If you were controlling the Reshaping of the railways, which lines would you shut or save?

[backontrack]

Suppose, for a minute, that you were in charge of the Reshaping of British Railways.

Which lines would you retain, which would you close, and which stops would be cut out?

People on this forum say, very often on threads discussing closed routes (e.g. Carlisle-Hawick), that it 'shouldn't have closed, but shouldn't be reopened now'. So I wonder what our network would look like if we kept open all those lines that we 'shouldn't have closed', and closed some of those with possibly more dubious futures ahead of them instead?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I think I'd still have closed dead end branch lines, but most of the connecting lines would have stayed but in heavily rationalised form.
That would have retained much connectivity but reduced the operating costs considerably.
Some lines were sped up considerably by shutting many of the small intermediate stations (eg Cambrian and North Wales main lines).
The lines survived and have grown since, with decent journey times.
Such an approach might have saved the Waverley line as a through route.
The worst performers today are the lines which survived, but with all their numerous local stations intact (eg Wrexham-Bidston or the Central Wales line).
They are too slow to be attractive for today's longer journeys.
The 1-2 stop local journey died around 1960.
Even today we still have too many stations too close together (eg Roby-Huyton, half a mile).

BR didn't rationalise routes early enough, they just wielded the axe.
Closing local stations, simplifying layouts and combining terminals would have done wonders for the economics of many lines.
We shouldn't have lost the strategic links between major centres (many of them running between the radial London lines).

I don't know what would have saved numerous regional services (eg most of the L&Y network).
The industrial towns of the north turned their backs on the railway really.
BR was left with a massive and costly but little used network, and had little choice but to cut it to the bone.

 

[Boysteve]

Beverley to York should have stayed open. The Beeching report (well Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts#The_closures) states that the line covered 80% of it's operating costs at the time! However there was an alternative route via Selby so that made it OK to close!!!
That must be great comfort to the residents of the market towns of Market Weighton, Pocklington and Stamford Bridge, the latter plagued with congestion during the Summer and at commuter times. There must be several Northern routes that do not cover 80% of their operating costs now. A half hourly Hull-Cottingham-Beverley-Market Weighton-Pocklington-Stamford Bridge-Earswick-York service would be a great thing today. It also means the existing Hull-Selby-(Sherburn)-Yorkj service does not need precious ECML paths South of York.

 

[backontrack]

Some lines were sped up considerably by shutting many of the small intermediate stations (eg Cambrian and North Wales main lines).
The lines survived and have grown since, with decent journey times.
Such an approach might have saved the Waverley line as a through route.

Yeah, that's a good point.

If an all-stations Waverley Route service, for example, called only at Portobello, Niddrie, Eskbank & Dalkeith, Newtongrange, Gorebridge, Fountainhall, Stow, Galashiels, Melrose, St Boswells, Hawick, Newcastleton, Riddings, Longtown and Carlisle then the line as a whole might have survived.

Beverley to York should have stayed open. The Beeching report (well Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts#The_closures) states that the line covered 80% of it's operating costs at the time! However there was an alternative route via Selby so that made it OK to close!!!
That must be great comfort to the residents of the market towns of Market Weighton, Pocklington and Stamford Bridge, the latter plagued with congestion during the Summer and at commuter times. There must be several Northern routes that do not cover 80% of their operating costs now. A half hourly Hull-Cottingham-Beverley-Market Weighton-Pocklington-Stamford Bridge-Earswick-York service would be a great thing today. It also means the existing Hull-Selby-(Sherburn)-Yorkj service does not need precious ECML paths South of York.

I agree with you on this one. It's a travesty that that line closed.

 

[AlterEgo]

Suppose, for a minute, that you were in charge of the Reshaping of British Railways.

Which lines would you retain, which would you close, and which stops would be cut out?

People on this forum say, very often on threads discussing closed routes (e.g. Carlisle-Hawick), that it 'shouldn't have closed, but shouldn't be reopened now'. So I wonder what our network would look like if we kept open all those lines that we 'shouldn't have closed', and closed some of those with possibly more dubious futures ahead of them instead?

This is going to sound incredibly bonkers, but given what I know now (and not placing myself directly into their shoes, so I'm cheating a bit)...I'd have kept nearly everything open.

