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Beeching closures

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Dr Hoo

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What does not "selected for development" mean, if not managed decline.
It was ironic that rejection of The Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes by Fraser effectively led to an extended period of non-development of any routes. Most obviously the electrification capability built up on both the WCML and Bournemouth schemes was allowed to dissipate. Closures continued on a large scale (even including some not proposed in the Reshaping Report). The hoped-for momentum of a new liner train (intermodal) network was allowed to stall by hiving it off from BR to a new, road-dominated National Freight Corporation. The new PTEs, as established, were allowed to focus heavily on buses to the neglect of surviving suburban rail services in many areas. Surplus Track Capacity Grants were at last introduced (which might have been useful a few years earlier for schemes such as singling lines like Market Weighton) but as most of those kind of lines had been shut completely ended up being applied to secondary main lines such as Salisbury-Exeter and Oxford-Worcester.
The Network for Development was principally focussed on freight potential anyway (and was heavily influenced by government ambitions for up to 4% compound economic growth per annum that never came remotely near to being realised).
Little of this sad saga can fairly be blamed on Dr B.
 
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RT4038

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And yet, mysteriously they managed to get the basic railway past those same rank and file railwaymen later on in that decade.

Yes, once they had been shell shocked by the huge numbers of closures, and the prospect of more to come. It still took years of negotiations to achieve, and initially (mainly) on the hopeless lines reprieved which were a drain on the finances.
 

Bevan Price

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You are looking at the 1955/1963 York-Market Weighton-Hull timetable and likely traffic through the prism of 2019 conditions. In 1955 only the more senior and rich businessmen/ professional people would have been able to commute from Market Weighton to Hull, and starting work at 10h00 would have been perfectly acceptable. In those days, most people living in Market Weighton who got a job in Hull would have simply moved there. This might seem strange in this day and age of low personal living mobility, but that was perfectly possible and the preferred option then. Any long(er) distance commuting by ordinary people were probably railwaymen on reduced rate tickets. By 1963 things had started to change, and to be fair, the timetable had changed too. The amount of middle class commuting had probably started to rise (as the standard of living rose), but still relatively few would have afforded the fares. On a line like this, I am not sure of the significance of the last trains at 19h30 or thereabouts. Not many people in the provinces would be travelling to the country districts after then - we are talking 1955/63, not 2019. The cost of keeping 24 crossing keepers, and signalmen at work would probably be a good economic reason too.
.

There is a sort of chicken versus egg situation here - which came first - would a better timetable attract more customers - or do we keep the old timetable because there are few passengers ?. Plenty of working class people did commute in the 1950s, but not the long distances into London that are now commonplace. Probably 20 to 30 mile commutes to work were not uncommon outside London in the 1950s - there were always plenty on the trains I used as a student.

The problem on some lines is that they were unable to commute by rail because there were no suitable trains. So - many might have preferred to remain in (for example) Market Weighton, "but moving to Hull" would have been the only available option. "The railway" had failed to recognise a potential market of commuting workers.
 

yorksrob

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It was ironic that rejection of The Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes by Fraser effectively led to an extended period of non-development of any routes. Most obviously the electrification capability built up on both the WCML and Bournemouth schemes was allowed to dissipate. Closures continued on a large scale (even including some not proposed in the Reshaping Report). The hoped-for momentum of a new liner train (intermodal) network was allowed to stall by hiving it off from BR to a new, road-dominated National Freight Corporation. The new PTEs, as established, were allowed to focus heavily on buses to the neglect of surviving suburban rail services in many areas. Surplus Track Capacity Grants were at last introduced (which might have been useful a few years earlier for schemes such as singling lines like Market Weighton) but as most of those kind of lines had been shut completely ended up being applied to secondary main lines such as Salisbury-Exeter and Oxford-Worcester.
The Network for Development was heavily focussed on freight potential anyway (and was heavily influenced by government ambitions for up to 4% compound economic growth per annum that never came remotely near to being realised).
Little of this sad saga can fairly be blamed on Dr B.

