If the Great Central had Survived Beeching.... Would it be Useful Today?

[70014IronDuke]

A now late, former neighbour of mine, worked for BR LM in various roles from the 60s through to the 80s - he confirmed the LM management was still 'anti GC' even then.

The LSWR route to Plymouth was much more clear cut by comparison - even now when this one comes up as a 'possible diversion for Dawlish' you only need to look at a map to see the complete lack of places that were served by that route.

Add in some of the branches were duplicates and others were simply not viable. So I don't buy the same argument for the LSWR branches.

But the GC was a well engineered route, designed for relatively high-speed running. No it wasn't perfect, but the LM management were much more parochial during that time - and protecting the ex LMS routes were their priority.

If, in the mid-60s, Brackley had been transposed with Wellingborough, Kettering with Woodford Halse, and Market Harborough with Lutterworth, then the GC would have stayed open and the Midland almost certainly closed north of Bedford. It would have been a BRB decision. This would have happened regardless of whether LMR staff thought as your informant claimed or not. But in that case, there would have been no need to transfer the GC to the LM.

Fact is, having spent a fortune electrifying the WCML, there was little money around to modernise even the Midland, and every need to cut losses (and raise capital by selling off land). Under those circumstances, nobody would have been allowed to faff around trying to make the GC viable.

On the LSWR route, the case between London and Exeter was less clear cut. Once the decision was made in favour of the GWR route, the LSWR was lucky to survive west of Sherborne. Some might say west of Salisbury.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

In defence of the GC, in the Summer 1938 Bradshaw the 1525 St Pancras to Bradford reached Leicester Mid at 1715 with one call at Kettering, whilst the 1520 Marylebone to Manchester reached Leicester Cen at 1709, running non-stop via High Wycombe, so the GC wasn't 'completely uncompetitive' with the MML despite the further distance. In truth the GC was superbly engineered with gentle curves and gradients and generally laid out for fast-running. The principal stations were commodious and well-planned - well, apart from Marylebone where the money ran out! Most of the intermediate local 'island' stations were closed prior to final closure, so the line could have been further upgraded for faster running if there had been a requirement. By contrast the MML was, and is, essentially a collection of cobbled together local railways with poor alignments and awkward station layouts. Market Harborough is only now being sorted out, with Derby to follow shortly. Bedford remains whilst Nottingham still requires awkward reversal. Much has been made of the lack of connections at the London end, but the GC did have the important Woodford Halse to Banbury link to the GW, which would today be useful for container traffic to and from Southampton.

 

[70014IronDuke]

In defence of the GC, in the Summer 1938 Bradshaw the 1525 St Pancras to Bradford reached Leicester Mid at 1715 with one call at Kettering, whilst the 1520 Marylebone to Manchester reached Leicester Cen at 1709, running non-stop via High Wycombe, so the GC wasn't 'completely uncompetitive' with the MML despite the further distance. In truth the GC was superbly engineered with gentle curves and gradients and generally laid out for fast-running. The principal stations were commodious and well-planned - well, apart from Marylebone where the money ran out! Most of the intermediate local 'island' stations were closed prior to final closure, so the line could have been further upgraded for faster running if there had been a requirement. By contrast the MML was, and is, essentially a collection of cobbled together local railways with poor alignments and awkward station layouts. Market Harborough is only now being sorted out, with Derby to follow shortly. Bedford remains whilst Nottingham still requires awkward reversal. Much has been made of the lack of connections at the London end, but the GC did have the important Woodford Halse to Banbury link to the GW, which would today be useful for container traffic to and from Southampton.

Indeed: severe PSRs at Wigston, Mkt Harboro and Wellingboro, 80 mph through St Albans, Luton and Kettering. And 60 (? or thereabouts) mph at Trent and Silkstream. I don't know how the GC was on the Wycombe route, but the Midland was littered with niggling, but costly PSRs - and these were in several locations at the foot of banks!

 

[cle]

I think London to High Wycombe / Aylesbury would be the problem still. Once out in the country, the alignment is good. Via Amersham even more problematic!