A vibrant and dominant rail network which is less London-centric than the one we have now would have preserved many rural communities. We'd be able to shift a lot more freight in a more environmentally-friendly way than by sticking it on lorries, and there would be fewer cars on the roads. And fewer road deaths.

If you can imagine what some places would be like now with a regular railway service...run much more efficiently of course. Many rural branches could today be run on an absolute shoestring as railway operation has become many times more efficient than it was in the 1960s.

 

[backontrack]

This is going to sound incredibly bonkers, but given what I know now (and not placing myself directly into their shoes, so I'm cheating a bit)...I'd have kept nearly everything open.

A vibrant and dominant rail network which is less London-centric than the one we have now would have preserved many rural communities. We'd be able to shift a lot more freight in a more environmentally-friendly way than by sticking it on lorries, and there would be fewer cars on the roads. And fewer road deaths.

If you can imagine what some places would be like now with a regular railway service...run much more efficiently of course. Many rural branches could today be run on an absolute shoestring as railway operation has become many times more efficient than it was in the 1960s.

You know what? I agree with you. Of course we'll probably be derided as deluded fantasists who need to face facts, but I agree with you.

 

[Gareth Marston]

Suppose, for a minute, that you were in charge of the Reshaping of British Railways.

Which lines would you retain, which would you close, and which stops would be cut out?

People on this forum say, very often on threads discussing closed routes (e.g. Carlisle-Hawick), that it 'shouldn't have closed, but shouldn't be reopened now'. So I wonder what our network would look like if we kept open all those lines that we 'shouldn't have closed', and closed some of those with possibly more dubious futures ahead of them instead?

I think your coming at it from the wrong angle, I would ask what sort of financial model do you want for the railway and what role it should play? The chosen financial model of fixed prices/rates "common carrier" of the Railway and Canal Traffic Acts from 1854 onward were hopelessly outmoded for the whole railway by the early 1930's. It was structured so that the tiny by tonne profits from moving vast quantity's of coal and heavy industry goods in a near inland transportation monopoly subsidized the rest of the system. In that way many lines which never individually made a profit were viable and served the communities they ran through. Your laissex fare Victorian politician wouldn't admit it but the railways were never commercial from 1854 onward they were part of the UK's Macro economic policy albeit without Govt assistance.

By the 1930's the Victorian heavy industry's were in decline so the declining traffic which was nothing to do with the railways per se meant that the profits to run a UK nationwide common carrier railway no longer existed - add in the cherry picking by road haulage on sundrys and a perfect financial storm was brewing with prices fixed low by Government. Government had two choices either to subsidize or reform - they choose nether - wind the clock forward three decades to "reshaping" and hoping the railway would be self sufficient was being in la la land. The point at which something could have been done was nearly a generation before. The mass closure programme merely encouraged traffic on the remainder to switch away and the goal of self sufficiency moved further away. I would argue that Reshaping had the opposite effect on railway finances than intended making them worse much as the other great reform attempt by the Torys- the 1993 Railways Act did.

The report should have recommend some form of subsidy pointing out the 1955 Modernization plan had failed manly because the Conservative's had shifted transport policy part of the way (after Churchill's death) through its implementation and a lot of money had been invested in perpetuating common carrier requirements dictated by outmoded Victorian legislation now made totally obsolete by the move to bespoke road construction. Moving away from common carrier requirements meant that savings in track, signalling and staff were possible across the whole network but this would take time and need transitional help. Towns above 5,000 in population would still be connected to the national network but the role of smaller stations serving small communities and lines serving low populations needed looking at. The 1961 Traffic Survey shows some pointers but we know its only a snapshot and discriminates against lines with seasonal flows.

 

[yorksrob]

As others have said, I think I would have pursued a different ethos rather than a long list of lines:

Keeping towns of 5,000+ on the network and a more holistic consideration of seasonal routes are good ideas that have appeared above. I would add:

• Giving local managers the responsibility and freedom to make savings on individual lines, particularly marginal ones. This would have saved Swanage for example, and possibly Market Weighton.
• Abandoning the policy of removing duplicate routes and replacing it with one of rationalisation. This would have acknowledged the importance of such routes in times of disruption/renewal etc.
• I would have avoided creating dead-end branches for the sake of it, e.g Uckfield and Colne.
• Providing more of a framework for local involvement, e.g. making it easier for local authorities to subsidise the local railway instead of a bus.
• Providing more possible grounds to object to a closure than 'hardship', for example jeopardising economic development, damaging local businesses etc.

