner to Penrith) into a Teesside to Workington trunk route. The line beyond Keswick had already gone to allow the line formation to be used for road building alongside Bassenthwaite. At Penrith the construction of the Penrith bypass (junctions 39-41 of the M6) coincided with the A66 also bypassing the town and intersecting with the M6 at Junction 40 and continuing as dual carriageway past Redhills. I think some of the line formation was lost there - certainly the South facing junction.