• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

Dissertation - social impact of Beeching Cuts

Status
Not open for further replies.

James Kearney

New Member
Joined
23 Nov 2017
Messages
2
Hello there!

I am currently researching for my history dissertation on the social impact of the Beeching cuts in North Yorkshire and County Durham. I would love to hear from anyone who has any material or contributions on this topic, to add a real life touch to my time spent in the archives!

Thanks!
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

70014IronDuke

Established Member
Joined
13 Jun 2015
Messages
3,686
Hello there!

I am currently researching for my history dissertation on the social impact of the Beeching cuts in North Yorkshire and County Durham. I would love to hear from anyone who has any material or contributions on this topic, to add a real life touch to my time spent in the archives!

Thanks!
James - you should do a search of this group, eg try closed Co Durham lines, stuff like that. Also Whitby. And if Harrogate and Ripon are in your remit, try those too.

You might also think about searching and asking on the LNER forum - quite a few Co Durham folk on there.

https://www.lner.info/forums/index.php

A word of warning (apologies if you know this): if you are being strict about it - and as a 'history dissertation' you should be - beware of people blaming Beeching for closures that the Doctor was not responsible for. scores of miles of lines were closed in the area you are interested in for which Dr Beeching bears no responsibility whatsoever. But many people, including the media, tend to use lines like "all closed by the infamous Dr Beeching era" when it is just not true. Beeching did his job, and closed lots - but not everything he gets the populist blame for.
 

Calthrop

Established Member
Joined
6 Dec 2015
Messages
3,295
A word of warning (apologies if you know this): if you are being strict about it - and as a 'history dissertation' you should be - beware of people blaming Beeching for closures that the Doctor was not responsible for. scores of miles of lines were closed in the area you are interested in for which Dr Beeching bears no responsibility whatsoever. But many people, including the media, tend to use lines like "all closed by the infamous Dr Beeching era" when it is just not true. Beeching did his job, and closed lots - but not everything he gets the populist blame for.

Craziest instance of this, which I've ever heard (though in a different part of the country): when travelling on the preserved Dean Forest Railway some years ago, I overheard a fellow-passenger attribute closure to passengers of that line north of Lydney (Town) station, to Dr. Beeching. That closure took place in 1929, when the Doctor-to-be was all of sixteen years old...
 

Bevan Price

Established Member
Joined
22 Apr 2010
Messages
7,320
James - you should do a search of this group, eg try closed Co Durham lines, stuff like that. Also Whitby. And if Harrogate and Ripon are in your remit, try those too.

You might also think about searching and asking on the LNER forum - quite a few Co Durham folk on there.

https://www.lner.info/forums/index.php

A word of warning (apologies if you know this): if you are being strict about it - and as a 'history dissertation' you should be - beware of people blaming Beeching for closures that the Doctor was not responsible for. scores of miles of lines were closed in the area you are interested in for which Dr Beeching bears no responsibility whatsoever. But many people, including the media, tend to use lines like "all closed by the infamous Dr Beeching era" when it is just not true. Beeching did his job, and closed lots - but not everything he gets the populist blame for.

Yes - you need to check line and station closure dates before blaming Dr. Beeching. Also remember that he was only doing what he had been told to do by Harold Macmillan's Tory government, and specifically the contoversial Transport Minister Ernest Marples.

For closure dates, see, for example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_closed_railway_stations_in_Britain

http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/sites.shtml
 

yorksrob

Veteran Member
Joined
6 Aug 2009
Messages
38,818
Location
Yorks
Many routes closed later as part of the ongoing closure programme, were listed by Beeching, even though he was no longer at the helm.
 

70014IronDuke

Established Member
Joined
13 Jun 2015
Messages
3,686
Craziest instance of this, which I've ever heard (though in a different part of the country): when travelling on the preserved Dean Forest Railway some years ago, I overheard a fellow-passenger attribute closure to passengers of that line north of Lydney (Town) station, to Dr. Beeching. That closure took place in 1929, when the Doctor-to-be was all of sixteen years old...

<Chuckle> Yes, that is quite something!
 

70014IronDuke

Established Member
Joined
13 Jun 2015
Messages
3,686
Many routes closed later as part of the ongoing closure programme, were listed by Beeching, even though he was no longer at the helm.
True, of course. And at the same time, some lines closed after Beeching that the Doctor had recommended for development.

