Most dubious railway closure cases

[yorksrob]

Err, we are talking about Surplus Track Capacity Grants that were invented and started several years after Dr Beeching had left and a line closure that had been announced under the 1967 'Network for Development' that I think was the only conspiracy strategic planning document ever signed by both the Chairman of the BRB (Sir Stanley Raymond) and Minister of Transport (Barbara Castle).

It was the latest version of a policy that had existed for years. Even Barbra Castle's social railway was a case of too little too late (Shoreham - Christ's Hospital being an example).

 

[NoRoute]

Some of the closure decisions haven't aged well, you look at Nottingham which had Victoria station ideally positioned in the city centre, on the North-South axis, ideal for through services and it ended up keeping the Midland station on the edge of the city, on the wrong axis and becoming something of a branch.

And the irony is that now, to build something like Victoria would cost so much money that it wasn't even an option for HS2.

 

[tbtc]

Surely the relevance here is that the line was almost covering its costs, so there was no justification in closing it

How do you know it was "almost" covering its cost?

Are you including the number of signal boxes needed to keep it open and the costs of bringing infrastructure up to standards (given the way that a number of lines needed significant work doing to them if they were going to have a future)?

In this curcumstance, being on a stub is neither here nor there.

You're the same @yorksrob who dismisses other proposals as just being "stubs" and not being ambitious enough (e.g. the idea of "only" opening from Plymouth to Tavistock, or Edinburgh to Tweedbank), right?

Or are stubs good now?

It still amazes me that The conspiracy theorists going on producing the same old nonsense.

TBH it makes me wonder what other nonsense they belive.

Agreed - it's a slippery slope to conspiracies, wanting to believe that there's some sinister masterplan - we see it with various other stories - people would rather believe comforting lies than deal with awkward truths - I wouldn't be surprised if there's overlap with certain other "theories" (albeit possibly not a suggestion that we build a line to the edge of the Flat Earth!)

But, if you want to believe in keeping quaint little branch lines open, you'll swallow any stories about how Beeching's representatives only visited lines in the pouring rain, because that suits your agenda

What was it again? a third should never have been, a third should have been shut already, and the last third shouldn't have shut at all?

That's what usually gets said on these threads, but with the caveat that some of the people who suggest that they accept two thirds of lines should have closed at the time can never accept any minor closure in the 2020s (even something as trivial as Breich), which suggests that they'd never have accepted a single closure in the 1960s either

there was that flawed idea that people would drive to railheads instead of just driving the full distance, but by the time that was realised it was too late to reverse anything

The problem with that argument is that people proposing re-openings are always very keen to amplify population numbers by including huge areas of countryside (e.g. if you mention that Tavistock and Okehampton only have small populations then people will say "ah, but you have to include the entire population of north Devon, because people will come from far and wide to use a station at Dartmoor" - SELRAP are careful to use the entire population of East Lancashire when talking about people who might use a train service to Leeds), yet when you talk of one station closing the same people suggest that nobody will possibly use another station instead

Moor Street was also to close in 1969 when the North Warwicks line trains were to be withdrawn. The Leamington trains were to be diverted into New Street, leaving Birmingham with just one station. Wouldve been very short sighted as time has provern.

Funny how things change - back then people were complaining about the idea of all Birmingham services sharing one central station - now the debate has moved on to people complaining that Curzon Street will be a three day trek from New Street

Yes, this point is very well made. Devolvment to local authorities could be an error when the roots of their public transport approach was focused on a background in running municipal bus services. The history of non integration goes back a very long way of course.

I can see the logic in these decisions being national or local - my problem is that a lot of the people arguing about who it was that made the decision would have been unhappy with whoever made the decision - it isn't the level of Government that made the decision that they are unhappy with, they'd complain whether it was decided by the Parish Council or the United Nations

Some of the closure decisions haven't aged well

Sure, but that's with sixty years of massive change, significantly increased populations, completely different commuter patterns (compared to the 1960s) - of course some lines can be seen in a different light now, but you've got to remember that BR were still just running MML services from London to Nottingham every ninety minutes in the 1990s (a combined forty five minute service from London to Leicester, given the ninety minute frequency from London to Sheffield), so the idea of spreading the demand between St Pancras and the GC route would have spread things even thinner than the forty five minute service on the line north of Bedford was)

 

[yorksrob]

How do you know it was "almost" covering its cost?