Evergreen 2 did improve things somewhat to HW, but it's a crawl, some of which on double track, on a MUCH busier commuter network. With the boom of Bicester (shopping and town) and now Oxford on the network, I can't really see where more fast trains would fit in. And how they'd be competitive with a current non-stop run to Leicester!

 

[A0]

I think London to High Wycombe / Aylesbury would be the problem still. Once out in the country, the alignment is good. Via Amersham even more problematic!

Evergreen 2 did improve things somewhat to HW, but it's a crawl, some of which on double track, on a MUCH busier commuter network. With the boom of Bicester (shopping and town) and now Oxford on the network, I can't really see where more fast trains would fit in. And how they'd be competitive with a current non-stop run to Leicester!

But in the days when the GC used the Wycombe route, there were through lines on a good number of the stations to allow expresses to pass through unhindered. Many of those passing loops were removed in the 70s and 80s.

The Amersham route was more problematic, however IF BR had been minded to retain the GC, I suspect there would have been a review of where the Metropolitan line actually ended - and I suspect it may have been Moor Park / Watford, with Rickmansworth north handed over to BR.

 

[Senex]

In defence of the GC, in the Summer 1938 Bradshaw the 1525 St Pancras to Bradford reached Leicester Mid at 1715 with one call at Kettering, whilst the 1520 Marylebone to Manchester reached Leicester Cen at 1709, running non-stop via High Wycombe, so the GC wasn't 'completely uncompetitive' with the MML despite the further distance. In truth the GC was superbly engineered with gentle curves and gradients and generally laid out for fast-running. The principal stations were commodious and well-planned - well, apart from Marylebone where the money ran out! Most of the intermediate local 'island' stations were closed prior to final closure, so the line could have been further upgraded for faster running if there had been a requirement. By contrast the MML was, and is, essentially a collection of cobbled together local railways with poor alignments and awkward station layouts. Market Harborough is only now being sorted out, with Derby to follow shortly. Bedford remains whilst Nottingham still requires awkward reversal. Much has been made of the lack of connections at the London end, but the GC did have the important Woodford Halse to Banbury link to the GW, which would today be useful for container traffic to and from Southampton.

I don't think that's really fair to the Midland. St Pancras-Bedford was built as a fast main line and the problematic curve at Bedford was sorted out in before the end of the nineteenth century. Once north of Wigston you are on to the Midland Counties Railway, which is a very well laid out railway as far as Derby, and then you join the North Midland which was perhaps the finest of George Stephenson's works. The problem is the cheaply-built Leicester & Hitchin line, used between Bedford North Jn and Wigston North Jn, but the difficulties are site-specific and could be solved if the desire were there (as is finally being done with Market Harborough). (And even those problems would not have been there if the 1846 line had been built rather than the 1852 one!)

The Great Central, on the other hand, had a fine but significantly longer line as far as Leicester (about 8 miles more via High Wycombe, if I remember correctly), though with quite severe speed restrictions at the southern junction with the Joint Line, through High Wycombe, and at Grendon Underwood Jn. The island platforms were certainly OK up to 90, but I've never seen anything to say at what point the reverse curvature might have become limiting. Leicester GC would always have been a low-speed location, just like Leicester MR. North of Leicester there was another very fast section to Arkwright Street, but then a very slow passage through Nottingham. On to Beighton was decent but nothing particularly special, and then there was/is a slow junction at Woodhouse with the east/west line. Of course many of us will remember the desperate state of this section of line with all the subsidence restrictions, but one must assume that as with the Midland lines these would by now have gone, and fast running would have become possible again. The GC did indeed have the very useful Woodford Halse to Banbury link (memories of travel to and from university!), but then the Midland had the Wigston to Rugby line which could have provided a perfect good route to the GW via Bletchley and Oxford. The great advantage of the GC was that Leicester, Nottingham, and Sheffield all lay on the same route, but the disadvantages were that Derby could not be served and any train going north from Sheffield had to reverse there (even if the best trains did go on to Manchester London Road LNER side).

