Electrification/modernisation of LSW Waterloo-Salisbury-Exeter

[yorksrob]

Well, whatever the reason, thank goodness!

Quite !

 

[The Ham]

Well, whatever the reason, thank goodness!

Quite, it was a much more pleasant experience coming back from the West Country via Salisbury yesterday as the GWR HST was full with people standing by Plymouth, apparently (from the announcement by the guard) even in first class (not that I witnessed that). In comparison, although the 159 from Exeter was busy it wasn't anywhere near as busy as that (and has the scope to be lengthened if there were units available and demand was that high more often).

 

[Taunton]

a route that's always justified two hourly rakes of 8-9 carriages.

It may have done so. However this is because of traffic from Salisbury, Andover, Basingstoke, and even Woking, to Waterloo, It's not because of what's west of Salisbury.

 

[yorksrob]

It may have done so. However this is because of traffic from Salisbury, Andover, Basingstoke, and even Woking, to Waterloo, It's not because of what's west of Salisbury.

The route has always had additional trains to Salisbury to cater for additional traffic East of there. I've read nothing to suggest that services were under-loaded West of Salisbury.

That said, if they were, it does suggest to me that the route might have done better with shorter hourly trains.

 

[341o2]

The current service is hourly and required reinstatement of passing facilities, I believe principally at Axminster. The 1967 service following singling was based on 2 hourly west of Salisbury.

In 2004, this report was commissioned on the feasibility of an hourly service Salisbury - Exeter and additional service between Axminster and Exeter

https://www.devon.gov.uk/pb_exeter-waterloo_report_v1.pdf

 

[341o2]

Wishful thinking - the economics would have looked exactly the same whether viewed from Paddington or Waterloo.

Do please understand - on this stretch there was limited passenger and no freight traffic.

Exactly, the Southern's branch lines were already doomed. The Beeching report recommended that the West Country did not need two express passenger routes and recommended complete closure of all Southern lines west of Salisbury. Paddington won, because if Waterloo was chosen instead, all traffic west of Exeter would have to reverse.

The Southern route was originally the Salisbury and Exeter railway, built for commerce between the two cities and the best example is why Yeovil Junction exists, 2 1/2 miles from the town

 

[Taunton]

The Southern route was originally the Salisbury and Exeter railway, built for commerce between the two cities and the best example is why Yeovil Junction exists, 2 1/2 miles from the town

Not just Yeovil. Chard required a separate shuttle as well, and many of the other stations are nowhere convenient for their towns, often with open country separating them. Crewkerne is a good example, where the route performs a near semi-circle on a radius of over a mile from the town (Bere Alston, further west, is the most extreme example of this).

 

[yorksrob]

Exactly, the Southern's branch lines were already doomed. The Beeching report recommended that the West Country did not need two express passenger routes and recommended complete closure of all Southern lines west of Salisbury. Paddington won, because if Waterloo was chosen instead, all traffic west of Exeter would have to reverse.

The Southern route was originally the Salisbury and Exeter railway, built for commerce between the two cities and the best example is why Yeovil Junction exists, 2 1/2 miles from the town

This may be the case, but we haven't really been discussing the branchlines. That said, It's a good job for all of us that the Western Region declined to follow the Beeching diktat, at least as far as Exeter. I'm just not convinced that the Southern wouldn't have made a better stab of the route.

The route passed near plenty of towns. Honiton, Axminster, Sherborne and Gillingham are all within walking distance of their stations.

 

[randyrippley]

The Southern route was originally the Salisbury and Exeter railway, built for commerce between the two cities and the best example is why Yeovil Junction exists, 2 1/2 miles from the town

Actually it was built as the Salisbury and Yeovil, terminating at Yeovil Town
Yeovil - Exeter was built by the LSWR

 

[Lucan]

Not just Yeovil. Chard required a separate shuttle as well, and many of the other stations are nowhere convenient for their towns, often with open country separating them.

Like the original GWR main line then, which deliberately avoided intermediate towns. It was largely financed by Bristol merchants and they, and Brunel, wanted a speed shuttle between Bristol and London, not a pick-up service for country towns. Otherwise the line could have gone further south to take in Newbury and Marborough, or further north to take in Farringdon and Malmesbury, or even Cirencester; those places were relatively important centres back in the day and came to be served by GWR branches - like Yeovil and Chard with the LSWR.