One has to ask why Mr Marples didn't introduce the surplus track capacity grant during his time in office, or why Beeching didn't propose it when he was forming policy. As you say, it could have been very useful on such lines.

The whole saga seems to be based on the complete neglect of existing passengers, in favour of freight flows that may or may not have actually developed, and remote governments and civil servants, which were allowed to operate without scrutiny.
 

yorksrob

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Yes, once they had been shell shocked by the huge numbers of closures, and the prospect of more to come. It still took years of negotiations to achieve, and initially (mainly) on the hopeless lines reprieved which were a drain on the finances.

Or the management just didn't attemt to come to an agreement on the issue. Is there any evidence that Beeching even tried to develop a basic railway ? The closures that had been going on throughout the 1950's, could have been an illustration of the outcomes of no rationalisation.
 

Journeyman

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And yet, mysteriously they managed to get the basic railway past those same rank and file railwaymen later on in that decade.

I think it was when the only alternative was blatantly staring them in the face.
 

Journeyman

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One has to ask why Mr Marples didn't introduce the surplus track capacity grant during his time in office, or why Beeching didn't propose it when he was forming policy. As you say, it could have been very useful on such lines.

The whole saga seems to be based on the complete neglect of existing passengers, in favour of freight flows that may or may not have actually developed, and remote governments and civil servants, which were allowed to operate without scrutiny.

In the case of many lines closed in the Beeching era - what passengers were those? It wasn't unheard of, in later years, for GC trains to leave Marylebone without a single passenger on board.

Honestly, I don't know quite what you expect anyone facing BR's finances in the sixties to have done. Governments have to balance a huge amount of priorities, and at the time, people were buying cars in greater numbers, travel habits were changing rapidly, freight handling techniques were also changing, and governments also have to fund other infrastructure development, hospitals, schools, defence, welfare, etc. etc.

You're taking a terribly limited view on this. Any money the government chose to spend on keeping duplicate lines and barely-used branches open was money that couldn't be spent anywhere else. Whatever mistakes may or may not have been made early in BR days, as far as I can tell, Beeching took his duties seriously, made the first ever attempt at a neutral analysis of railway finances, and proposed a programme that he felt would help safeguard the long-term future of the railways, while fitting in with government priorities at the time.

This picture of a pantomime villain closing lines for fun because he hated railways is just ridiculous, and it's about time people moved on from that simplistic nonsense. I've read up extremely widely around the subject of the closures at the time, studied transport planning at degree level, and have worked in the rail industry for 25 years. Beeching's reasoning was sound, and the overwhelming majority of the closures that took place were justifiable and sensible. Given the poor quality of the data he had to work with, which he can't be blamed for, his analysis was pretty spot-on. I think the railway we have left was put on a much sounder footing and was run much more efficiently because of the work he did.
 

chorleyjeff

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There is a sort of chicken versus egg situation here - which came first - would a better timetable attract more customers - or do we keep the old timetable because there are few passengers ?. Plenty of working class people did commute in the 1950s, but not the long distances into London that are now commonplace. Probably 20 to 30 mile commutes to work were not uncommon outside London in the 1950s - there were always plenty on the trains I used as a student.

The problem on some lines is that they were unable to commute by rail because there were no suitable trains. So - many might have preferred to remain in (for example) Market Weighton, "but moving to Hull" would have been the only available option. "The railway" had failed to recognise a potential market of commuting workers.

Indeed yes.In the mid 1960s I lived in Preston and worked in Blackpool. Getting to work on time by rail was difficult and impossible on Saturdays when I had to use the service bus from Preston to Blackpool. And having to flog round the coast to Blackpool South was a drag as well as quite a walk from the town centre. So it was a means of travel of last resort ( ! ) to use the train ( I used my British made motorbike when it was not broken ). If it was so bad on a main route I wonder what it was like on a branch line ?
 

yorksrob

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I think it was when the only alternative was blatantly staring them in the face.