 

[DJH1971]

The Woodhead line

 

[Gareth Marston]

As others have said, I think I would have pursued a different ethos rather than a long list of lines:

Keeping towns of 5,000+ on the network and a more holistic consideration of seasonal routes are good ideas that have appeared above. I would add:

• Giving local managers the responsibility and freedom to make savings on individual lines, particularly marginal ones. This would have saved Swanage for example, and possibly Market Weighton.
• Abandoning the policy of removing duplicate routes and replacing it with one of rationalisation. This would have acknowledged the importance of such routes in times of disruption/renewal etc.
• I would have avoided creating dead-end branches for the sake of it, e.g Uckfield and Colne.
• Providing more of a framework for local involvement, e.g. making it easier for local authorities to subsidise the local railway instead of a bus.
• Providing more possible grounds to object to a closure than 'hardship', for example jeopardising economic development, damaging local businesses etc.

Its abundantly clear that the Reshaping Report was seeking levels of savings that were simply not there - the naively optimistic assumption that everyone would rail head if a line closed encouraged the authors to look at more and more candidates for closure they were going to save the cost of running lines and keep the bulk of the revenue or so they thought......the finance figures given in the report for branch lines were utter fabrications. Beechings typical branch line or stopping service had an hourly service - very rare in the early 1960's and no way lines with typically half that level service could be producing income to cover. But who needed real figures and a plan to rationalise a line to produce savings when if you closed it all the contributory revenue remained and the costs disappeared? Likewise duplicate theory and assuming keeping revenue was another comforter for them.

1963 to 1968 just wasted 5 years and caused untold damage chasing savings that did not exist and when subsidy kicked in it is was at a higher level than it would have been 5 years previously.

In Wales a whole load of large communities in the industrial valleys (at the time) had passenger trains cut but freight remained. The marginal cost of services to Pontypool,Abertilery, Brynmawr, Ebbw Vale, Blackwood, Tredegar, Aberdare/Hirwaun, Rhondda Fach, Maesteg, Glyneath, Ystradgynlais, Pontardawe must have been small. The Porthcawl branch and the populous end of the Central Wales from Amanford into Swansea Victoria via Gorseinon are other S Wales closures serving large populations. Keeping the line from Merthyr to Brecon would have generated more traffic over the last 50 years than truncated Hart of Wales line.

In North Wales the big mistake was on the border Dee Marsh Junction to Chester Northgate was well used but condemned as duplicate - another line where heavy freight remained. Mold stayed connected to Wrexham for freight only a few miles from tyhe Wrexham to Bidston line......The Vale of Clywd from Rhyl down to Denbigh and Ruthin maybe a bit harder to justify on traffic levels but population wise had a two other small towns en route at Rhuddlan and St Asaph serve. Caernarfon ticks the population box.

Now the middle - Oswestry though in England was a clanger of a closure and again the line stayed open for freight from Gobowen....

Rubon to Barmouth, Afon Wen to Caernarfon, Aberystwyth to Carmarthen, Moat Lane Junction to Brecon and Craven Arms to Amanford are hard to justify on population grounds. Moat Lane Junction to Brecon then on to Merthyr was and is the most populous of the 3 North to South lines through Wales plus Brecon has a case on its own to be connected southward. Afon Wen to Caernarfon keeps the lines connected no separated.

 

[yorksrob]

Its abundantly clear that the Reshaping Report was seeking levels of savings that were simply not there - the naively optimistic assumption that everyone would rail head if a line closed encouraged the authors to look at more and more candidates for closure they were going to save the cost of running lines and keep the bulk of the revenue or so they thought......the finance figures given in the report for branch lines were utter fabrications. Beechings typical branch line or stopping service had an hourly service - very rare in the early 1960's and no way lines with typically half that level service could be producing income to cover. But who needed real figures and a plan to rationalise a line to produce savings when if you closed it all the contributory revenue remained and the costs disappeared? Likewise duplicate theory and assuming keeping revenue was another comforter for them.

1963 to 1968 just wasted 5 years and caused untold damage chasing savings that did not exist and when subsidy kicked in it is was at a higher level than it would have been 5 years previously.

