Beeching closures

RT4038 said:

On the contrary, Beeching and Marples did have a vision for railways in rural and semi-rural areas - that there wouldn't be any, as they could not possibly come anywhere close to paying for themselves.

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Well yes, I have to give you that one.

RT4038 said:

Railway management before Beeching had already been closing substantial route mileage (for exactly the same reason as Beeching did) - M&GN, M&SWJ, Mid Wales lines to Brecon, DN&S (and there were many more) - Beeching merely codified this process and sped things up. It is clear the way Railway Management were thinking - the S&D and GC lines had already been prepared for closure before Beeching. I cannot believe that this was just an ad-hoc policy.

I don't think there is any mystery as to why the 'social railway' wasn't thought of until the bulk of the closures had taken place - it was simply unaffordable for the country to retain all that railway network. If it was, then Beeching would not have been appointed in the first place. The concept of the 'social railway' did not come in until 1967, but this did not prevent closures of the Waverley line, Ilfracombe, Minehead, Swanage, East Lincolnshire and others, of which the Government at the time did not feel it could financially support.

If the circumstances of the time were replicated again today, the same results would occur.

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Well, I think we all agree that closures would have continued without Beeching.

The two examples of routes prepared for closure that you cite are interesting ones. I believe that they were run down in conjunction with the regional reorganisation, which saw competing main lines in the same region. By contrast, York - Beverley via Market Weighton had been prepared for rationalisation and automation before Beeching got in. I think that one of the problems with the Beeching era was that the top-down approach gave management lower down the wrong incentives - to try and cut rather than become more economic.

I'm not sure there's a lot of point in debating what lines might have closed had he not been appointed. I stand by my (apparently controversial) observation that Dr Beeching was instrumental in developing the closure policy from the governmental side, before he was appointed Chairman.

yorksrob said:

Well yes, I have to give you that one.



Well, I think we all agree that closures would have continued without Beeching.

The two examples of routes prepared for closure that you cite are interesting ones. I believe that they were run down in conjunction with the regional reorganisation, which saw competing main lines in the same region. By contrast, York - Beverley via Market Weighton had been prepared for rationalisation and automation before Beeching got in. I think that one of the problems with the Beeching era was that the top-down approach gave management lower down the wrong incentives - to try and cut rather than become more economic.

I'm not sure there's a lot of point in debating what lines might have closed had he not been appointed. I stand by my (apparently controversial) observation that Dr Beeching was instrumental in developing the closure policy from the governmental side, before he was appointed Chairman.

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I don't think your observation controversial at all; is it not well known that Beeching developed the policy? (following the failure of the 1955 modernisation plan money to turn around the railway finances, which was a big ask in my opinion even if it all was put to good use, which it wasn't.) He knew there was to be no more money. Reducing the size of the network was the only practical action. Having developed the policy he then got the job of putting it into practice. I wish some modern day policy makers/consultants had to do that too!

'Run down' and 'prepared for closure' are two sides of the same coin. Both lines produced negligible intermediate business and overhead traffic could be diverted to other routes. Like the York-Beverley line, the Central Wales line was prepared for automation, but in both cases this was later judged as not being a good investment, and the money diverted elsewhere.

Economising was put into practice on many lines, and these are still open today. However economising invariably costs investment money, which was seriously in short supply. (A good source was from selling of redundant assets, such as closed line track/land etc). We have discussed this before in relation to the York-Beverley line.

RT4038 said:

I don't think your observation controversial at all; is it not well known that Beeching developed the policy?

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Indeed. Some don't seem to like it being pointed out though.

yorksrob said:

Beeching and Marples believed in a railway doing what they felt the railway did best - long distance intercity transport and urban mass transport. You have stated this yourself often enough, yet you don't seem to want to accept that this vision did not encompass railways in rural and semi-rural areas, and that no amount of cost-benefit study would have changed that

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Can't speak for others but I'm perfectly happy accepting that there's a big difference between "what the railway did best" (i.e. mass transportation, transporting large numbers of people/ freight) and the kind of quaint rural routes that you seem to keep bringing up (the kind of journeys where there's insufficient demand to sustain a commercial minibus service, but you want to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on a railway on the grounds that that's a route the Victorian built).