Closure had been staring railwaymen in the face regularly since the 1920's, so the argument was already there to be made. I ask again, did Beeching ever attempt to have that conversation with the Unions ? If he did, but it was clear that there was going to be no way forward, then he might have had more of a point.
 

Journeyman

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Closure had been staring railwaymen in the face regularly since the 1920's, so the argument was already there to be made. I ask again, did Beeching ever attempt to have that conversation with the Unions ? If he did, but it was clear that there was going to be no way forward, then he might have had more of a point.

I'm no expert on this, but yes, I think those conversations had been held, but were constantly met with hostility. There were lots of things that could have been done, but weren't, as a result of this.

You also need to remember that automation may reduce costs in the long run, but needed a lot of money up front, and that was hard to justify on lines being used by three old ladies and a dog on the third Wednesday of the month when the market was on, but empty the rest of the time.
 

yorksrob

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In the case of many lines closed in the Beeching era - what passengers were those? It wasn't unheard of, in later years, for GC trains to leave Marylebone without a single passenger on board.

Honestly, I don't know quite what you expect anyone facing BR's finances in the sixties to have done. Governments have to balance a huge amount of priorities, and at the time, people were buying cars in greater numbers, travel habits were changing rapidly, freight handling techniques were also changing, and governments also have to fund other infrastructure development, hospitals, schools, defence, welfare, etc. etc.

You're taking a terribly limited view on this. Any money the government chose to spend on keeping duplicate lines and barely-used branches open was money that couldn't be spent anywhere else. Whatever mistakes may or may not have been made early in BR days, as far as I can tell, Beeching took his duties seriously, made the first ever attempt at a neutral analysis of railway finances, and proposed a programme that he felt would help safeguard the long-term future of the railways, while fitting in with government priorities at the time.

This picture of a pantomime villain closing lines for fun because he hated railways is just ridiculous, and it's about time people moved on from that simplistic nonsense. I've read up extremely widely around the subject of the closures at the time, studied transport planning at degree level, and have worked in the rail industry for 25 years. Beeching's reasoning was sound, and the overwhelming majority of the closures that took place were justifiable and sensible. Given the poor quality of the data he had to work with, which he can't be blamed for, his analysis was pretty spot-on. I think the railway we have left was put on a much sounder footing and was run much more efficiently because of the work he did.

In the case of York - Beverley, Beeching outlined an average of over 50 passengers per train, which I would suggest isn't that poor, even in the context of some of today's routes, so a little bit of pragmatism wouldn't have gone amiss.

If you think that Beeching's calculations regarding that route were "spot on" then thank goodness you aren't in charge of the country. Thank goodness countless others didn't just sit back and accept what they were told.

You can read it as "pantomime villain" if you like. I would rather see the whole sorry saga remembered for what it was
- The text book example of knee-jerk reaction from a remote and unaccountable Government and civil service, which was hastily thought out and poorly implemented.
 

yorksrob

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I'm no expert on this, but yes, I think those conversations had been held, but were constantly met with hostility. There were lots of things that could have been done, but weren't, as a result of this.

You also need to remember that automation may reduce costs in the long run, but needed a lot of money up front, and that was hard to justify on lines being used by three old ladies and a dog on the third Wednesday of the month when the market was on, but empty the rest of the time.

It's all very well saying that conversations were being held, but was this plan and the possibility to work together to alleviate some of its worst aspects discussed ?


As I say, one third of the worked examples couldn't have been further from the truth of three little old ladies on market day and empty the rest.

Does that mean that a third of the routes listed were also in that category !
 

Journeyman

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If you think that Beeching's calculations regarding that route were "spot on" then thank goodness you aren't in charge of the country. Thank goodness countless others didn't just sit back and accept what they were told.

So...when presented with the utterly horrifying figures, and a railway with operating practices that were akin to shoveling money straight into the firebox, what would you have done? And how would you explain yourself to people clamouring after more expenditure on health, education, motorways etc.?