Of course, Swindon and Reading subsequently expanded massively, but because the railway went there. Bath was an exception as the line was more or less forced through it by geography, and it was a social centre rather than a commercial centre, so no threat to Bristol.

 

[70014IronDuke]

Times had changed and the Salisbury to Exeter section was no longer a 'flagship route' - it ever was. It carried the Southern Railway's trains to Devon and Cornwall - which were well publicised - but only carried large numbers of passengers on about ten or a dozen weekends in the year. Twenty four days in three hundred and sixty five. After most of the west country branches had been closed it carried a semi-fast train about every two hours which east of Salisbury ran to London. There were no commercial winnings or operational advantages to be gained if it had remained under the Southern's control.

HAVE you actually read my post 41 (as opposed to grabbing a section and misusing it to justify your interpretation of what you want me to supposedly be saying)?

It is as clear as day that I am NOT saying the LSWR was a flaghip route, at least not once the decision to modernise the GWR line was taken.

I am taking issue your argument that there is no real problem between inserting the regional boundary at Wilton (as was done on the LSW) and the operating procedures at regional boundaries such as those at Carlisle, Berwick and the ER/NER one at somewhere between Doncaster and Selby (I don't know where it was).

I clearly state these were operations that had been going on since pre-history (in railway terms) and that these were (indeed still are) flagship, ie priority routes that all companies involved would do the damndest to ensure regional hand-overs worked troube-free and efficiently.

In contrast to this, any problems encountered by the Southern due to cock-ups on the section newly acquired by the WR would be far less likely to be seen as priority by the WR or the operations managers at Plymouth or Exeter, whose priorities will be any complaints about premier services on the Paddington and NE-SW routes.
And - lest you try to twist my words to pretend I'm saying the WR didn't care - this is not to say that they wouldn't care at all about the SR trains to Waterloo. I don't know, perhaps they cared a lot - but problems with these trains would inevitably be second place to anything going wrong on their flagship services. That is normal. It is the way companies work.

Please try reading what I wrote.

ROTFL! Really? The words pot, kettle, black comes to mind here, I'm afraid.

I did not write that there was no season ticket traffic west of Reading, I wrote that
...similarly Reading was the effective limit from Paddington.
(My bold).

Yes, you did. I then pointed out that there were at least two loco-hauled commuter trains e/w per day serving stations between Didcot and Reading. (And, I think there were more from Oxford/Didcot calling at Reading only - but I'm not certain.) And you then not only admit they exist, but confess that there were also through trains serving stations between Newbury and Reading. (I was fairly sure of this too, and was going to include them, but again, I wasn't certain. I never really had much to do with the Berks and Hants.)

We obviously speak different languages here. If you admit these trains existed, I can't see how you can claim Reading as being the "effective" limit for commuting at the time. It is just not true in my understanding of the English language.

Of course there was some traffic west of there, people travelled from Oxford and, to a lesser extent, from stations in the Vale of the White Horse to Swindon and to and from Newbury - but the numbers fell off considerably. ....... The Vale of the White Horse traffic was sparse and the stations between Didcot and Swindon all closed about this time even though the costs of the route were carried by the longer distance traffic - the local traffic did not even cover its movement costs.

I have no disagreement with the above. I was merely pointing out that commuter traffic existed even from outposts, as they were at that time, as Wantage Rd and Challow. (And at places like St Neots and Huntingdon on the GN - miles outside your 36 mile imposed limit of Reading.)

On reflection, however, perhaps some of this regular traffic was not all daily commuting. I have the idea that a number of business folk had pads in London, and would perhaps "go up to town" and back just once or twice per week, staying some nights in London. I suspect that this sort of regular, but not daily, commuting, would also be relevant for stations between Salisbury and Yeovil Jcn back in 63-64.

In the case of the line west of Salisbury there was not even any long distance traffic to carry part of the costs, it had to stand or fall on the income it generated itself which essentially came from Exeter, Honiton, Axminster and Yeovil. The only part of Salisbury's income that would count is that for travel westwards. As Fiennes wrote, from passengers and milk. Even dedicated management of that stretch would not have been able to make more than a marginal increase in income as, with the exception of Yeovil, there were no large centres of population.
If you claim that if the line had stayed in SR ownership traffic could have been built up earlier then you have to explain how this would have been done.

I don't have to claim it. I don't have to prove it. It's what happened. It's fact. Traffic built up - despite the unreliable service of the post 64 into 70s and 80s - to what we have today.