Just because the railways are great at what they do best doesn't mean they are the best tool to tackle the thin number of passengers in areas of low population density.

Need to stop pretending that heavy rail is the only tool/solution

yorksrob said:

York - Beverley via Market Weighton

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Beeching closed thousand of miles of railway - of course there are going to be some decisions that look poor in hindsight... BUT, if the worst single example if York - Beverley then that suggests he got most things right - it seems to be the example most commonly brought up, so presumably seen s one of his biggest "errors" but it'd not be particularly busy today. As I've said before, if the only remaining railway from York to Hull took until very recently to reach an hourly Pacer/Sprinter (with large gaps until now). If there had been a second York - Hull line (to spread passenger demand between) then the passenger numbers would have been even thinner - maybe two-hourly at best between York and Beverley - if that's the worst you can come up with then I think the good Doctor comes out of this relatively well.

tbtc said:

Need to stop pretending that heavy rail is the only tool/solution

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Well, on another thread, Devon Council want to put a railway back to Tavistock to provide journey opportunities and relieve congestion.

The Council have even bought up the necessary land, but there isn't the money to put a single line back. They're toying with the idea of putting tar mac down on the route and getting people to change to a bus shuttle.

You can't tell me that that's an optimal transport solution. We're getting something majorly wrong here.

tbtc said:

if that's the worst you can come up with then I think the good Doctor comes out of this relatively well.

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Only because a lot of the really stupid closure proposals in the report either never happened (eg. St Ives branch, Exmouth branch, the Glossop line) or have since reopened (eg. Leamington Spa - Coventry - Nuneaton)

Shoreham - Christs Hospital is one of the worst I can think of that went ahead. That and Tunbridge Wells - Lewes and Bere Alston - Okehampton.

yorksrob said:

Well, on another thread, Devon Council want to put a railway back to Tavistock to provide journey opportunities and relieve congestion.

The Council have even bought up the necessary land, but there isn't the money to put a single line back. They're toying with the idea of putting tar mac down on the route and getting people to change to a bus shuttle.

You can't tell me that that's an optimal transport solution. We're getting something majorly wrong here.

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As I've said before, Tavistock - Plymouth could be a reasonable rail line, a simple route from a town into the nearest big city, a corridor that has four commercial buses per hour (Stagecoach 1), what's not to like.

Seems strange that Were Alston was retained, when Tavistock seems a much more obvious terminus.

Except, when I previously suggested it as a relatively simple line into Tavistock I was told by someone on here that they were against "stubs" and that a Tavistock line wouldn't deliver the benefits of an all singing all dancing line through to Okehampton (capable of handling the diverted traffic caused by any closure of the Dawlish line)... wonder who that was?

(Tavistock - Okehampton would be a nonsense re-opening, mind)

tbtc said:

As I've said before, Tavistock - Plymouth could be a reasonable rail line, a simple route from a town into the nearest big city, a corridor that has four commercial buses per hour (Stagecoach 1), what's not to like.

Seems strange that Were Alston was retained, when Tavistock seems a much more obvious terminus.

Except, when I previously suggested it as a relatively simple line into Tavistock I was told by someone on here that they were against "stubs" and that a Tavistock line wouldn't deliver the benefits of an all singing all dancing line through to Okehampton (capable of handling the diverted traffic caused by any closure of the Dawlish line)... wonder who that was?

(Tavistock - Okehampton would be a nonsense re-opening, mind)

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It wouldn't deliver all the benefits of the through route to Okehampton.

But it would be a good start. But it seems we can't even manage that.

yorksrob said:

Source - me.

You only have to look at the Kent electrification scheme to see how the Southern Region would have done the scheme properly, given the resources.

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Could you enlighten us as to the differences, and the superiority of CEPs over REPs?

30907 said:

Could you enlighten us as to the differences, and the superiority of CEPs over REPs?

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Having worked extensively with both, on their respective 'divisions', the performance awards all went to the REPs. Grinding up the Sole Street bank on a CEP you almost wanted to put your foot out of the door (metaphorically of course).