You can read it as "pantomime villain" if you like. I would rather see the whole sorry saga remembered for what it was
- The text book example of knee-jerk reaction from a remote and unaccountable Government and civil service, which was hastily thought out and poorly implemented.

But the government was accountable - the Tories lost the 1964 general election, and public reaction to the Beeching Report must have been a factor in that.

There's ample evidence that it wasn't hastily thought out at all - we can all criticize Beeching for using poor data and possibly less-than-stellar data analysis techniques compared to today, but then he didn't have the tools available that we have now, and what he attempted to do had never been done before - partly because when the railway was making a profit overall, the fact that parts of it were losing a fortune was irrelevant.

Without a sensible analysis of traffic levels and patterns, a coherent, well-argued programme of closures and investment would have been impossible, and I think you'd have ended up with much more chaotic and drastic things happening a few years later if Beeching hadn't attempted to come up with a plan.

I think you're viewing this with massive enthusiast blinkers of the type that make some people consider any railway closure to be fundamentally evil. I used to think that, and got all sentimental about the loss of routes with geeky appeal, but the more I've studied it, the more I've thought that Beeching was a pragmatist who realized that the mess was extremely serious indeed, and really needed to be resolved quickly.

I really admire his ability to come up with a measured analysis of the situation, and however controversial he might have been, I think he was generally right, even for lines that have subsequently re-opened. He looked at a bigger picture, and realized the railway would only prosper if it did what it was good at, rather than attempting to be all things to all men.
 

frodshamfella

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I was shocked to discover that an electric service beyond Southport to Crossens was closed, I can't understand why that would have happened. So useful now.
 

RT4038

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It's all very well saying that conversations were being held, but was this plan and the possibility to work together to alleviate some of its worst aspects discussed ?


As I say, one third of the worked examples couldn't have been further from the truth of three little old ladies on market day and empty the rest.

Does that mean that a third of the routes listed were also in that category !

Industrial Relations on the railway then were not much different to now. The 1955 ASLEF dispute no doubt fuelled the movement away from relying on the railways and their staff, and towards roads where this kind of organised hold-up is less likely.
You look back at the Beeching era through the prism of 2019. Like now, if every proposal to cut costs is met with uproar, you just don't ask the question any more.
 

RT4038

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One has to ask why Mr Marples didn't introduce the surplus track capacity grant during his time in office, or why Beeching didn't propose it when he was forming policy. As you say, it could have been very useful on such lines.

The whole saga seems to be based on the complete neglect of existing passengers, in favour of freight flows that may or may not have actually developed, and remote governments and civil servants, which were allowed to operate without scrutiny.

A good dose of hyperbole here ..... if one third of the lines contributed 2% of the traffic and they all got closed, this surely means that 98% of the traffic was unaffected (or even improved, with modernisation). Hardly 'complete neglect of existing passengers'.
 

yorksrob

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So...when presented with the utterly horrifying figures, and a railway with operating practices that were akin to shoveling money straight into the firebox, what would you have done? And how would you explain yourself to people clamouring after more expenditure on health, education, motorways etc.?

But the government was accountable - the Tories lost the 1964 general election, and public reaction to the Beeching Report must have been a factor in that.

I've no doubt the Beeching report did factor heavily in the 1964 election. Not that it made any difference - Fraser carried on with the closures as before. When he claimed that he couldn't reverse a decision made by his predecessor, a backbencher helpfully introduced a private members bill which, if successful would have committed in law the right of the current Minister to review the closures already confirmed by his predecessor. Needless to say, this wasn't welcomed by the cabinet as a helpful way to enable the party to fulfil its election promises.

So much for accountability.

There's ample evidence that it wasn't hastily thought out at all - we can all criticize Beeching for using poor data and possibly less-than-stellar data analysis techniques compared to today, but then he didn't have the tools available that we have now, and what he attempted to do had never been done before - partly because when the railway was making a profit overall, the fact that parts of it were losing a fortune was irrelevant.