 

[Bald Rick]

The site of MK had been chosen before the line was closed.

I know that. What I meant is that it is possible that some of the development at MK may instead have gone to Brackley, or A N Other place. MK would clearly still have happened, but perhaps not on the same scale.

 

[Mordac]

I know that. What I meant is that it is possible that some of the development at MK may instead have gone to Brackley, or A N Other place. MK would clearly still have happened, but perhaps not on the same scale.

Does this mean that, in a roundabout way, Dr. Beeching is responsible for Milton Keynes?

 

[InOban]

That's a myth, albeit a widely believed and very persistent one. The structure gauge was on the generous side for the UK, but fell short of contemporary European standards.

Thanks for that. How much less than Berne Gauge was it? And how much larger than BR standard?

 

[DarloRich]

Does this mean that, in a roundabout way, Dr. Beeching is responsible for Milton Keynes?

no. He would, i think, have been in favour. An organised, efficient new town at the cutting edge of modern design and urban planning rationalising older, duplicate communities - it would suit him well!

I think MK would have grown as it did. The closeness and connectivity with the M1 and the WCML were two of the driving factors. I do, however, agree that with a railway station Brackley is a very different town.

 

[didcotdean]

The GC did indeed have the very useful Woodford Halse to Banbury link (memories of travel to and from university!), but then the Midland had the Wigston to Rugby line which could have provided a perfect good route to the GW via Bletchley and Oxford.

Seen it claimed that the Midland route from Leicester to Rugby was closed to concentrate this flow on the GC; the timing of this seems a bit inconclusive to me but whatever it meant it went from two routes to zero in seven years. From purely local considerations the Midland route would probably be of more use today.

 

[yorksrob]

Seen it claimed that the Midland route from Leicester to Rugby was closed to concentrate this flow on the GC; the timing of this seems a bit inconclusive to me but whatever it meant it went from two routes to zero in seven years. From purely local considerations the Midland route would probably be of more use today.

I'm not sure. Whetstone and Lutterworth seem to be larger than the settlements on the Midland route.

 

[Mugby]

Didn't Chiltern Railways put forward a proposal, a few years back, to re-open the GC as far as Rugby and make a Parkway station there?

 

[edwin_m]

The GC reached London via the Metropolitan Line, or via a longer detour through High Wycombe. It was in no way a high speed line at the London end and for that reason alone completely uncompetitive with the MML. Neither was it a straighter route, Marylebone to Leicester via Aylesbury was 103 miles (108 miles via High Wycombe), St. Pancras to Leicester is 99 miles.

The High Wycombe route was joint with the GWR, and it's worth noting that HS2 uses the route of the connecting line to Paddington northwards from Old Oak (though running on the surface proved impractical and it will be in tunnel). HS2 also uses the GC alignment itself between Aylesbury and Brackley.

 

[The Planner]

They also wanted to get to Oxford via Thame but then sobered up.

 

[edwin_m]

I'm not sure. Whetstone and Lutterworth seem to be larger than the settlements on the Midland route.

Maybe so, but the GC had no connection to any other route in Rugby and only a very tightly curved one south of Leicester (not sure if this was even used, possibly only for building the GC?). The Midland one tied into the Midland network at Leicester and the LNWR network at Rugby so could provide most onward links without building extra connections.

In general terms I think the lack of connections to other routes was part of the downfall of the GC - it did some things like Nottingham to London pretty well but the ex-Midland network provided a more comprehensive service around the region.

 

[didcotdean]

I'm not sure. Whetstone and Lutterworth seem to be larger than the settlements on the Midland route.

Broughton Astley and Countesthorpe have expanded significantly without a railway but have poorer road links. Ullesthorpe might have developed more with a railway but I doubt Leire would have.

As said above a GC orphan Rugby-Nottingham line is difficult to rationalise.