30907 said:

Could you enlighten us as to the differences, and the superiority of CEPs over REPs?

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Of course.

Kent Coast, almost complete electrification, including connecting routes, such as the Medway Valley and Ashford - Ramsgate (even the Marshlink was included, but was dropped - hence the concrete electrification footbridge at Rye)

Bournemouth, connecting lines such as Fareham- Southampton/Eastleigh and Alton - Winchester left as diesel islands. Even the main line to Weymouth wasn't included.

Kent Coast, with the exception of a year or so when some 6 COR units were assembled from old Brighton line units, Kent got enough CEP's and HAP's to run a full service.

Bournemouth, didn't get enough 4REP's to run the service until a mini-batch was built in 1974. For years they had to make do with the VAB unit (made up of VEP vehicles and a re-wired buffet car) to run the express timetable,

Kent Coast, lots of re-modelling of stations and track layouts was done at places such as Ashford, Folkestone, Swanley etc to increase flexibility and capacity.

Bournemouth, the route was electrified more or less as was.

Whilst the Bournemouth scheme was good at making do with what you've got, the Kent scheme was a comprehensive rebuild for the future.

Of course, as units, I understand the REP's had a lot of welly

yorksrob said:

It wouldn't deliver all the benefits of the through route to Okehampton.But it would be a good start. But it seems we can't even manage that.

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In 2008, as part of their proposals to build an 800 home development in the Tavistock area, the Kilbride group offered to pay for the reinstatement of the line to Bere Alston with a new station to the south of the former station in Tavistock and in 2010, they published a fully detailed prospectus as part of their submission to Devon County Council.

Not so long after that, there was a very long running thread of posting discussions on this website with a goodly number of postings made upon it, but time overcame that thread. Does anyone still remember that thread and the discussions made?

Xenophon PCDGS said:

In 2008, as part of their proposals to build an 800 home development in the Tavistock area, the Kilbride group offered to pay for the reinstatement of the line to Bere Alston with a new station to the south of the former station in Tavistock and in 2010, they published a fully detailed prospectus as part of their submission to Devon County Council.

Not so long after that, there was a very long running thread of posting discussions on this website with a goodly number of postings made upon it, but time overcame that thread. Does anyone still remember that thread and the discussions made?

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I remember it well. The sad thing is that here we are five years later and nothing has been done.

Just to round up on the Bournemouth electrification, before getting back to closures (and re-openings), the reason that it was a ‘silver class’ scheme was that that was all that could be afforded (or was necessary in the transport context of the time). The secondary and branch lines had already been dieselised under the Modernisation Plan (or would be, with cascaded units from closures). It was really only the Main Line that still had steam traction that had to be replaced. (Let’s not get into micro-discussions about the Lymington Branch or Clapham Junction-Kensington Olympia.)

The basic point that still doesn’t seem to be recognised is that there was a desperate shortage of capital for investment. The idea that scarce funds would be thrown at Winchester-Alton just for ‘tidiness’ is absurd. I fully appreciate the benefits of the Kent Coast scheme, which I used on a daily basis when I lived and worked in Kent, but that had been very ‘fortunate’ to get quite a large slice of the Modernisation Plan cash in a relatively small part of the network. Even then it was de-scoped, with both routes to Hastings being found to be unachievable.

tbtc said:

Seems strange that Were Alston was retained, when Tavistock seems a much more obvious terminus.

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It seems fairly clear to me that Tavistock had a reasonable A road into Plymouth so the assumption was that buses would provide the main transport link. Anyone who's tried to visit Bere Alston by road will know it would be practically impossible to provide a good bus service there, and although places on the Gunnislake branch have reasonable roads the Tamar estuary cuts them off from the main destination of Plymouth. So the railway was kept to serve the places the buses couldn't. Another example might be why halts were kept at Freshford and Avoncliff but the much larger settlements of Limpley Stoke and Bathampton lost theirs.