Without a sensible analysis of traffic levels and patterns, a coherent, well-argued programme of closures and investment would have been impossible, and I think you'd have ended up with much more chaotic and drastic things happening a few years later if Beeching hadn't attempted to come up with a plan.

I don't think that anyone's arguing that he was wrong to undertake his various surveys etc, although some recognition of the data's shortcomings, such as not considering incoming revenue for seaside routes would have been sensible.

That said, he clearly collected enough data to tell the difference between a York - Beverley from a Thetford - Swaffham. I don't think it would have been too much to ask for him to come up with the possibility of a different approach for the York - Beverley's. Maybe he could have suggested it to his paymasters in Government, then it would have been up for them to turn it down.

I think you're viewing this with massive enthusiast blinkers of the type that make some people consider any railway closure to be fundamentally evil. I used to think that, and got all sentimental about the loss of routes with geeky appeal, but the more I've studied it, the more I've thought that Beeching was a pragmatist who realized that the mess was extremely serious indeed, and really needed to be resolved quickly.

I don't think I am arguing that all closures were fundamentally evil, certainly not in the middle of the twentieth century. There were plenty of hopeless cases at the time, but there was nothing remotely pragmatic about relying on one route from London to Brighton or Exeter to Plymouth for example. That just displays a fundamental ignorance of how railways work, in that they need renewals and improvements sometimes.

I really admire his ability to come up with a measured analysis of the situation, and however controversial he might have been, I think he was generally right, even for lines that have subsequently re-opened. He looked at a bigger picture, and realized the railway would only prosper if it did what it was good at, rather than attempting to be all things to all men.

Well, that's where you are fundamentally wrong.

A railway only "doing what it's good at" means heavy freight, urban commuter services and some long distance InterCity type services. This is the core of the railway. But for the core of the railway to prosper, (at least in passenger terms) you need the local and feeder services to feed it, otherwise it won't prosper, and you end up with a withered railway as there is in America for example. A reailway doing what it does best, perhaps, but an irrelevance to the majority population's transport needs.

For a modern railway passenger system to prosper, it needs to be within the reach of the majority of the population.
 

yorksrob

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Industrial Relations on the railway then were not much different to now. The 1955 ASLEF dispute no doubt fuelled the movement away from relying on the railways and their staff, and towards roads where this kind of organised hold-up is less likely.
You look back at the Beeching era through the prism of 2019. Like now, if every proposal to cut costs is met with uproar, you just don't ask the question any more.

Well, he managed to get the closures through, in spite of being the ultimate cost cut.

A good dose of hyperbole here ..... if one third of the lines contributed 2% of the traffic and they all got closed, this surely means that 98% of the traffic was unaffected (or even improved, with modernisation).

Not if you've only counted station revenue and your passengers are mainly incoming.

It's interesting. Coming back to the York - Beverley example, the service directly earnt £90,400, yet even by his own calculation, the main line bit of this service (between York, Hull and possibly some Beverley, for those willing to go the convoluted route) only generated £25,600 of this. That's over 70% generated by the "hopeless" bit.
 

Dr Hoo

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So we’re still back to costs of £150,000 (movement, terminals, track, signalling) to ‘earn’ £64,790 per year. Dr B had launched the ‘subsidy kite’ for routes like Liverpool-Southport but Market Weighton didn’t quite match it.

Meanwhile the North Eastern Region desperately needed scarce investment cash to do things like connecting the new Ferrybridge C power station to network and getting approach routes ready for 5,000,000 tonnes of coal by Merry-go-round per year; Drax ditto, Eggborough ditto, upgrading the ECML track and signalling to exploit the potential of the Deltics and other modern traction; totally reconfiguring Leeds station and its approaches (including absorbing the old Central services); building Tyne Yard, Tees Yard, Healey Mills Yard and re-building Drighouses Yard to remain in business in this intensely industrial region; building new liner train terminals at Newcastle, Stockton, Leeds and Hull.