But, not claiming to be an expert in the area, still it feels like a lot of rationalisation had taken place well before Beeching hit. And, intriguingly, the Durham Coast line was one of the early routes to be turned over to DMUs - around 1958 or so?

I think James would be best to actually check the Beeching Report - which is on-line.

In addition, the whole railway restructuring of the late 50s and 60s was, in practice, only a reflection of society and the economy at large. You could equally blame the car factories at Halewood and Coventry etc for creating cheap cars that destroyed any chance for branch lines like Darlington - Tebay and the like. Coal production from the Durham coal fields between 1960 and 1970 must have been cut by . I dunno, 80%? In fact, thinking about it now, I remember bunking West Auckland shed in about 1961-2 - there were 30 or so locos there - ALL of which were freight engines and all of which would have been scrapped within 2-3 years. So all these locos, with their attendant crews and shed staff, were gone and arguably not one was the result of Beeching as such, but of the rundown of the mines and steel traffic. (ok, a few jobs may have been transferred to Darlington or Thornaby, but the main thrust of my point still stands).
 

Taunton

Established Member
Joined
1 Aug 2013
Messages
10,018
A word of warning (apologies if you know this): if you are being strict about it - and as a 'history dissertation' you should be - beware of people blaming Beeching for closures that the Doctor was not responsible for. scores of miles of lines were closed in the area you are interested in for which Dr Beeching bears no responsibility whatsoever. But many people, including the media, tend to use lines like "all closed by the infamous Dr Beeching era" when it is just not true. Beeching did his job, and closed lots - but not everything he gets the populist blame for.
Beeching didn't really close anything. He was Chairman of the BRB from 1961-65, and his reports (plural) came in 1963. The longwinded closure process meant anything in his report didn't have time to go through by the time his successor (Richard Marsh, ex-Labour Party politician) came along.

Anyone (very few nowadays) who has actually read Beeching's reports will know he did not say "Close Them" about minor lines. He identified, correctly, that they were loss-making (most grossly so) and needed some form of public financial support, not from the railway itself. So it was an exercise in passing the question back to the Ministry. Marples (Min of Transport), who had appointed Beeching, understood this, the Civil Servants at the DfT, now presented with a difficult problem, less so (or they pretended to).

The bulk of the lines Beeching proposed for closure had, in fact, lost most of their local relevance in the 1920s, as soon as meaningful bus services developed. The same can be seen worldwide. We have discussed this extensively in the past.

And, intriguingly, the Durham Coast line was one of the early routes to be turned over to DMUs - around 1958 or so?
The Durham Coast line from Whitby to Redcar was an early closure, about 1958, and its reason was unusual, it was because of serious landslip problems along the way which would have been extremely expensive to fix. The alternative way trains were sent was via Battersby, introducing no less than four reversals along the way between Middlesbrough and Scarborough, the most of any line in the country, hence the change of the service very early on to DMUs.

Someone can maybe identify the point where the line was falling into the sea. Presumably after another 60 years it has now done so.
 
Last edited:

Darandio

Established Member
Joined
24 Feb 2007
Messages
10,672
Location
Redcar
The Durham Coast line from Whitby to Redcar was an early closure, about 1958, and its reason was unusual, it was because of serious landslip problems along the way which would have been extremely expensive to fix. The alternative way trains were sent was via Battersby, introducing no less than four reversals along the way between Middlesbrough and Scarborough, the most of any line in the country, hence the change of the service very early on to DMUs.

Someone can maybe identify the point where the line was falling into the sea. Presumably after another 60 years it has now done so.

Much of the northern part is still in use of course, but is in no way and never was the Durham Coast Line. I cannot really recall any of it falling into the sea, other than some of the viaducts being dismantled, and much of it can be walked. I assume some of the closest parts to the cliffs around Sandsend where the viaducts were have probably eroded though.
 

Taunton

Established Member
Joined
1 Aug 2013
Messages
10,018
Of course ... should be the North Yorkshire Coast line. And I do believe the geological issues were around Sandsend.
 