This fell down for two reasons. Firstly the buses were run independently and not intergrated with the surviving rail network, and secondly there was no anticipation that the development of reasonably comfortable and reliable buses was the result of developments of vehicle technology that were also making car ownership much more widespread. Between them these led to the traffic congestion that now makes bus journeys into Plymouth from Tavistock or Bath from Limpley Stoke very slow and unreliable.

The Beeching approach was based on traffic patterns of the time. Tavistock in 1962 had not only a regular bus to Plymouth (every 30 minutes or better?) but this had scooped the bulk of the traffic. The buses ran from the centre of both places while both stations were somewhat out of the way. Notably, with recent expansion of the town, much building has been either side of the main Plymouth road, not near the station.

I wonder what was so wrong with the Bournemouth scheme, it seemed to serve very well, and the service in 1967 was a sight faster from Waterloo to Bournemouth than today. Once you get beyond Poole nowadays, which I do regularly, I've never known a train where the load would not fit into a 153 single car (often the best load is the last stretch from Dorchester to Weymouth).

The basic point that still doesn’t seem to be recognised is that there was a desperate shortage of capital for investment.

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Really? This was right in the middle of the complete replacement of most traction in the previous and following few years, diesel and electric, locos and multiple units. There was also a substantial carriage building programme, a lot of the last build of Mk 1 was followed by a sustained Mk 2 programme, with significant improvements each few years. The Southern replaced all their big fleet of pre-war main line emus. Freightliners, welded rail, merry-go-round coal, power signalling, air braking, the investment was substantial - where justified.

Dr Hoo said:

Just to round up on the Bournemouth electrification, before getting back to closures (and re-openings), the reason that it was a ‘silver class’ scheme was that that was all that could be afforded (or was necessary in the Transport context of the time). The secondary and branch lines had already been dieselised under the Modernisation Plan (or would be, with cascaded units from closures). It was really only the Main Line that still had steam traction that had to be replaced. (Let’s not get into micro-discussions about the Lymington Branch or Clapham Junction-Kensington Olympia.

The basic point that still doesn’t seem to be recognised is that there was a desperate shortage of capital for investment. The idea that scarce funds would be thrown at Winchester-Alton just for ‘tidiness’ is absurd. I fully appreciate the benefits of the Kent Coast scheme, which I used on a daily basis when I lived and worked in Kent, but that had been very ‘fortunate’ to get quite a large slice of the Modernisation Plan cash in a relatively small part of the network. Even then it was de-scoped, with both routes to Hastings being found to be unachievable.

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Wasn't Winchester - Alton regularly used as a diversionary route up until (and during) the main line electrification ? Therefore its inclusion would have been operationally useful beyond just tidying up.

Without denigrating the 1st gen DEMU's (which were splendid trains in their own right) I can't help but think that there would be more railway open in the South West had a more comprehensive scheme been implemented.

That is in no way to denigrate those on the ground who planned and implemented the scheme with limited funds - had Government policy been less road orientated, I've no doubt that they would have come up with something every bit as gold as the Kent scheme had been.

R.e. the Kent scheme, it was my understanding that Tonbridge - St Leonards had never been included in the scope, due to the need for non-standard rolling stock ?

When I worked in the Hampshire area nobody really seemed to ‘miss’ the Winchester-Alton line. Although it had historically been used for diversions it only helped for the Basingstoke-Winchester section, which was a fairly straightforward bit of railway with not much to go wrong (although it had its moments).
Especially once the Laverstock Curve had been re-opened diversions via Andover and Romsey we’re far more straightforward. Resourcing a few Class 33s at Eastleigh for ‘drags’ didn’t seem unduly difficult and the 27-way control cables made these quick to set up. There was something seriously wrong if you couldn’t be ready to move again within four minutes of coming to a stand with a locomotive handy. The Laverstock route allowed access to Southampton in either direction (via Chandlers Ford or Redbridge). It could also handle freight and ‘cross-country’ services for which the line via Alton was no use at all.
On the Hastings line, I was never clear why special gauge EMUs could not have been built. The diesel option reduced the capital requirement even in the 1950s.