And, of course, completing the conversion from steam traction, which offered useful re-deployment of diesel assets from heavily loss-making lines.
 

yorksrob

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I think that's actually £90,400 direct earnings a year, plus £37,700 of contributions to other routes, which mysteriously didn't feature in the calculation of the routes earnings, but which were included as part of a net benefit of closure. Funny that !
 

Bevan Price

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So we’re still back to costs of £150,000 (movement, terminals, track, signalling) to ‘earn’ £64,790 per year. Dr B had launched the ‘subsidy kite’ for routes like Liverpool-Southport but Market Weighton didn’t quite match it.

Meanwhile the North Eastern Region desperately needed scarce investment cash to do things like connecting the new Ferrybridge C power station to network and getting approach routes ready for 5,000,000 tonnes of coal by Merry-go-round per year; Drax ditto, Eggborough ditto, upgrading the ECML track and signalling to exploit the potential of the Deltics and other modern traction; totally reconfiguring Leeds station and its approaches (including absorbing the old Central services); building Tyne Yard, Tees Yard, Healey Mills Yard and re-building Drighouses Yard to remain in business in this intensely industrial region; building new liner train terminals at Newcastle, Stockton, Leeds and Hull.

And, of course, completing the conversion from steam traction, which offered useful re-deployment of diesel assets from heavily loss-making lines.

But in some cases, that redeployment was a very poor deal for the passengers - dmus with 3+2 seating, adequate for local services, were inflicted on routes for which they were totally unsuitable, and which probably helped to lose passengers. For example, Manchester to North Wales; Birmingham to Norwich & Cambridge, etc.
 

Journeyman

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Industrial Relations on the railway then were not much different to now. The 1955 ASLEF dispute no doubt fuelled the movement away from relying on the railways and their staff, and towards roads where this kind of organised hold-up is less likely.
You look back at the Beeching era through the prism of 2019. Like now, if every proposal to cut costs is met with uproar, you just don't ask the question any more.

Exactly. There's extremely valid questions that need to be asked about the role of the guard, but the hysteria you get from the RMT at the merest hint of wanting to talk about it means the can gets constantly kicked down the road. People complain about how expensive rail services are, but then refuse to countenance anything that might make them more cost-effective, or tolerate the higher taxes that would be necessary to reach the levels of subsidy enjoyed by some other European nations.

A railway only "doing what it's good at" means heavy freight, urban commuter services and some long distance InterCity type services. This is the core of the railway. But for the core of the railway to prosper, (at least in passenger terms) you need the local and feeder services to feed it, otherwise it won't prosper, and you end up with a withered railway as there is in America for example. A reailway doing what it does best, perhaps, but an irrelevance to the majority population's transport needs.

For a modern railway passenger system to prosper, it needs to be within the reach of the majority of the population.

But the railway is within reach of the majority of the population. That's the whole point. A huge chunk of the network that was closed was a hopeless economic basket case because it was an irrelevance to the majority population's transport needs. Many people had abandoned rural railways because there were better options available to them.

But in some cases, that redeployment was a very poor deal for the passengers - dmus with 3+2 seating, adequate for local services, were inflicted on routes for which they were totally unsuitable, and which probably helped to lose passengers. For example, Manchester to North Wales; Birmingham to Norwich & Cambridge, etc.

It's a better deal than closure.
 

MichaelAMW

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I've always seen the whole Beeching thing as having two principal points:

-- Trying to go from a recent era of random and piecemeal closures to a more coordinated and strategic vision of the future network, which might need some tough decisions but at least had a look at the overall picture
-- A recognition that so many lines were originally opened because the developers saw income from local freight as their goal. They didn't even want passenger services but the Act of Parliament that allowed them to build the line required a passenger service to be operated - don't forget our regular chats about "Parliamentary" services. The passenger service, without the cross-subsidy from the freight, was a basket case from day one and once the freight was gone, often owing to war-surplus lorries bought up by ex-soldiers starting a little local transport business, the line was a basket case - full stop. All that infrastructure for five passenger trains a day with a total of 100 people. The GC only ever reached a service frequency out of Marylebone of about hourly, and some of them only got as far as north Bucks - my mid-50s Bradshaw has just 6 trains a day to Sheffield - but there were over 100 coal trains a day that actually made the money.
 