Darandio

Established Member
Joined
24 Feb 2007
Messages
10,672
Location
Redcar
Of course ... should be the North Yorkshire Coast line. And I do believe the geological issues were around Sandsend.

I don't know whether you have ever been to Sandsend? It's really weird when driving around the horseshoe to even consider there was once a railway overhead, some wonderful pictures online of when it was in place.

This view shows it quite well, how on earth was that a station up there! https://goo.gl/maps/LbprQRidFAt
 

Dai Corner

Established Member
Joined
20 Jul 2015
Messages
6,316
It might be interesting to turn the question round and ask what social changes led to the closure of railways in North Yorkshire and County Durham.

I don't know the area, so can't comment on local issues, but how about

rural depopulation

greater prosperity leading to almost universal car ownership, especially in rural areas

expectations of more than a handful of services a day

changes in travel patterns meaning railways didn't go where people wanted to

disappearance of domestic coal traffic in favour of other fuels

Etc etc
 

Taunton

Established Member
Joined
1 Aug 2013
Messages
10,018
I can't add much detail about closures in the North-East, but have written elsewhere here about those radiating from Taunton, where, in the mid-1950s, there were local services on six lines, three to the west and three to the east, which all progressively got closed over the next 15 years, only main line service remaining.

Basically, the local trains, all of them, had pretty much ceased to be relevant for the local population already. Take the Barnstaple line. This ran out through two small towns, Milverton and Wiveliscombe, then through unpopulated country of Exmoor until it reaches another small town, South Molton, and then runs down to Barnstaple. It's pretty lengthy as country lines go, 45 miles, and took two hours to traverse. Setting aside Summer Saturdays, there had long been about 6 trains per day.

Now the small towns mentioned had, by no coincidence, established bus services. The bus from Taunton to Wiveliscombe ran every 30 minutes, 7 days a week. Furthermore, at every point the bus ran through the main street. The railway at Milverton, and especially Wiveliscombe, was well removed from the centre, and this pretty much applies at Taunton as well. Therefore the railway had lost what relevance it once had there after about 1928 when the buses became established. The same applied from South Molton into Barnstaple. The long bit in the middle had no bus, but nobody (railway staff apart) really lived there. By the time, which I just recall, that Beeching was around, the standard 43xx and three ex-GW corridor coaches had given way to a two car dmu. Both cars powered, so four bus engines running. If the passengers in the train, still half a dozen a day, at any point were into double figures that was unusual. Nevertheless there were two shifts of station staff and signalmen at all points along the way.

I think everyone we knew in those times who lived out that way had bought a car. Farmers certainly did, for their own purposes for which any other means would be impractical, such as visiting other farms. And those who didn't, like impoverished farm labourers, generally didn't travel, to an extent that does not happen now. The railway had become irrelevant long before. The one social impact noticeable was the impact on railway employment. It was said the railway had been the biggest employer in Taunton. A great deal of that went, with economies on the main line as well as those closed.

If you are interested in Beeching, another book to find is Stewart Joy's "The Train that Ran Away". Joy was Beeching's chief economist, a very practical Australian, who dug out all sorts of nonsenses with the way information was presented. He found for example an early morning local train on the ECML from Dunbar to Edinburgh, for which a main line loco ran out from Edinburgh, which reported 60 passengers a day. When he inspected this train, he found that all but a couple of these were railwaymen coming into Edinburgh, on free passes ...
 

Bevan Price

Established Member
Joined
22 Apr 2010
Messages
7,320
Many lines were built for freight traffic (minerals, including coal, etc.) and passenger services were of secondary interest. And more than a few lines were financial basket cases from the start. Some were built because of inter-town jealousy ("Town X has a railway, so our town needs one". Others were built by one company to discourage others from trying to access "our territory".

If you can find a copy, the "North East" volume of the David & Charles Regional History of GB Railways (by Ken Hoole) includes a bit of background about the building of numerous railways in that area. (Coverage of closures is a bit patchy).
 

yorksrob

Veteran Member
Joined
6 Aug 2009
Messages
38,818
Location
Yorks
Beeching didn't really close anything. He was Chairman of the BRB from 1961-65, and his reports (plural) came in 1963. The longwinded closure process meant anything in his report didn't have time to go through by the time his successor (Richard Marsh, ex-Labour Party politician) came along.