On Taunton’s post, I was under the impression that passenger rolling stock construction ‘ran down’ quite sharply around 1962 as most EMUs and Modernisation Plan DMUs had been built. (Yes, I know that some, like the Class 310 and 311s we’re still to come.) For locomotive-hauled stock there seemed to be a pause as Beeching and his team got to grips with workshop rationalisation, the transition to integral construction (Mark IIs), the switch to air braking and the swap to electric train heating. But I have never got my head round the figures and would be happy to learn (perhaps in a new thread).

Is anybody seriously suggesting that there wasn’t a ‘desperate’ shortage of investment capital for BR in the mid-1960s? (At least until the Transport Act 1968 came along to hand out a splurge of Surplus Track Capacity Grant cash to heavily rationalise those struggling regional routes that had survived the Reshaping Report.)

Northampton - Peterborough line has been a major loss in our area. The only east-west roads, the A45 / A605, are overloaded and getting busier owing to huge population growth in the Nene valley area of Northants and the development of enormous distribution depots around the main towns, fed by the A14 Felixstowe-Birmingham trunk road with its 24-hour container traffic. Getting into Northampton or Peterborough in the mornings takes twice the time of 15 years ago, and there is no realistic alternative to the car.

Dr Hoo said:

When I worked in the Hampshire area nobody really seemed to ‘miss’ the Winchester-Alton line. Although it had historically been used for diversions it only helped for the Basingstoke-Winchester section, which was a fairly straightforward bit of railway with not much to go wrong (although it had its moments).
Especially once the Laverstock Curve had been re-opened diversions via Andover and Ramsey we’re far more straightforward. Resourcing a few Class 33s at Eastleigh for ‘drags’ didn’t seem unduly difficult and the 27-way control cables made these quick to set up. There was something seriously wrong if you couldn’t be ready to move again within four minutes of coming to a stand with a locomotive handy. The Laverstock route allowed access to Southampton in either direction (via Chandlers Ford or Redbridge. It could also handle freight and ‘cross-country’ services for which the line via Alton was no use at all.
On the Hastings line, I was never clear why special gauge EMUs could not have been built. The diesel option reduced the capital requirement even in the 1950s.

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Those are certainly some interesting insights into the time.

edwin_m said:

It seems fairly clear to me that Tavistock had a reasonable A road into Plymouth so the assumption was that buses would provide the main transport link. Anyone who's tried to visit Bere Alston by road will know it would be practically impossible to provide a good bus service there, and although places on the Gunnislake branch have reasonable roads the Tamar estuary cuts them off from the main destination of Plymouth. So the railway was kept to serve the places the buses couldn't. Another example might be why halts were kept at Freshford and Avoncliff but the much larger settlements of Limpley Stoke and Bathampton lost theirs.

This fell down for two reasons. Firstly the buses were run independently and not intergrated with the surviving rail network, and secondly there was no anticipation that the development of reasonably comfortable and reliable buses was the result of developments of vehicle technology that were also making car ownership much more widespread. Between them these led to the traffic congestion that now makes bus journeys into Plymouth from Tavistock or Bath from Limpley Stoke very slow and unreliable.

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In the late 50s/early 60s the bus industry was not without its problems too. Off peak travel in particular was falling off at an alarming rate, largely due to TVs (reducing evening traffic to Cinemas), Refrigerators (no need to go shopping every day) and cars (affecting weekend traffic). The bus companies were also short on investment capital, and in many (particularly urban and semi-urban areas) desperately short of staff. However, in most areas a good frequency and network of services was operated, with lumbering but fairly comfortable crew operated buses on routes running fairly directly between A & B. Traffic congestion was only a problem in a small number of places, but this was getting steadily worse.
Most bus routes tended to operate for local traffic; indeed they had denuded all but the best placed local and branch line trains of most of their passengers over the preceeding 40 years or so.
The bus companies did not really want rail replacement services, taking up precious staff and vehicle resources, and often running in competition with their already splendid services. Short sighted possibly, but a real issue at the time. Nor did they wish to burden their existing routes with diversions via Railway Stations (unless really convenient) or commit to connections with unpunctual trains at inconvenient times for perhaps an odd passenger of two, but annoying the (mostly) local passengers who had no interest in rail travel on any scale. On many lines there were so few passengers travelling on the trains for whom existing bus services were not nearly as convenient that it was hardly worthwhile making any effort for the others at all.
In order to reduce their costs, the bus companies introduced one-man buses, with the twin advantages of reducing staff numbers required and being able to pay the remainder higher wages to make the job more attractive. However the downside was the need for more powerful and faster buses, to enable existing journey times to be maintained while spending longer time at the stops collecting fares. This started a downhill ride in comfort.
As car traffic increased and congestion worsened, by-passes were built and the roads littered with roundabouts and traffic calming measures, which made buses slower relative to cars and certainly less comfortable as passengers are lurched this way and that. Which now makes anything other than a short bus journey fairly unpleasant.
Not that anyone can possibly have foreseen this in 1963.