Journeyman

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-- Trying to go from a recent era of random and piecemeal closures to a more coordinated and strategic vision of the future network, which might need some tough decisions but at least had a look at the overall picture

A particular problem in the UK was the lack of any sort of grand plan for a national rail network, so everything grew up piecemeal, and intense competition in the Victorian era resulted in companies building far more lines than traffic justified even back then, let alone in the era of alternative public transport and cars. Many lines existed simply so you could make an end-to-end journey over one company's lines, the GC main line being a classic example, but provided no benefit or additional useful capacity over and above that. Many of these lines became questionable after 1923 and more or less completely pointless after 1948. Beeching was right to eliminate routes where the capacity wasn't necessary, and in some cases still isn't - there's still space for more services on the Midland Main Line, and although the WCML is filled to capacity, the GC wouldn't have been much use for relieving it due to their very constrained approach to London.

-- A recognition that so many lines were originally opened because the developers saw income from local freight as their goal. They didn't even want passenger services but the Act of Parliament that allowed them to build the line required a passenger service to be operated - don't forget our regular chats about "Parliamentary" services. The passenger service, without the cross-subsidy from the freight, was a basket case from day one and once the freight was gone, often owing to war-surplus lorries bought up by ex-soldiers starting a little local transport business, the line was a basket case - full stop. All that infrastructure for five passenger trains a day with a total of 100 people. The GC only ever reached a service frequency out of Marylebone of about hourly, and some of them only got as far as north Bucks - my mid-50s Bradshaw has just 6 trains a day to Sheffield - but there were over 100 coal trains a day that actually made the money.

Yes - again, there was a recognition that lines built to serve Victorian needs didn't necessarily meet the needs of modern populations, and many local bus services were better than meandering branch lines with inconveniently-sited stations could ever hope to manage. It's all well and good saying these services could have been saved with investment and better services, but in many cases they couldn't - long single track sections with insufficient passing loops, steep gradients and sharp curves limiting speeds, and long walks from village centres to stations are not things you can solve cheaply or easily. People may have put up with such things in the 1870s, but by the 1960s, they had higher expectations. Alternatives were cheaper, better, easier and more convenient, and honestly, railways that don't fulfil a useful function have no right to be sapping the system of money needed to keep the useful bits going and developing.

Much as people like to get all romantic about country branch lines, you have to ask whether they'd actually have used them all that often, and the answer is, usually, no. A lot of enthusiasts seemed to think that their favourite line had a divine right to exist in all perpetuity simply so that they could have occasional jollies on it, despite the fact that no-one wanted to use it for any useful purpose.
 
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yorksrob

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But the railway is within reach of the majority of the population. That's the whole point. A huge chunk of the network that was closed was a hopeless economic basket case because it was an irrelevance to the majority population's transport needs. Many people had abandoned rural railways because there were better options available to them.

But the point that everyone seems unable to grasp, is that this railway that is within reach of such a large proportion of the population (and which is infact fairly threadbare in some places) would have been anathema to Beeching or his followers.

The philosophy of "the railway doing what it does best" had to be dead and buried to enable us to retain a passenger network that in some way reflected the needs of the country. That is what the political battles of the twenty years after Beeching were all about.
 

yorksrob

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A particular problem in the UK was the lack of any sort of grand plan for a national rail network, so everything grew up piecemeal, and intense competition in the Victorian era resulted in companies building far more lines than traffic justified even back then, let alone in the era of alternative public transport and cars. Many lines existed simply so you could make an end-to-end journey over one company's lines, the GC main line being a classic example, but provided no benefit or additional useful capacity over and above that. Many of these lines became questionable after 1923 and more or less completely pointless after 1948. Beeching was right to eliminate routes where the capacity wasn't necessary, and in some cases still isn't - there's still space for more services on the Midland Main Line, and although the WCML is filled to capacity, the GC wouldn't have been much use for relieving it due to their very constrained approach to London.