In Wales a whole load of large communities in the industrial valleys (at the time) had passenger trains cut but freight remained. The marginal cost of services to Pontypool,Abertilery, Brynmawr, Ebbw Vale, Blackwood, Tredegar, Aberdare/Hirwaun, Rhondda Fach, Maesteg, Glyneath, Ystradgynlais, Pontardawe must have been small. The Porthcawl branch and the populous end of the Central Wales from Amanford into Swansea Victoria via Gorseinon are other S Wales closures serving large populations. Keeping the line from Merthyr to Brecon would have generated more traffic over the last 50 years than truncated Hart of Wales line.

In North Wales the big mistake was on the border Dee Marsh Junction to Chester Northgate was well used but condemned as duplicate - another line where heavy freight remained. Mold stayed connected to Wrexham for freight only a few miles from tyhe Wrexham to Bidston line......The Vale of Clywd from Rhyl down to Denbigh and Ruthin maybe a bit harder to justify on traffic levels but population wise had a two other small towns en route at Rhuddlan and St Asaph serve. Caernarfon ticks the population box.

Now the middle - Oswestry though in England was a clanger of a closure and again the line stayed open for freight from Gobowen....

Rubon to Barmouth, Afon Wen to Caernarfon, Aberystwyth to Carmarthen, Moat Lane Junction to Brecon and Craven Arms to Amanford are hard to justify on population grounds. Moat Lane Junction to Brecon then on to Merthyr was and is the most populous of the 3 North to South lines through Wales plus Brecon has a case on its own to be connected southward. Afon Wen to Caernarfon keeps the lines connected no separated.

Yes indeed. Oswestry seems to have been a particularly poor idea for a closure.

I think if I were following on from Beeching, I'd have commissioned some independent analysis of how much passenger closures actually saved.

 

[backontrack]

This would be my network.

KEY:

LIGHT GREEN: The InterCity mainlines. These would be the first lines to be electrified.
LIGHT BLUE: The main commuter lines. These would be next on the list for electrification.
DARK GREEN: The secondary InterCity lines, electrified simultaneously with the LIGHT BLUE group.
DARK BLUE: The secondary commuter lines. These would be last on the list for electrification.
AMBER: Diesel-operated lines.
RED: Lines that would close.

Now, here are the main changes:

1) What you see below is an aspiration for the network in the future. This is a theoretical modernisation plan. These lines would not all have been electrified for many years; if this report was agreed on in 1966, for example, then the last bits of electrification would probably be completed around 1980 at the earliest.

2) The first lines to go electric would be the light-green InterCity lines. Services could run over them onto the dark green InterCity lines using bi-mode trains as a stopgap. These would be similar to the Blue Pullman trains, or the Class 252 units.

3) I have my own doubts about the northern section (Builth Road-Craven Arms) of the Heart of Wales Line, but that's where the marginal constituency issue comes into play, so for the moment it stays.

4) The short branch lines to Bridport, Chipping Norton, Comrie, Langholm, Ludgershall, Lyme Regis, Mablethorpe, Richmond (Yorkshire), Seaton, Tiverton and Wells would be served by simple DMU shuttles running to the mainline and back à la Stourbridge Junction/Little Kimble.

 

[Bevan Price]

Before closing anything, I would have done a thorough examination of whether or not modified timetables and increased operating efficiencies had any chance of making lines more affordable. So, making smaller stations unstaffed, closing stations miles from significant residential areas would have been first priority. As I have commented elsewhere, looking at some old timetables, it is hard to imagine for whom such timetables would have been any use - it was sometimes impossible to commute to/from work, or to make useful trips for shopping/leisure. After that stage, closure of total "basket case" lines, those serving relatively "tiny" populations would be the next stage.

As posted above, some dead-end branches to very small towns, or places with poorly-sited stations would be in most danger. Too many to list them all, but branches to Llanfyllin, Lyme Regis, Bromyard would be typical of those to be closed. In addition, lines such as Taunton - Barnstaple would be in danger because there were longish distance between places with populations large enough to support a rail service. Likewise, Okehampton - Wadebridge would be unlikely to survive, but Okehampton - Tavistock - Plymouth could probably have been saved.

Barnstaple - Ilfracombe might have been a marginal case; Ilfracombe ought to have been large enough to support a rail service, but the station, at the top of a hill, was badly sited for most of the town, and the intermediate population was low.