Anyone (very few nowadays) who has actually read Beeching's reports will know he did not say "Close Them" about minor lines. He identified, correctly, that they were loss-making (most grossly so) and needed some form of public financial support, not from the railway itself. So it was an exercise in passing the question back to the Ministry. Marples (Min of Transport), who had appointed Beeching, understood this, the Civil Servants at the DfT, now presented with a difficult problem, less so (or they pretended to).

Wasn't there a television campaign fronted by Tony Hancock at the time which said that some railway services would need to close and be cut back. There wasn't any Hancockian dialogue about how taxpayers might have to pay some tax to support necessary but loss making passenger services.

In fact, nothing in the Beeching report suggested there was a possibility of supporting loss making lines at all, it was just a justification of cutting route mileage. I would advise the OP to read the worked examples in the report and come to his own conclusions
 

ChiefPlanner

Established Member
Joined
6 Sep 2011
Messages
7,768
Location
Herts
David St John Thomas's "The Country Railway" has some good observations on what happened after the Beeching cuts - generally commening on the West Country - but relevant to most of the UK.

In Wales - closure of lines was pretty quick , and with a few issues of school children having to be forced onto buses , by and large the general population were indifferent to the closures , having largely left the train service (apart from odd journeys and in bad snowy weather when all of a sudden - the back up train was useful)

Closure of Aberystwyth - Carmarthen inconvenienced about 300 people , most of them on 2 trains out of the 6 operated , though the price of coal in Aberystwyth went up by about 50p a ton - and this was debated in Hansard........
 

Taunton

Established Member
Joined
1 Aug 2013
Messages
10,018
David St John Thomas's "The Country Railway" - and in bad snowy weather when all of a sudden the back up train was useful
This is a longstanding fiction which I think can be put to bed now, if not long ago. The classic inconsistency is the account by David St John Thomas himself, of the last day before closure of the Plymouth-Tavistock-Launceston branch, 31 December 1962, which coincided with a substantial blizzard where the last trains were trapped all night. At the one time where the railway might finally have been found useful, it transpired in his detailed description of the day that the only passengers on the otherwise empty trapped trains were railway enthusiasts, like himself.

Nowadays, I am afraid to say the railway has pretty much lost it in poor weather. The ultimate irony is where trains cease to run due to snow, ice, "flooding" (ie ballast not wholly visible), etc, and the standard rail response is to hire in buses, which unlike trains are readily available, with drivers, on demand, and to use them on the very roads that the railway is somehow meant to be an effective substitute for. Only yesterday (25 Nov) exactly this happened across Surrey/ Hampshire. One train stuck due to conductor rail icing, the whole service abandoned, hours spent looking for someone who could deal with it, meanwhile everybody ends up going back home and getting their cars out, or waiting for replacement buses.
 
Last edited:

James Kearney

New Member
Joined
23 Nov 2017
Messages
2
Many thanks to you all for your interesting contribution to my thread so far, which is very interesting and has given me a lot of food for thought!

I have spent a few useful days in local archives studying the British Rail reports for proposed line closures, and also the insightful objections of individuals (and businesses) collected and organised by the relevant TUCCs. Within the folders of information have also been some interesting notes on schoolchildren using railways, correlations between local fairs/conferences and railway usage etc.

I would be interested to hear whether any of you have any unusual perspectives on the notion of 'social impact', and whether - in any cases - the closure actually had a positive impact, or at least proposed a re-thinking of attitudes. Dai Corner - your comments on inverting the question are very interesting, and I will hopefully be able to consider these factors within my discussion, potentially altering the angle of my enquiry.

Thanks for all your contributions anyway!
 

Dr Hoo

Established Member
Joined
10 Nov 2015
Messages
3,910
Location
Hope Valley
Wasn't there a television campaign fronted by Tony Hancock at the time which said that some railway services would need to close and be cut back. There wasn't any Hancockian dialogue about how taxpayers might have to pay some tax to support necessary but loss making passenger services.

In fact, nothing in the Beeching report suggested there was a possibility of supporting loss making lines at all, it was just a justification of cutting route mileage. I would advise the OP to read the worked examples in the report and come to his own conclusions

The 'Hancock Report' publicity campaign in the press and on television from mid 1963 was largely aimed at drawing attention to service improvements, especially on 'Inter city' routes, of which many people (the majority of whom had given up regular long-distance rail travel even then) were unaware. There is an illustration from the campaign in Gourvish's official history of BR, showing the comedian enjoying a brandy in a restaurant car.