Of course, that took time. And I am not saying the SR would not have made cost-cutting moves, including some singling (quite likely, I suspect) post 1964.

What I posited - see post #1 & 13 in this thread (along with supporting posts by, eg YorksRob) - is that had the arbitary transfer of Wilton - Exeter not happened, and the SR been allowed to keep the route, then developments would have been more "organic" and quicker. Put simple, the SR, which would have kept all receipts, would have been more likely to enhance the service that way than under joint ownership of the line. And, along with SR ownership, I summised that it would probably have pushed for electrification from Worting to Salisbury. From other posters, electrification indeed was in the offing with NSE in control.

 

[coppercapped]

To 70014IronDuke

I am sorry that my postings have been causing some grief, this was not my intention. Reading your post made me realise that some terms need to be better defined - I knew what I meant by them but it is clear they are open to interpretation. I suggest I list and discuss the most contentious:

• ‘Flagship’ routes
• limits of commuting
• limits to traffic growth between the 1960s and the mid-1990s
• Division of responsibility

Flagship routes
I am aware that you agree with me that the LSWR route to Exeter is not a flagship but a secondary route, but I thought it might be useful if I explained my thinking. I would define ‘Flagship’ routes as being those which generate the most income in the business group in which they are included, thus they are characterised by the number of people using them and as a result the frequency of the trains are higher than on routes serving smaller centres. So, London to Leeds or Newcastle are flagship routes as are London to Birmingham or Manchester.

The closest the Southwestern Division of the Southern had to flagship routes was the London - Southampton - Bournemouth line, which at one time even supported a Pullman, and the intensive service on the Woking - Guildford - Portsmouth stretch. This means that in terms of allocated costs for the infrastructure the Salisbury and Exeter trains would get an (almost) free ride between Worting Junction and Waterloo as their share of the infrastructure and signalling costs for the first 50 miles would be small. This is probably part of the explanation of how the Waterloo - Salisbury - Exeter service survived.

Limits to daily travel to work
After the Second World War until the mid-1990s London was declining - it lost population and jobs significantly. Travel to London from the dormitory towns plateaued at best as generally people who had to work in London could afford to buy homes there. Admittedly people often moved there unwillingly because of the air pollution (both Battersea and Bankside power stations were still working, for example), the existence of many dismal and decaying areas, general grime and dirt and in many areas the poor quality of education. The statistics confirm this, the population since 1939 varied as follows:

Year Population (millions)
1939 8.62
1951 8.20
1961 7.99
1971 7.45
1981 6.81
1991 6.83
2001 7.32
2011 8.17
2015 8.62

In other words it took 70 years for the population to reach pre-War levels. London’s decline was reflected in the number of passenger journeys made by train which also steadily declined and which BR was unable to stop. This decay also inevitably affected the Salisbury to Exeter route. Traffic on the railways generally only started to increase significantly from the mid-1990s and this route was no exception.

As a result of the limitations of the attractiveness of London the numbers of people travelling daily to work there remained constant or even declined gently over this period. So when I wrote that Reading was the effective commuting limit for London I meant that the numbers travelling from Reading, and other towns between there and London vastly outnumbered those travelling from further afield. As you say, people also traveled from St. Neots and other outlying places to London - but as I have said before in view of the length of time taken for the journey it was very unlikely that they had jobs where they had to be at their desks by 9 am. The numbers making such journey were limited and even if some people living west of Salisbury did have similar travel arrangements there would not have been enough of them to justify any additional trains and the additional track and signalling that would have been necessary to operate the additional trains.

Limits to traffic growth
Over the whole of the period when the Western Region managed the Salisbury to Exeter line London was not the attractive destination it is now. From the 1950s onwards the size of both Basingstoke and Andover increased enormously as the result of the ‘London overspill’ policies but industries in these towns could call on the local population without recourse to people commuting to them - and certainly not by train as the new industrial areas were generally not conveniently located near the stations. The growth of these towns had little or no effect on the size of the traffic flows west of Salisbury.

Ever since the dawn of motoring the statistics have shown that car ownership per head is higher in country districts than in towns. Coupled with the improvements being made to the A30 and A303 roads at the time, the railways faced an uphill battle.