(Incidentally, Brecon - mentioned previously lost all its passenger services before Marples/Beeching. )

 

[backontrack]

Barnstaple - Ilfracombe might have been a marginal case; Ilfracombe ought to have been large enough to support a rail service, but the station, at the top of a hill, was badly sited for most of the town, and the intermediate population was low.

Braunton's quite large nowadays though.

 

[yorksrob]

This would be my network.

KEY:

LIGHT GREEN: The InterCity mainlines. These would be the first lines to be electrified.
LIGHT BLUE: The main commuter lines. These would be next on the list for electrification.
DARK GREEN: The secondary InterCity lines, electrified simultaneously with the LIGHT BLUE group.
DARK BLUE: The secondary commuter lines. These would be last on the list for electrification.
AMBER: Diesel-operated lines.
RED: Lines that would close.

Now, here are the main changes:

1) What you see below is an aspiration for the network in the future. This is a theoretical modernisation plan. These lines would not all have been electrified for many years; if this report was agreed on in 1966, for example, then the last bits of electrification would probably be completed around 1980 at the earliest.

2) The first lines to go electric would be the light-green InterCity lines. Services could run over them onto the dark green InterCity lines using bi-mode trains as a stopgap. These would be similar to the Blue Pullman trains, or the Class 252 units.

3) Before you question my sanity as to why the Balluchulish branch is being shown as still open, I would answer that by suggesting that it would be turned over to a heritage group to run (some other lines would too, like Yatton-Wells and

4) I have my own doubts about the northern section (Builth Road-Craven Arms) of the Heart of Wales Line, but that's where the marginal constituency issue comes into play, so for the moment it stays.

5) The short branch lines to Bridport, Chipping Norton, Comrie, Langholm, Ludgershall, Lyme Regis, Mablethorpe, Richmond (Yorkshire), Seaton, Tiverton and Wells would be served by simple DMU shuttles running to the mainline and back à la Stourbridge Junction/Little Kimble.

6) The line from South Woodham Ferrers to Wickford would stay open and be electrified. Ahem.

View attachment 45136

I like it very much.

However, I wouldn't close the Somerset and Dorset joint railway. I think it had reasonable potential.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

This is going to sound incredibly bonkers, but given what I know now (and not placing myself directly into their shoes, so I'm cheating a bit)...I'd have kept nearly everything open.

A vibrant and dominant rail network which is less London-centric than the one we have now would have preserved many rural communities. We'd be able to shift a lot more freight in a more environmentally-friendly way than by sticking it on lorries, and there would be fewer cars on the roads. And fewer road deaths.

If you can imagine what some places would be like now with a regular railway service...run much more efficiently of course. Many rural branches could today be run on an absolute shoestring as railway operation has become many times more efficient than it was in the 1960s.

It isn't that bonkers... most of the real basket-cases had already been closed by the time Beeching came along. There were still a fair few that were beyond redemption but most would have been made more efficient by other reforms (paytrains and de-staffing, DMU operation). Most of those that did close ought to have been mothballed and protected rather than simply ripped up and sold off.

Top three priorities for rescue for me would've been (a) the Leeds "New Line" from Heaton Lodge junction; (b) the Holmfirth branch (perhaps mothballed during the 1970s); and (c) and the Queensbury lines (Halifax/Bradford to Keighley).

 

[backontrack]

I like it very much.

However, I wouldn't close the Somerset and Dorset joint railway. I think it had reasonable potential.

Perhaps. It did seem to duplicate the Heart of Wessex Line slightly for me though.

Top three priorities for rescue for me would've been (a) the Leeds "New Line" from Heaton Lodge junction; (b) the Holmfirth branch (perhaps mothballed during the 1970s); and (c) and the Queensbury lines (Halifax/Bradford to Keighley).

I would certainly have kept the Holmfirth branch open (and electrified it with the other Yorkshire commuter lines); I think on my map I do have the Leeds New Line. As for the Queensbury lines, that's another fairly good shout.

 

[Gareth Marston]

Before closing anything, I would have done a thorough examination of whether or not modified timetables and increased operating efficiencies had any chance of making lines more affordable. So, making smaller stations unstaffed, closing stations miles from significant residential areas would have been first priority. As I have commented elsewhere, looking at some old timetables, it is hard to imagine for whom such timetables would have been any use - it was sometimes impossible to commute to/from work, or to make useful trips for shopping/leisure. After that stage, closure of total "basket case" lines, those serving relatively "tiny" populations would be the next stage.