 

[yorksrob]

Broughton Astley and Countesthorpe have expanded significantly without a railway but have poorer road links. Ullesthorpe might have developed more with a railway but I doubt Leire would have.

As said above a GC orphan Rugby-Nottingham line is difficult to rationalise.

It lasted until around 1970 I believe.

I can imagine a Banbury - Tuxford link would have been quite useful anyway.

 

[satisnek]

Seen it claimed that the Midland route from Leicester to Rugby was closed to concentrate this flow on the GC; the timing of this seems a bit inconclusive to me but whatever it meant it went from two routes to zero in seven years. From purely local considerations the Midland route would probably be of more use today.

The Wigston-Rugby section would have been reduced to a minor route from the moment the Midland opened its London line (initially to King's Cross via Hitchin) and was finally closed just before the Beeching report. BR regretted abandoning it just a few years later, in the late 1960s, when they had plans to divert East Midlands/Sheffield services into Euston and close St. Pancras (as reported in Modern Railways) and could only achieve this by using the slower and inferior Market Harborough - Northampton route. Just imagine the capacity problems today if they had gone through with this!!

 

[JohnR]

If the GC had survived, it would no doubt have received the same treatment as the Salisbury-Exeter line - singled, with a 2-hourly stopping service. Yes, some freight would no doubt have still used it (unlike the LSW line), but the infrastructure would have been very restrictive.

So today we would have a busy line, with operators trying to cram in more trains and calls for re-doubling.

 

[Dunnyrail]

There was an article recently in one of the Chuffer Mags that detailed how the GC was killed off and it did appear to be at the doctrine of a duplicated route in spite of the fact that it was possibly running at a profit or nearly so.

What has also not been mentioned here was the madcap suggestion to close the line completely into Marylebone and turn the Line with the Station at Marylebone into a Coach Route and Bus Station. Imagine that chaos in the Chilterns now if that had happened. Thankfully it did not, but till Shooter got his hands in running the GC in the London Area it was mostly a forgotten backwater of a line. Or perhaps I should be saying these changes started during the period of NSE.
JonD

 

[RPM]

Thanks for that. How much less than Berne Gauge was it? And how much larger than BR standard?

No figures to hand but I understand it was no more generous than other UK companies which had slightly larger than average loading gauges, e.g. the GWR. Aside from the height/width dimensions, there was also the issue of platforms, which being of normal UK size would have intruded into the lower part of the Berne Gauge 'envelope'.
We have to remember of course that when the GCML was built, the so-called "Berne Gauge" had yet to be agreed, so even if the GCR had claimed they were building to 'continental loading gauge' (and I've never seen any evidence that they did), that is not a particularly meaningful term. I think perhaps the myth started because of the assertion that Watkin had visions of connecting the GCR to Europe via the Channel Tunnel scheme of the 1880s. This makes little sense when the infrastructure between London and the tunnel was of decidedly restricted British dimensions. The original vision for the GCML also relied on using the Metropolitan Railway south of Quainton which was/is far from 'continental loading gauge'.

 

[JohnR]

No figures to hand but I understand it was no more generous than other UK companies which had slightly larger than average loading gauges, e.g. the GWR. Aside from the height/width dimensions, there was also the issue of platforms, which being of normal UK size would have intruded into the lower part of the Berne Gauge 'envelope'.
We have to remember of course that when the GCML was built, the so-called "Berne Gauge" had yet to be agreed, so even if the GCR had claimed they were building to 'continental loading gauge' (and I've never seen any evidence that they did), that is not a particularly meaningful term. I think perhaps the myth started because of the assertion that Watkin had visions of connecting the GCR to Europe via the Channel Tunnel scheme of the 1880s. This makes little sense when the infrastructure between London and the tunnel was of decidedly restricted British dimensions. The original vision for the GCML also relied on using the Metropolitan Railway south of Quainton which was/is far from 'continental loading gauge'.

Especially as the plan was to run trains via the Metropolitan line, the East London Line and onto the South Eastern Railway at New Cross!!