So for over thirty years a two-hourly service between Salisbury and Exeter was adequate - it might not have been ideal from the travellers point of view but it was all that could be afforded. I will happily admit that there could be an argument for running a more frequent service between Salisbury and Waterloo in this period, but it would be finely balanced as whether the increase in the number of passengers would pay for the additional movement costs - locomotives, crew and rolling stock - and a higher share of the infrastructure costs. Rolling stock costs might be partially offset if the train lengths west of Salisbury were reduced to match the traffic and these coaches used between Salisbury and London.

Division of responsibility
I maintain that it would have made no difference whether the Western or the Southern administered the route - the possibility of increases in traffic were small as was the size of any potential increase because the commercial and economic environment in which the line operated did not change. The creation of the Sectors in 1982 did change things from the railways’ point of view in that it set the scene for the more commercial management attitude associated with the emergence of Network SouthEast in 1986. From this point on there was much more of a ‘can do’ attitude than that which had prevailed previously but even then it took time for traffic to increase significantly.

Even the issues of the reliability of the Warships cannot strictly be laid at the WR's door. BR's Chief Mechanical and Electrical Engineer had decreed in 1967 that the hydraulics were 'non-standard' (as if BR ever had a 'standard'!), works maintenance was reduced to a minimum and the stock of spare parts cut to the bone. In any event they had all gone by 1972 so the issue of unreliability from this cause only affected the first five or six years of the new order. The Class 33s may have been more reliable than the 800s in their last days, but they were woefully underpowered and timings were eased accordingly. That cannot have helped loadings - the railways are, or should be, all about speed.

I hope that this explanation goes some way to clarifying my position.

 

[30907]

Limits to daily travel to work
...Travel to London from the dormitory towns plateaued at best as generally people who had to work in London could afford to buy homes there.

It's only a small point, and doesn't really affect West of Salisbury, but if travel from dormitory towns plateaued, how do you account for the growth of commuting from (say) Longfield, Rainham, Staplehurst, and Fleet? All four grew massively from the mid 60s and (as timetables show) were heavily populated by London commuters. I mention just those four, but they were the first of many on the Southern - and then elsewhere.

 

[coppercapped]

It's only a small point, and doesn't really affect West of Salisbury, but if travel from dormitory towns plateaued, how do you account for the growth of commuting from (say) Longfield, Rainham, Staplehurst, and Fleet? All four grew massively from the mid 60s and (as timetables show) were heavily populated by London commuters. I mention just those four, but they were the first of many on the Southern - and then elsewhere.

You raise an interesting point. I haven’t replied earlier as I was trying to do some further investigation, but domestic things kept getting in the way!

Firstly, the information about the global number of commuters into London remaining essentially constant came from a (non-railway) book I read years ago which was concerned with social and economic changes in the country in the 50 years after the end of the Second World War. Unfortunately I can no longer remember the title or the author - but this snippet stuck in my mind.

I have no real answer as to why travel from some areas grew rather than from others, but looking at the stations you listed electrification of the railway must have had an influence. Thus

• Longfield was electrified just before the War as part of the Gillingham and Maidstone project, the electric service operating only from July 1939
• Rainham was electrified in 1959 as part of the Gillingham - Faversham - Ramsgate section of the Kent Coast Phase 1 scheme
• Staplehurst was electrified in 1961(?) as part of the Sevenoaks - Ashford - Dover - Ramsgate section of the Kent Coast Phase 2 scheme
• Fleet was served by electric trains as a consequence of the Bournemouth electrification in 1967.

I suspect, therefore, that one of the reasons for the increase in traffic - there are almost certainly other factors - which you mention was the existence of a more frequent and attractive train service to that which had existed before. In the case of Longfield it looks as if the expected increase first manifested itself after the War and the immediate post-War period.

It is clear, however, that although some individual stations showed increases, there were many others which lost traffic. This often linked graph shows the total number of passenger journeys per year from the earliest days of the railways - unfortunately increases from individual stations in the 1950s, 60s and 70s have been swamped by the general decline.

 

[30907]

You raise an interesting point.

I have no real answer as to why travel from some areas grew rather than from others, but looking at the stations you listed electrification of the railway must have had an influence. Thus

• Longfield was electrified just before the War as part of the Gillingham and Maidstone project, the electric service operating only from July 1939
• Rainham was electrified in 1959 as part of the Gillingham - Faversham - Ramsgate section of the Kent Coast Phase 1 scheme
• Staplehurst was electrified in 1961(?) as part of the Sevenoaks - Ashford - Dover - Ramsgate section of the Kent Coast Phase 2 scheme
• Fleet was served by electric trains as a consequence of the Bournemouth electrification in 1967.