As posted above, some dead-end branches to very small towns, or places with poorly-sited stations would be in most danger. Too many to list them all, but branches to Llanfyllin, Lyme Regis, Bromyard would be typical of those to be closed. In addition, lines such as Taunton - Barnstaple would be in danger because there were longish distance between places with populations large enough to support a rail service. Likewise, Okehampton - Wadebridge would be unlikely to survive, but Okehampton - Tavistock - Plymouth could probably have been saved.

Barnstaple - Ilfracombe might have been a marginal case; Ilfracombe ought to have been large enough to support a rail service, but the station, at the top of a hill, was badly sited for most of the town, and the intermediate population was low.

(Incidentally, Brecon - mentioned previously lost all its passenger services before Marples/Beeching. )

Marples was SOS for Transport Oct 59 to Oct 64.
Breaching was Chairman of BRB Jun 61 to Jun 65.

Brecon lost its railways in Dec 62.

 

[yorksrob]

Perhaps. It did seem to duplicate the Heart of Wessex Line slightly for me though.

The Heart of Wessex isn't that handy for the Bournemouth conurbation though, .whereas the S&D was the only direct rail link to the North and West.

 

[hassaanhc]

West Drayton to Uxbridge Vine Street. With a new station at Yiewsley where the line crossed A408 Cowley Road, and the old Cowley station moved slightly north to be closer to (and maybe renamed as) Brunel University. Certainly don't think the limited-stop 607 bus service would exist today if the line remained open, as it would allow people to take the train from Ealing, Southall and Hayes to Uxbridge, and would also make things way easier for those at Brunel University.

Wonder if the old line from West Drayton to Staines West would by now have had an extra branch to Heathrow added to provide some sort of western access to Heathrow Airport, had it still remained in use?

 

[backontrack]

The Heart of Wessex isn't that handy for the Bournemouth conurbation though, .whereas the S&D was the only direct rail link to the North and West.

Perhaps, but it wouldn't link to the Bridport branch.

 

[yorksrob]

Perhaps, but it wouldn't link to the Bridport branch.

To be honest, I wouldn't have closed the HoW either.

 

[Gareth Marston]

Yes indeed. Oswestry seems to have been a particularly poor idea for a closure.

I think if I were following on from Beeching, I'd have commissioned some independent analysis of how much passenger closures actually saved.

The Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway - 180 route miles was closed in November 1959 surely there was a post closure evaluation of savings made? That should have been the centre piece of the Reshaping Report proving that closures can make savings not the hypothetical inaccurate and contradictory musings that were actually in the report.

It would have stopped the 50 years of conspiracy theories....anybody seen the M&GNR evaluation?

 

[ivanhoe]

The question you should ask yourselves is what kind of network would you have if you had a blank sheet of paper. Beeching et al was over 50 years ago. Reversing some of his cuts is pure nostalgia.

 

[InOban]

Looking at Scotland area, several of the railways were closed pre-Beeching.


And you have closed the Spalding to Lincoln line, now the W12 main East coast freight line!

 

[Bwlch y Groes]

I'm also of the romantic rose-tinted opinion that very little had to close. I've always thought the pro-Beeching/Marples/closure side do their own fair share of straw-manning. The argument that in recent years I use is that the whole picture pro-closure people build of inefficient sleepy country branches that Beeching had to close is a bit misleading. Yes, there were plenty of these branches around...before Beeching. The vast majority of the truly wasteful lines that could never have been of great use were long gone before the Reshaping report was ever published

I know "hindsight is a wonderful thing" is usually used in a dismissive way, but in this case it shows up the flawed nature of the argument. Pretty much every line that was left by the time of Reshaping was serving a use. Julian Holland's book Beeching: 50 Years On really brought this home to me, because he examines every line that was closed from the report. There are other books out there that do similar. It's easy to look at the whole report and say "well, yes, some had to close", but for me when you look at every line on an individual basis, the case for closing each of them doesn't stack up for me in the majority of cases, even if it's on a social level or for tourist potential when the numbers didn't stack up. Enough lines that Beeching closed have been reopened successfully to call the whole thing into question