RT4038 said:

As car traffic increased and congestion worsened, by-passes were built and the roads littered with roundabouts and traffic calming measures, which made buses slower relative to cars and certainly less comfortable as passengers are lurched this way and that. Which now makes anything other than a short bus journey fairly unpleasant.
Not that anyone can possibly have foreseen this in 1963.

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Er...

Traffic in Towns was an influential report and popular book on urban and transport planning policy published 25 November 1963 for the UK Ministry of Transport by a team headed by the architect, civil engineer and planner Professor Sir Colin Buchanan.[1][2] The report warned of the potential damage caused by the motor car, while offering ways to mitigate it.[3] It gave planners a set of policy blueprints to deal with its effects on the urban environment, including traffic containment and segregation, which could be balanced against urban redevelopment, new corridor and distribution roads and precincts.

These policies shaped the development of the urban landscape in the UK and some other countries for two or three decades.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_in_Towns

yorksrob said:

Waffle.

Do you dispute the fact that it was BR policy at the time to run down and close regional routes such as the S&C, and that the fact that so many survived was down to the action of the public and a few enlightened BR managers, in the face of company policy ?

I'd like to see your historical evidence to the contrary.

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And the S&C continues to loose loads of money that old be spent when there are lots of people needing decent transport to get to work.

There were a few places where buses connected readily with the station (Scotland always did well; I recall Aberdeen, country bus station alongside and most city buses at the end of the street), but this was generally a chance, and particularly where the rail station was well sited in the urban area anyway. Both Taunton and Bristol built the bus station at the opposite end of the central area to the rail station, and they were much better sited. It always struck me that the only places from Taunton that had a good bus service - frequent, 7 days a week) were places on the railway; Wellington, Bridgwater, even Wiveliscombe. They had lost the bulk of their local traffic when buses became reliable, cheap and frequent in the 1930s.

Regarding the S&C, it was not BR's policy to run it down out of some sort of spite. But it cost a considerable amount to run (still does) and took a pittance of income (still does). Last time I went on it, actually using it for a "proper" purpose for a business trip embracing Doncaster and Carlisle, it was just a 2-car, half the seats had been reserved for a coach party for a small portion of the run, and I still had a double seat to myself. It was actually quite useful for BR in the 1960s-70s for unbraked freights which were removed from Shap, and became useful again for coal trains in the 2000s. But all these traffics could have been readily handled on other routes. I see the remaining coal traffic from Scottish opencast to Drax now runs via Gateshead. And it would have taken me the same time, and been more frequent. connecting at Manchester or Newcastle.

chorleyjeff said:

And the S&C continues to loose loads of money that old be spent when there are lots of people needing decent transport to get to work.

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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.

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.

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.

yorksrob said:

Of course, as units, I understand the REP's had a lot of welly

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Well, yes. You have what is effectively the electrical gubbins from two class 73s running in multiple with two mk1s in between. 3200hp compared to the 1000hp of your typical CEP/VEP/455 unit. Alone they work take off like a demented bat! Of course with 2x4TCs hooked on the power to weight becomes more evenly matched. 3200hp to shift 12 car REP+TC with 2 motor sets vs 3000hp of a 12 car EP or IG unit but with 3 motor sets still gives the REP the edge.

Anyway I digress.....

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