 

[Andyjs247]

A simple chord to link the ex-MR Leicester-Rugby route into the GC where they cross (between Broughton Astley and Countesthorpe, approximately where the A426 crosses the M1 today) would have been very useful. I think that might have saved the GC to Woodford Halse together with the link to Banbury. I’m not sure whether the rest going south through Brackley would have been retained.

That wartime connection at Claydon has enabled the EWR project - without it I doubt Bicester to Bletchley and north of Aylesbury would be due for reopening.

Fundamentally it was this lack of connectivity south of Annesley which limited its future usefulness and dictated the GC’s demise as a through route. I don’t see any need for Claydon-Brackley-Woodford now or in the future that could not be met by going via Banbury.

If only the powers that be had a crystal ball back in the day to know what we know now I guess a lot would be different...

 

[yorksrob]

The Wigston-Rugby section would have been reduced to a minor route from the moment the Midland opened its London line (initially to King's Cross via Hitchin) and was finally closed just before the Beeching report. BR regretted abandoning it just a few years later, in the late 1960s, when they had plans to divert East Midlands/Sheffield services into Euston and close St. Pancras (as reported in Modern Railways) and could only achieve this by using the slower and inferior Market Harborough - Northampton route. Just imagine the capacity problems today if they had gone through with this!!

Perhaps, for once, we have reason to be thankful that they did close Wigston - Rugby, otherwise Beeching and his acolytes could have left us with even bigger problems than they eventually did.

 

[70014IronDuke]

But in the days when the GC used the Wycombe route, there were through lines on a good number of the stations to allow expresses to pass through unhindered. Many of those passing loops were removed in the 70s and 80s.

The Amersham route was more problematic, however IF BR had been minded to retain the GC, I suspect there would have been a review of where the Metropolitan line actually ended - and I suspect it may have been Moor Park / Watford, with Rickmansworth north handed over to BR.

I agree. If BR had kept the GC as a main line, they would have worked to sort out the southern end. And semi-fast traffic to what became Chiltern's service today would have been a secondary concern.

 

[70014IronDuke]

If the GC had survived, it would no doubt have received the same treatment as the Salisbury-Exeter line - singled, with a 2-hourly stopping service. Yes, some freight would no doubt have still used it (unlike the LSW line), but the infrastructure would have been very restrictive.

So today we would have a busy line, with operators trying to cram in more trains and calls for re-doubling.

I agree (not sure about the freight bit). But at least we would be calling for a re-doubling - the route would still be extant!

 

[PeterC]

They also wanted to get to Oxford via Thame but then sobered up.

But who in their right mind would propose going from London to Oxford via Didcot if they were starting from scratch? Before the railway the turnpike via Risborough and Thame was a serious alternative to going up or down Aston Hill (modern A40 between Stokenchurch and Lewknor).

 

[DarloRich]

Didn't Chiltern Railways put forward a proposal, a few years back, to re-open the GC as far as Rugby and make a Parkway station there?

Aye - till they saw the cost and the fact they would have to pay for it!

 

[70014IronDuke]

Seen it claimed that the Midland route from Leicester to Rugby was closed to concentrate this flow on the GC; the timing of this seems a bit inconclusive to me but whatever it meant it went from two routes to zero in seven years. From purely local considerations the Midland route would probably be of more use today.

The closure of the MR Leicester-Rugby route was the first in a series of a "boiling frog" process which has left us where we are today - with no real east-west link north of London until Brum-Nuneaton-Leicester-Peterboro - that's approx 100 miles.

I bet a thousand monopoly pounds that the closure notice read something like: An alternative route from Leicester to Rugby exists using the former GC line.

Likewise, when they closed Bedford-Northampton, the notice read (something like) alternative bus services will be provided along the route, and alternative trains services are available from Bedford MR via Wellingborough, and Bedford St Johns via Bletchley.

And so it went on until - oh, there are actually no alternative services, except bus, a creaky Bedford St Johns- Bletchley (which should not have survived except by luck) and the Brum - Leicester route.