Are you including the number of signal boxes needed to keep it open and the costs of bringing infrastructure up to standards (given the way that a number of lines needed significant work doing to them if they were going to have a future)?



You're the same @yorksrob who dismisses other proposals as just being "stubs" and not being ambitious enough (e.g. the idea of "only" opening from Plymouth to Tavistock, or Edinburgh to Tweedbank), right?

Or are stubs good now?



Agreed - it's a slippery slope to conspiracies, wanting to believe that there's some sinister masterplan - we see it with various other stories - people would rather believe comforting lies than deal with awkward truths - I wouldn't be surprised if there's overlap with certain other "theories" (albeit possibly not a suggestion that we build a line to the edge of the Flat Earth!)

But, if you want to believe in keeping quaint little branch lines open, you'll swallow any stories about how Beeching's representatives only visited lines in the pouring rain, because that suits your agenda



That's what usually gets said on these threads, but with the caveat that some of the people who suggest that they accept two thirds of lines should have closed at the time can never accept any minor closure in the 2020s (even something as trivial as Breich), which suggests that they'd never have accepted a single closure in the 1960s either



The problem with that argument is that people proposing re-openings are always very keen to amplify population numbers by including huge areas of countryside (e.g. if you mention that Tavistock and Okehampton only have small populations then people will say "ah, but you have to include the entire population of north Devon, because people will come from far and wide to use a station at Dartmoor" - SELRAP are careful to use the entire population of East Lancashire when talking about people who might use a train service to Leeds), yet when you talk of one station closing the same people suggest that nobody will possibly use another station instead



Funny how things change - back then people were complaining about the idea of all Birmingham services sharing one central station - now the debate has moved on to people complaining that Curzon Street will be a three day trek from New Street



I can see the logic in these decisions being national or local - my problem is that a lot of the people arguing about who it was that made the decision would have been unhappy with whoever made the decision - it isn't the level of Government that made the decision that they are unhappy with, they'd complain whether it was decided by the Parish Council or the United Nations



Sure, but that's with sixty years of massive change, significantly increased populations, completely different commuter patterns (compared to the 1960s) - of course some lines can be seen in a different light now, but you've got to remember that BR were still just running MML services from London to Nottingham every ninety minutes in the 1990s (a combined forty five minute service from London to Leicester, given the ninety minute frequency from London to Sheffield), so the idea of spreading the demand between St Pancras and the GC route would have spread things even thinner than the forty five minute service on the line north of Bedford was)

Well, the Hailsham branch was a single track line to one platform at the time with only one platform in use, and there were no viaducts our tunnels on that stretch, so where are all of these infrastructure costs and signal boxes of which you speak ?


I am indeed the same Yorksrob who would prefer full railways to stubs, however a stub is better than nothing, and it's amazing how many times with our 'destroy railways at all costs' policy during the closure period, we've ended up with neither full line not stub, but nothing !

 

[NoRoute]

Sure, but that's with sixty years of massive change, significantly increased populations, completely different commuter patterns (compared to the 1960s) - of course some lines can be seen in a different light now, but you've got to remember that BR were still just running MML services from London to Nottingham every ninety minutes in the 1990s (a combined forty five minute service from London to Leicester, given the ninety minute frequency from London to Sheffield), so the idea of spreading the demand between St Pancras and the GC route would have spread things even thinner than the forty five minute service on the line north of Bedford was)

No I wasn't referring to the routes, I recognise it was likely they would need rationalisation. I was referring to the decision of which station to keep and which to demolish, it would have been better to keep Nottingham Victoria and demolish Nottingham Midland, as it is they demolished the wrong one.