I suspect, therefore, that one of the reasons for the increase in traffic - there are almost certainly other factors - which you mention was the existence of a more frequent and attractive train service to that which had existed before. In the case of Longfield it looks as if the expected increase first manifested itself after the War and the immediate post-War period.

I chose those examples because of electrification, obviously.

The point I was trying to make, though, was that these commuter villages were populated by people moving out of London (that's anecdotal but is confirmed by the population figures), so if commuting plateaued there must have been a significant decline from the more established towns.

Slightly OT thoughts:
1. Longfield was so (relatively) insignificant before the mid 60s that its station was called Fawkham when I was a lad.
2. I don't think the growth of these 4, and many others, could have happened before family cars became common, as none were major centres before - the overspill towns had rather better infrastructure.

 

[coppercapped]

I chose those examples because of electrification, obviously.

The point I was trying to make, though, was that these commuter villages were populated by people moving out of London (that's anecdotal but is confirmed by the population figures), so if commuting plateaued there must have been a significant decline from the more established towns.

Slightly OT thoughts:
1. Longfield was so (relatively) insignificant before the mid 60s that its station was called Fawkham when I was a lad.
2. I don't think the growth of these 4, and many others, could have happened before family cars became common, as none were major centres before - the overspill towns had rather better infrastructure.

I agree with your analysis - there must have been many places where commuting numbers dropped, but I have not looked for any statistics to back this up. It could be that these are no longer available - or possibly were never available - as BR's record keeping, except on the global figures, seems to have been a bit hit and miss.

Regarding London's population decline, people not only moved out of London of their own free will but because it was also post-War Government policy to reduce the population density. This was based on experience, not only of the Blitz, but also on the damage caused to German towns by the British and American bombing campaigns. It was felt that in the event of another European war, possibly a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union, civilian casualties could be reduced if the population was more widely spread. The effectiveness of such a policy had been shown during the Flying Bomb and V2 rocket attacks when the Germans had been misled that their missiles were overshooting London and so came down in the less dense areas of south east London and Kent.

As part of this effort, the 'Location of Offices' bureau was set up in the early 1960s to issue permits for the construction of new offices in London and giving advice to employers about suitable alternative out-of-London sites. It was closed in the early 1980s but it was claimed that some 20,000 to 25,000 jobs per year were moved out of London over the period when it was most effective.

One, anecdotal, example. I worked in the 1960s for an engineering company in Crawley which before the war had been based in Catford. A new factory was built for it in the late 1950s and most of the staff had moved lock, stock and barrel to the new site. Obviously this move, and I suspect many others like it, had no effect on railway commuting as both the jobs and the people moved together.

 

[30907]

I'd forgotten about the Location of Offices Bureau, thanks for the reminder, and I hadn't realised about govt. policy.

 

[coppercapped]

I'd forgotten about the Location of Offices Bureau, thanks for the reminder, and I hadn't realised about govt. policy.

I came across this government policy in the book I referred to in my post #134 - about which I am ashamed to say I still can't remember the title! This dispersion policy was separate from the various Governments' policies for the building of the New Towns although it was obviously supported by creation of these towns.

 

[yorksrob]

They mentioned the Location of Officrs Bureau in my GCSE Geography course as an example of urban planning.

 

[coppercapped]

They mentioned the Location of Officrs Bureau in my GCSE Geography course as an example of urban planning.

Oh dear - that makes me feel old! I remember the Location of Offices Bureau placed card advertisements on Underground trains in the 1960s and early 70s extolling the advantages of living and working outside London.

The trains crashed and banged over sagging rail joints and lurched over switch and crossing work until it felt like the fillings in one's teeth were falling out. London generally in those days was grey, black, sooty, dismal and depressing - with the one exception of Carnaby Street.

How was the LoOB presented in the GCSE course? As a town planning success or as a failure?

 

[yorksrob]

Oh dear - that makes me feel old! I remember the Location of Offices Bureau placed card advertisements on Underground trains in the 1960s and early 70s extolling the advantages of living and working outside London.

The trains crashed and banged over sagging rail joints and lurched over switch and crossing work until it felt like the fillings in one's teeth were falling out. London generally in those days was grey, black, sooty, dismal and depressing - with the one exception of Carnaby Street.