The Reshaping report referenced concepts like social cost benefit and subsidy in several places. Far from proposing closure of everything that couldn't make a profit, "...proposals are directed... towards eliminating only those services which, by their very nature, railways are ill-suited to provide". (From the Foreword.)

For suburban services outside London the concept of subsidy is specifically advocated (on page 22).

For the purposes of the OP's dissertation the key point is that the Beeching traffic studies had exposed the brutal fact that one third of the network only carried 1% of the traffic. Most of that lay in rural areas such parts of Yorkshire and the North East.

As noted by other posters, virtually all of the limited potential market had already deserted the infrequent and often poorly-located trains for buses and, increasingly by the 1960s, cars.
 

yorksrob

Veteran Member
Joined
6 Aug 2009
Messages
38,818
Location
Yorks
There was a telling line in Barry Doe's column in Rail Magazine 835 (a few weeks ago) in which he quotes a Southern Region Area Manager at the time of the closure of the Swanage branch in 1972 as saying that in his opinion "closure was a great mistake, and that if he had his way, he would close the Lymington branch instead because numbers at Swanage were far higher". From this one can discern that there were reasons to keep both routes open, and I believe that pre-Beeching, the railway would probably have accepted that and would have kept both open.

It's the fact that management at the time felt that one of the routes had to close, regardless of whether this was actually necessary or desirable, simply to cut route mileage at any cost, that I believe is down to the ideology instilled during the Beeching era.
 

yorksrob

Veteran Member
Joined
6 Aug 2009
Messages
38,818
Location
Yorks
The Reshaping report referenced concepts like social cost benefit and subsidy in several places. Far from proposing closure of everything that couldn't make a profit, "...proposals are directed... towards eliminating only those services which, by their very nature, railways are ill-suited to provide". (From the Foreword.)

For suburban services outside London the concept of subsidy is specifically advocated (on page 22).

True, this was mentioned for suburban services. Nothing for marginal cross-country routes such as York to Beverley though.
 

tbtc

Veteran Member
Joined
16 Dec 2008
Messages
17,882
Location
Reston City Centre
Discussion of the Good Doctor on here can be a little one-sided (e.g. him being blamed for the closure of the Woodhead in the 1980s), so, in the interests of balance, I'd mention that his "Reshaping of British Railways" / "Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes" wasn't all about cuts - modernisation meant development of things like the Tees Marshalling Yard/ Thornaby.

I know that you've said that the social impact of the cuts (rather than any benefits), but he wasn't just about cutbacks.

Also, there's the trap that people fall into in such arguments, of stating that the line to (e.g. Ambridge) was a vital lifeline that was the only means people had of getting to work/ school/ shops *but* also that all of those people were too snobbish to use a replacement bus - if you couldn't get enough people to pay the wages of a bus driver (and the fuel for the vehicle) then it'd be hard to make a case for paying the costs of a train driver (and possibly a fireman), a guard, signalling staff, stationmasters, engineering crews etc.

Oh, and be wary of the conspiracy theory stuff about how he only visited villages on days when the shops closed early (rather than on market day when things were a lot busier) - I've seen a few excuses trotted out for why passenger numbers were under-counted. Much easier to assess in these days of computerised records but I guess he did as good a job as could be done in the 1960s, given the circumstances.
 

simonw

Member
Joined
7 Dec 2009
Messages
755
Hello there!

I am currently researching for my history dissertation on the social impact of the Beeching cuts in North Yorkshire and County Durham. I would love to hear from anyone who has any material or contributions on this topic, to add a real life touch to my time spent in the archives!

Thanks!
I would suggest a good book to read is Charles Loft's last trains, subtitled Dr Beeching and the death of rural England.
 