 

[Irascible]

The problem with that argument is that people proposing re-openings are always very keen to amplify population numbers by including huge areas of countryside (e.g. if you mention that Tavistock and Okehampton only have small populations then people will say "ah, but you have to include the entire population of north Devon, because people will come from far and wide to use a station at Dartmoor" - SELRAP are careful to use the entire population of East Lancashire when talking about people who might use a train service to Leeds), yet when you talk of one station closing the same people suggest that nobody will possibly use another station instead

Reopenings after 50 years are a different beast to reopening a mothballed line though - although given the state of feeder routes it wouldn't have been a "just reopen it" I doubt. We did do a lot of stripping lines to bare minimums not many years later though so it was obviously possible with whatever labour relations we had back then too ( and after you've laid off all your 10 passenger a day stationmasters already you don't need to rehire them for unstaffed halts, likewise signallers - maybe that was a missed trick! ).

 

[thedbdiboy]

Birmingham Snow Hill was a very dubious closure, seeing that it was closed in 1972, demolished a few years later and then reopened in 1987!

Indeed has any other line reopened so soon after closure?

I'm not sure it was.

The aspiration was to centralise most of Birmingham's rail services on New Street - wasn't quite managed as Moor St survived, but the old Snow Hill was huge, but had lost its main reason for existence with the removal of the GW London - Birmingham - Birkenhead services to a newly electrified WCML. The growth of demand in West Mids local services is what drove the reopening of Snow Hill but on a much smaller scale than what was there before.

BR's investment in the WCML modernisation and electrification was predicated on the duplicate Paddington - Birmingham - Wolverhampton route being shut on completion. The route was safeguarded after closure because there was always a desire to see the corridor reused for West Midlands local services. As I have alluded to above, the financial decisions that drive change are not made by some all seeing 'blob'; it is instead a layering of factions, politics national, regional and local, and funding opportunities.

In particular, many local authorities, cash-strapped as they were, could or would not fund lines that they argued should be financed by BR. Keeping a route open until the local authority could step in to fund it was a non-starter because it often resulted in the local authority deferring any investment on the basis that BR was funding it. Interestingly there was an almost identical situation with the London Snow Hill Tunnel - closed by BR in 1971, route safeguarded by the GLC who helped fund it's reinstatement and upgrade in 1988.

 

[yorksrob]

BR's investment in the WCML modernisation and electrification was predicated on the duplicate Paddington - Birmingham - Wolverhampton route being shut on completion. The route was safeguarded after closure because there was always a desire to see the corridor reused for West Midlands local services. As I have alluded to above, the financial decisions that drive change are not made by some all seeing 'blob'; it is instead a layering of factions, politics national, regional and local, and funding opportunities.

In particular, many local authorities, cash-strapped as they were, could or would not fund lines that they argued should be financed by BR. Keeping a route open until the local authority could step in to fund it was a non-starter because it often resulted in the local authority deferring any investment on the basis that BR was funding it. Interestingly there was an almost identical situation with the London Snow Hill Tunnel - closed by BR in 1971, route safeguarded by the GLC who helped fund it's reinstatement and upgrade in 1988.

Although the snow hill tunnel in London hadn't had passenger trains for donkeys years !

 

[Djgr]

Don't know if its a dubious closure, but Narborough station was closed and re opened in less than 2 years. Closed 4th March 1968, reopened 5th January 1970.

Shotton (Low Level) was a difficult closure to comprehend. Matlock Bath as well.

 

[trebor79]

Some of the closure decisions haven't aged well, you look at Nottingham which had Victoria station ideally positioned in the city centre, on the North-South axis, ideal for through services and it ended up keeping the Midland station on the edge of the city, on the wrong axis and becoming something of a branch.

And the irony is that now, to build something like Victoria would cost so much money that it wasn't even an option for HS2.

Yes I always thought that was a strange decision. Victoria could have been reached from the east via the then extant curves and from the west and south via Leicester Central.
I guess the prime city centre location must have played it's part in the decision.

 

[NoRoute]

Yes I always thought that was a strange decision. Victoria could have been reached from the east via the then extant curves and from the west and south via Leicester Central.
I guess the prime city centre location must have played it's part in the decision.