How was the LoOB presented in the GCSE course? As a town planning success or as a failure?

Well, I suppose it was implied as a bit of a failure as we're still a London-centric country, but it was still an example of how Government policy affected town planning.

That was the tube. I'm still envious of Londoners from the 60's and 70's as they had wonderful EPB's (and a whole 20 years left of them to enjoy)!

 

[randyrippley]

Planning...........
I've always been amused by Haverhill in Suffolk.
The Greater London Council built a number of estates there to house eastenders. It was supposed to be a better option than rebuilding the London bombsites. They paid their residents (especially the council tenants) to relocate. By train.
Then they got Dr Beeching to shut the railway so they couldn't get back.........
The GLC were still running the estates in the mid 1980's - the local council were frozen out

 

[70014IronDuke]

To 70014IronDuke

I am sorry that my postings have been causing some grief, this was not my intention. ...

They did, because it seemed to me you were almost intentionally twisting what I was saying. Understood. Thank you.

...In other words it took 70 years for the population to reach pre-War levels. London’s decline was reflected in the number of passenger journeys made by train which also steadily declined and which BR was unable to stop. This decay also inevitably affected the Salisbury to Exeter route. Traffic on the railways generally only started to increase significantly from the mid-1990s and this route was no exception.

This may be broadly true, but I think on lines given an improved service, it is untrue. eg while I have no statistics to prove it, I'm pretty sure Bedford - St Pancras showed steady and solid growth throughout the 60s and 70s - first due to the introduction of the clock-face service with the powerful Derby-Rolls-Royce DMUs, then the hourly semi-fast services. I think earlier enhancements to the Salisbury- Waterloo service could have boosted numbers there - although I agree that is further out than the 50 miles of Bedford.

... Division of responsibility
I maintain that it would have made no difference whether the Western or the Southern administered the route - the possibility of increases in traffic were small as was the size of any potential increase because the commercial and economic environment in which the line operated did not change. The creation of the Sectors in 1982 did change things from the railways’ point of view in that it set the scene for the more commercial management attitude associated with the emergence of Network SouthEast in 1986. From this point on there was much more of a ‘can do’ attitude than that which had prevailed previously but even then it took time for traffic to increase significantly.

I can accept much of your arguments, but this is where we shall have to agree to disagree. This is the crux of the matter - why I started the thread. I maintain that the handover to the WR introduced a totally unneccessary* impediment to what would otherwise have been 'organic' development of the line.
* Except if you believe in the policy to close west of Sherborne. It seems standard practice to transfer lines to another region as the best way to get management to close radically rationalise them, eg GC to Midland, Cambrian lines to the Midland.

... The Class 33s may have been more reliable than the 800s in their last days, but they were woefully underpowered and timings were eased accordingly. That cannot have helped loadings - the railways are, or should be, all about speed.

Couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, there were no suitable type 4 diesels going spare at the time. But again, if the SR had been able to electrify Worting - Salisbury, then the Cl 33s could have gone forward with four-coach trailer units, and maintained better timings - a la Bournemouth-Weymouth.

I hope that this explanation goes some way to clarifying my position.

Most definitely. Thank you.

 

[70014IronDuke]

... Regarding London's population decline, people not only moved out of London of their own free will but because it was also post-War Government policy to reduce the population density. This was based on experience, not only of the Blitz, but also on the damage caused to German towns by the British and American bombing campaigns. It was felt that in the event of another European war, possibly a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union, civilian casualties could be reduced if the population was more widely spread.

I think this policy has been largely forgotten about. I don't know if I was ever conscious of it in the first place.

The effectiveness of such a policy had been shown during the Flying Bomb and V2 rocket attacks when the Germans had been misled that their missiles were overshooting London and so came down in the less dense areas of south east London and Kent.

I have read that British Intelligence sought to mislead the Germans that the V1s had overshot London, but I didn't know they tried it with the V2s, which of course were a ballistic weapon - and therefore (I assume) far more predictable in terms of aiming using simple theoretical physics. Although, of course, it would have made sense to do so.

Planning...........
I've always been amused by Haverhill in Suffolk.
The Greater London Council built a number of estates there to house eastenders. It was supposed to be a better option than rebuilding the London bombsites. They paid their residents (especially the council tenants) to relocate. By train.
Then they got Dr Beeching to shut the railway so they couldn't get back.........
The GLC were still running the estates in the mid 1980's - the local council were frozen out

Fascinating!