Yes - again, there was a recognition that lines built to serve Victorian needs didn't necessarily meet the needs of modern populations, and many local bus services were better than meandering branch lines with inconveniently-sited stations could ever hope to manage. It's all well and good saying these services could have been saved with investment and better services, but in many cases they couldn't - long single track sections with insufficient passing loops, steep gradients and sharp curves limiting speeds, and long walks from village centres to stations are not things you can solve cheaply or easily. People may have put up with such things in the 1870s, but by the 1960s, they had higher expectations. Alternatives were cheaper, better, easier and more convenient, and honestly, railways that don't fulfil a useful function have no right to be sapping the system of money needed to keep the useful bits going and developing.

Much as people like to get all romantic about country branch lines, you have to ask whether they'd actually have used them all that often, and the answer is, usually, no. A lot of enthusiasts seemed to think that their favourite line had a divine right to exist in all perpetuity simply so that they could have occasional jollies on it, despite the fact that no-one wanted to use it for any useful purpose.
An interesting post, but irrelevant to lines such as York- Beverley or Christs Hospital - Shoreham.
The idea of the country branch line, with three maidens taking it to market, and empty the rest of the time, was a useful propaganda tool to try and soften up the public for bad decisions, but the reality shown in the York - Beverly calculation was far from this. In such areas, the railway remained a better option than the bus and remained popular with travellers, but it made no difference. If the Beeching era management thought it could make a saving, it would happily sell those passengers down the river.
 

Journeyman

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But the point that everyone seems unable to grasp, is that this railway that is within reach of such a large proportion of the population (and which is infact fairly threadbare in some places) would have been anathema to Beeching or his followers.

Good grief, you make it sound like he was the leader of some sort of doomsday cult.

There was no anti-railway conspiracy. There was no hidden agenda. There was no gleeful desire to wilfully deprive people of transport.

There was a serious problem, and a genuine attempt to solve.

All the main population centres of this country remain rail-connected.
 

yorksrob

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Good grief, you make it sound like he was the leader of some sort of doomsday cult.

There was no anti-railway conspiracy. There was no hidden agenda. There was no gleeful desire to wilfully deprive people of transport.

There was a serious problem, and a genuine attempt to solve.

All the main population centres of this country remain rail-connected.

No, he just didn't believe in the railway as we enjoy it today.

I suggest you read around the subject a little, because you will find that in certain circles of the civil service for example, there was a very real hidden agenda to deprive people of transport during the 1960's and 70's. So hidden that special branch were called when people tried to expose it.
 

RT4038

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Well, he managed to get the closures through, in spite of being the ultimate cost cut.

.

Much easier and certain to deal with closures, outright stopping of an activity; not much to negotiate. There were already established procedures from the large number of closures that had already happened. Trying to negotiate changes to working practices - only got to look at today's railway to see how long and fraught that would be - until armageddon beckons.....
 

Dr Hoo

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I really don't buy into this conspiracy theory suff.

As has been pointed out repeatedly, never denied (but just as frequently ignored) Dr B and Marples between them were 'early adopters' of new ways at looking at transport issues. Whether this was cost-benefit analysis, multi-modal integration in conurbations, proposing subsidy, considering the wider effect of 'Traffic in Towns' (with Buchanan's report), market segmentation in both freight and passenger (most obviously 'inter city') or new technology they had their foot on the gas.

There is no way that Dr B would have promoted air braking, electric train heating, integral coach construction, new bogie designs, higher axle loads, 100mph running, containerisation, Derby Research, TV advertising and a new corporate identity (for example) if the aim was to "deprive people of transport"! He saw railways as a great long-term business.

Nobody can be expected to base their decisions purely on what they "believe" might be case in 55 years time.
 
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