And it was the faster route to Leicester and upto Sheffield., putting Nottingham on a fast through service. But demolishing it gained it a shopping centre and some flats, but looking at the city now it's got an excess of retail space, can't even get a developer to rebuild the Broadmarsh and a railway station located inconveniently on the edge of the city centre. Not just the HS2 of its day but better than HS2 because it was a direct route that went slap-bang through the city centre and straight out either side, Nottingham couldn't afford to build today what it demolished in the 1960s, tragic really.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Yes I always thought that was a strange decision. Victoria could have been reached from the east via the then extant curves and from the west and south via Leicester Central.
I guess the prime city centre location must have played it's part in the decision.

You're going to have to spell it out to me. How do you do (say) Birmingham or Kettering (let alone St Pancras) to Nottingham Victoria via Leicester Central?

North of Nottingham Victoria the GC line had really gone downhill. By the 1961 timetable the few non-stop runs from Nottingham V to Sheffield V (and v.v.) were scheduled for around 68 minutes for 42 miles. The Midland route, with a useful call at Chesterfield took 60 minutes for 45 miles. (I am aware that both routes suffered from irregular speeds because of mining subsidence over the years.)

 

[Gloster]

South of Nottingham the GC main line did not serve anywhere of any size that was not served by another main line, with the exception of Lutterworth. At the main locations that it did serve its stations were separate to the other stations, which would make changing somewhat more difficult.

 

[Eyersey468]

Was any of the tramway in Nottingham built on the former GC trackbed?

 

[NoRoute]

You're going to have to spell it out to me. How do you do (say) Birmingham or Kettering (let alone St Pancras) to Nottingham Victoria via Leicester Central?

Look at London and how stations have been reconnected and re-purposed to serve different lines and services, it needed some track changes at the south of the city to add a curve to connect it to the Midland line in both East and West directions. And at the North of the city, some reconfiguration to connect into the Midland. Then trains would arrive and depart from Nottingham as they do today, only rather than using Nottngham Midland, badly positioned on the edge of the city, they'd go into Victoria, right in the city centre.
i

North of Nottingham Victoria the GC line had really gone downhill. By the 1961 timetable the few non-stop runs from Nottingham V to Sheffield V (and v.v.) were scheduled for around 68 minutes for 42 miles. The Midland route, with a useful call at Chesterfield took 60 minutes for 45 miles. (I am aware that both routes suffered from irregular speeds because of mining subsidence over the years.)

I'm not sure whether those figures have any relevance, the GC had lost out politically to the other lines and was being run down, so services were deteriorating, a fairer comparison would be when both were at their peak, when GC was the faster service.

 

[Falcon1200]

I was referring to the decision of which station to keep and which to demolish, it would have been better to keep Nottingham Victoria and demolish Nottingham Midland, as it is they demolished the wrong one.

On the contrary, it was the correct, and only practical decision; The GCR London Extension was built decades after the Midland as a competing route and served absolutely nowhere of any importance which did not already have a station, plus as already mentioned it had far less connectivity than the Midland. Not a conspiracy, just geographical and historical fact.

 

[trebor79]

Was any of the tramway in Nottingham built on the former GC trackbed?

Yes, the viaduct north of the station was demolished (as it was "unsuitable" for some reason) and replaced with a new concrete viaduct. It then veers off onto the road before the Weekday Cross tunnel entrance (cutting since filled in with an arts centre).
The bridge ivert the station follows the original alignment, then it comes down to street level approximately where Arkwright Street station was. I think the bridge over the Trent and either side is also on the original alignment.

On the contrary, it was the correct, and only practical decision; The GCR London Extension was built decades after the Midland as a competing route and served absolutely nowhere of any importance which did not already have a station, plus as already mentioned it had far less connectivity than the Midland. Not a conspiracy, just geographical and historical fact.

What we are suggesting is keeping the Midland route for the most part, but arranging things so that the station for Nottingham would have been Victoria rather than Midland.
But that would have left you with a disused station site on an awkward triangle of land on the outskirts of the city centre, not as lucrative for redevelopment and would have cost some money to reconfigure the surrounding lines. Nevertheless, from a railway point of view it could have been the better solution.

 

[NoRoute]

On the contrary, it was the correct, and only practical decision; The GCR London Extension was built decades after the Midland as a competing route and served absolutely nowhere of any importance which did not already have a station, plus as already mentioned it had far less connectivity than the Midland. Not a conspiracy, just geographical and historical fact.