ChiefPlanner

Established Member
Joined
6 Sep 2011
Messages
7,768
Location
Herts
Certain coastal resorts came off badly , North Devon and Cornwall often quoted , but Whitby is obv a local candidate. People just stopped going there by public transport if a bus change was involved , but judging by the tales of awful and slow journeys in the 1950's before the advent of real mass motoring , the incentive was hardly there to be honest. Once they got cars , that was it - and in a few years they were enroute to Torremolinos or Sitges rather than an unpredictable week in the UK - where often rain messed it up. (and customer unfocused "hotels" and Boarding houses" were hardly an incentive) ......

Strip out the emotion , - whereas France shut down 1000's miles of rural lines (basket cases many of them - but charming) , from the 1930's and post War - their perception of good SNCF etc held. Britain just has constant "oh woe is me" - over the rail cuts to so many lines which should never have been built, but provided a pleasant reminder of the time passing when in say rural Radnor you could see the afternoon Brecon - Llanidloes train passing your farm , and reminding you not long for tea. Brecon lost over a 100 jobs , but the network based on there carried about 300 passengers a day. The town looks affluent enough to me when I pass through it.

(But - if I had a time machine - for 24 hours - this would be one of the places to go there by train - we had relatives there , and though we could have gone by train in 1962 - we went by bus !)
 

70014IronDuke

Established Member
Joined
13 Jun 2015
Messages
3,686
...

I know that you've said that the social impact of the cuts (rather than any benefits), but he wasn't just about cutbacks.

...

"Social impact" should include benefits as well as negative effects - at least as they are perceived. It's a neutral term.

This means the closure of (say) five wayside stations between towns X and Y is likely to lead to improved journey times for those stations remaining with a service.

Don't forget Guiseborough lost its service in the mix!

And for a bit of atmospheric writing, you might want to mention this


Although the only NE station mentioned* - Chester-le-Street - has reopened.

* I think. Others will soon put me to rights if I've missed a stop.
 
Last edited:

yorksrob

Veteran Member
Joined
6 Aug 2009
Messages
38,818
Location
Yorks
Leigh Lancashire and Corby are examples of urban areas which lost their railway stations in the immediate post Beeching era and which were to an extent, left behind economically. In Corby's case, this has led to reopening, and for Leigh, this has meant reinventing the railway as a busway.

Padstow seemed to be doing fine without its railway when I visited a couple of years ago, but it was a ball ache to get there !
 

Bevan Price

Established Member
Joined
22 Apr 2010
Messages
7,320
Might I also suggest that you examine a few "pre-closure" railway timetables, and contemplate to whom the train services were intended to be useful. It would be easy to say that people could commute to work, etc., but if you look at some of the timetables, it would have been impossible for many to get to/from work by train. Likewise, shopping trips to nearby large towns or ciites by rail could be difficult or impossible - so there might be little social impact when some lines closed.
 

Dr Hoo

Established Member
Joined
10 Nov 2015
Messages
3,910
Location
Hope Valley
Leigh Lancashire and Corby are examples of urban areas which lost their railway stations in the immediate post Beeching era and which were to an extent, left behind economically. In Corby's case, this has led to reopening, and for Leigh, this has meant reinventing the railway as a busway.

Padstow seemed to be doing fine without its railway when I visited a couple of years ago, but it was a ball ache to get there !

As someone who knows Corby well I really struggle to recognise a situation where it was 'left behind' by closure of its station. From a geographic and social history perspective it is most interesting (and possibly analogous with some communities related to the steel industry in Durham).

Corby was a modest village until quite late. Its station was actually called Weldon and Corby. Even in 1931 the population was only around 1,500 and the station had a handful of local trains each way that do not appear to have allowed commuting in or out, northbound or southbound, for example. There were no trains on Sundays.

The steel industry arrived on a large scale in the 1930s and the town developed in the bus era. The 'new town' was conceived in the 1950s and laid out for the car. The population reached around 18,000 by 1950 but Corby and Weldon as it had become still had a rubbish service, albeit up towards 10 random trains each way. Ironically the service in the Beeching era had reached probably its best ever standard (until recently) with calls by a few long distance Nottingham-Kettering-London trains. Even some on Sundays!

Recent regeneration in a post-steel era has taken the population to well over 60,000 with large scale house building continuing. This would never have made sense until long-distance commuting to places like Cambridge by car and, quite recently, to London by train became acceptable.

Obviously railways were important to Corby for freight but on the passenger side they were never significant historically and thus hardly missed in the 1960s.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top