What becomes difficult for those of us who are way too young to appreciate is that lines on a map don't necessarily represent services - and Beeching was working on the basis of withdrawing services rather than closing lines (in a roundabout way). A lot of lines and stations clearly suffered from inefficient services that were leftover from pre-grouping days. Brecon's a good example of this - you'd think a market town and regional centre like that ought to have kept its station, but the problem is the services there were rambling country services from Moat Lane, Neath and Newport, which had been unchanged since the days each of those lines were built. But there was no thought to changing the structure of the timetable. I think we're better at managing this now and making the most of the infrastructure we have - if we'd had that mentality back in the 1950s and 1960s, we'd have a much bigger and better network, and very few places would be isolated

Station closures, on the other hand...

 

[Bevan Price]

What becomes difficult for those of us who are way too young to appreciate is that lines on a map don't necessarily represent services - and Beeching was working on the basis of withdrawing services rather than closing lines (in a roundabout way). A lot of lines and stations clearly suffered from inefficient services that were leftover from pre-grouping days. Brecon's a good example of this - you'd think a market town and regional centre like that ought to have kept its station, but the problem is the services there were rambling country services from Moat Lane, Neath and Newport, which had been unchanged since the days each of those lines were built. But there was no thought to changing the structure of the timetable. I think we're better at managing this now and making the most of the infrastructure we have - if we'd had that mentality back in the 1950s and 1960s, we'd have a much bigger and better network, and very few places would be isolated

Station closures, on the other hand...

The problem with Brecon is that the best way to serve it would have been a long tunnel through the mountains from somewhere near Merthyr - about the only way they could have avoided long rambling lines through lightly populated countryside. However, Brecon was too small to justify the cost of building & operating such a tunnel, which would probably need to have been at least twice the length of the Severn Tunnel.

 

[Bwlch y Groes]

The problem with Brecon is that the best way to serve it would have been a long tunnel through the mountains from somewhere near Merthyr - about the only way they could have avoided long rambling lines through lightly populated countryside. However, Brecon was too small to justify the cost of building & operating such a tunnel, which would probably need to have been at least twice the length of the Severn Tunnel.

Well quite, but they could still have made better use of the lines you had. It was technically possible to have a direct Cardiff-Brecon service at the time using the lines they had - Cardiff-Bargoed-Pant-Torpantau-Talyllyn-Brecon. It would have made a lot more sense than running from Newport. Equally, it wouldn't have taken much to run the service to/from Neath to/from the Swansea area instead

Back in the 60s, connecting to the major cities wasn't a big deal. My own local line, the Rhondda Fach branch to Maerdy, was operated by a Maerdy-Porth shuttle, with people changing at Porth to get to Cardiff or even Pontypridd, the nearest town. That's just the way it had always been done since the days of the Taff Vale Railway - freight continued through, passengers had to change

Nowadays if that line was to be reinstated (tearing up a bypass road in the process), it would have to be run to/from Cardiff, otherwise it wouldn't be considered to be viable. And of course today we have fewer tracks and track capacity than we did back then, which makes you wonder what might have been had someone come up with the bright idea of Maerdy-Cardiff services back then

But that's the thing - railway people were stuck in the mindset of operating the services as they had always been. There was no thinking outside the box. And the British Transport Commission came along and exploited that, long before Beeching was out of ICI

3) Before you question my sanity as to why the Balluchulish branch is being shown as still open, I would answer that by suggesting that it would be turned over to a heritage group to run

I disagree. It should have been kept open as a main line. It has fantastic scenery and serves some very isolated communities which doesn't separate it too drastically from the other lines in the area. It was just unlucky to be closed before the social railway kicked in

Given that Beeching was keen on branding, it's a shame he didn't consider a brand for scenic lines to be promoted for tourism. Ballachulish would've been ideal for that

 

[yorksrob]

Also the Cuckoo line should never have closed. Hailsham and Heathfield were big enough settlements to support a slimmed down railway, and in prime commuter territory.

 

[backontrack]

To be honest, I wouldn't have closed the HoW either.

It was a tricky decision, really. The only towns of any size on the S&D route south of Templecombe were Wincanton and Blandford Forum, whereas with the HoW you get the main Yeovil station. I've ended up keeping the S&D as far south as Cole (with the suggestion of a link onto the HoW there), but closing the line south of that. I'd probably just keep them both, however.