If the GCR arrives in a city and builds a bigger and better located station, with a better and faster route through the city, it doesn't make much sense to keep a poorly located station on the edge of the city and demolish the better one, simply because the Midland built it first. A better outcome would have been to keep the better located Victoria station and integrate it into the Midland network, getting the best of both worlds, the Midland's better connectivity and the GCR's better station.

 

[Dai Corner]

If the GCR arrives in a city and builds a bigger and better located station, with a better and faster route through the city, it doesn't make much sense to keep a poorly located station on the edge of the city and demolish the better one, simply because the Midland built it first. A better outcome would have been to keep the better located Victoria station and integrate it into the Midland network, getting the best of both worlds, the Midland's better connectivity and the GCR's better station.

I'm not familiar with 1960s Nottingham, but what land would have to have been acquired and buildings demolished to achieve that, and at what cost?

 

[NoRoute]

I'm not familiar with 1960s Nottingham, but what land would have to have been acquired and buildings demolished to achieve that, and at what cost?

Have a look at the map below and draw your own conclusions, you'll see Victoria in the centre of the city, the line north is hard to see because it was tunnelled straight through to the city centre, similar to a high speed line in a modern city. The Midland station is on the east-west route skirting the edge of the city at the bottom.

I can't see how there can be any debate, you look at Victoria and it's an engineering master piece, absolutely central to the city, on a line that's tunnelled and not carving up the city, straight through to provide decent speeds, North-south axis for great services to the north and south. Compared to the Midland, poorly located, on the wrong axis, unsuitable for North-South through services.

Map of Nottingham in 1950s

 

[yorksrob]

One could have created a mainline version of the spur that exists today between the MML and the northern GCR. Probably would have been the easier option.

 

[Eyersey468]

@trebor79 thank you for your reply.

 

[RT4038]

What was it again? a third should never have been, a third should have been shut already, and the last third shouldn't have shut at all?

This ditty is presented, and repeated, without any kind of supporting evidence. Also contains no mention of the lines/stations which should have been shut, but weren't. It is a worthless nonsense for the position in 1963.

There should possibly have been a "well, let's just stop using it & see if that's really the best idea" policy for the more marginal cases rather than just immediately ripping everything apart.

But this just wasn't an option. BR had to realise the value of the redundant assets to fund investment in modernising the railway that was left, to make it more efficient and competitive, and stem the risk of even more being shut down.

I still haven't found the source for that anecdote from Barnstaple goods yard that said they were turning away business because there wasn't enough stock - I wonder how many other similar cases there were

Even then (and I suspect this anecdote is more likely to come from the immediate post war period or before) the railways could not afford to adequately cater for every peak in demand, whether passenger or for freight. However then they had no legal mechanism to market price and try to manage demand that way. There is not necessarily any bad management practice there.

And there was that flawed idea that people would drive to railheads instead of just driving the full distance, but by the time that was realised it was too late to reverse anything.

Strange, but people driving to railheads is just what happened. Another fallacy. My local station car park contains the cars of many people who could have travelled on one of the villages/small towns of the many surrounding closed lines, had the stations been at all convenient for the settlement they purported to serve. This would have happened anyway, whether the lines remained open or not.

One day I'll go look up who was running BR at the time & where they came from/who put them there. Our business management in many places in that time period seems atrocious.

Atrocious compared to what? The business management practices of today? And how well will they stand up to the testimony of time?

I agree that Hailsham- Polegate was a very dubious closure. A former BR colleague of mine said at the time that line was losing only a small amount of money (a few thousand pounds in the 1960s) but despite the prospect of housing development increasing the size of the town, it was in the Beeching Report so had to close.

I think it highly unlikely that this line would have been losing 'only a small amount of money' , except in the context of the total losses. Proportionate to its operation it would have been heavily loss making, particularly when the replacement costs of assets (track and rolling stock) came to pass. Like with local bus services, the more estates that got built [out of walking distance of the station] and the more out of town employment and education sites in Eastbourne and elsewhere, the fixed route/stations of the railway would have become uncompetitive in the later 70s and going forward.
If lots of these lines had been retained, where would the money have come from to replace the rolling stock at a million pounds per car? Consider what would have happened to the rest of the network - it is myopic to expect that 'Government' would have increased capital funding to compensate for all these additional loss making lines (additional because Hailsham could be multiplied up and down the country hundreds of times).

I do smile when I read people taking what somebody heard an ex BR manager say as gospel - as if these people had some kind of financial crystal ball and were in full knowledge of the big picture!

If all of these closed lines had remained open, the service on the entire network would be that of infrequency and unattractive to use, unless you really think that there was the political will at any point to tax more heavily and to tolerate emasculaton of road traffic. [which there simply wasn't]. Particularly with the intervening years of social changes, rail travel is probably irrelevant to most journeys that people make, and would be almost as much been if these lines had remained open.

 

[yorksrob]

This ditty is presented, and repeated, without any kind of supporting evidence. Also contains no mention of the lines/stations which should have been shut, but weren't. It is a worthless nonsense for the position in 1963.

But this just wasn't an option. BR had to realise the value of the redundant assets to fund investment in modernising the railway that was left, to make it more efficient and competitive, and stem the risk of even more being shut down.

Even then (and I suspect this anecdote is more likely to come from the immediate post war period or before) the railways could not afford to adequately cater for every peak in demand, whether passenger or for freight. However then they had no legal mechanism to market price and try to manage demand that way. There is not necessarily any bad management practice there.

Strange, but people driving to railheads is just what happened. Another fallacy. My local station car park contains the cars of many people who could have travelled on one of the villages/small towns of the many surrounding closed lines, had the stations been at all convenient for the settlement they purported to serve. This would have happened anyway, whether the lines remained open or not.

Atrocious compared to what? The business management practices of today? And how well will they stand up to the testimony of time?

I think it highly unlikely that this line would have been losing 'only a small amount of money' , except in the context of the total losses. Proportionate to its operation it would have been heavily loss making, particularly when the replacement costs of assets (track and rolling stock) came to pass. Like with local bus services, the more estates that got built [out of walking distance of the station] and the more out of town employment and education sites in Eastbourne and elsewhere, the fixed route/stations of the railway would have become uncompetitive in the later 70s and going forward.
If lots of these lines had been retained, where would the money have come from to replace the rolling stock at a million pounds per car? Consider what would have happened to the rest of the network - it is myopic to expect that 'Government' would have increased capital funding to compensate for all these additional loss making lines (additional because Hailsham could be multiplied up and down the country hundreds of times).

I do smile when I read people taking what somebody heard an ex BR manager say as gospel - as if these people had some kind of financial crystal ball and were in full knowledge of the big picture!

If all of these closed lines had remained open, the service on the entire network would be that of infrequency and unattractive to use, unless you really think that there was the political will at any point to tax more heavily and to tolerate emasculaton of road traffic. [which there simply wasn't]. Particularly with the intervening years of social changes, rail travel is probably irrelevant to most journeys that people make, and would be almost as much been if these lines had remained open.

Your assertion that the Hailsham line would have become less useful and relevant as time went on is simply not based on experience.

Social trends over the last fifty years have been for people to seek employment, education and leisure further from home, and some would have used the train. The additional housing would have added to passenger numbers, as has happened at surviving stations where housing developments have taken place.

One only has to look at the lines which were listed for closure but which survived, such as the Marshlink to see what the likely development of the Hailsham line would have been.

It's worth noting also that many of the lines which ought to have remained open already had comparatively new rolling stock, so replacement wouldn't have been needed until well after the fashion for slash and burn route closures had subsided. Hailsham itself was run with 205 and 207 thumper units which didn't require replacement until 2005.

 

[RT4038]

Your assertion that the Hailsham line would have become less useful and relevant as time went on is simply not based on experience.

Social trends over the last fifty years have been for people to seek employment, education and leisure further from home, and some would have used the train. The additional housing would have added to passenger numbers, as has happened at surviving stations where housing developments have taken place.

One only has to look at the lines which were listed for closure but which survived, such as the Marshlink to see what the likely development of the Hailsham line would have been.

It's worth noting also that many of the lines which ought to have remained open already had comparatively new rolling stock, so replacement wouldn't have been needed until well after the fashion for slash and burn route closures had subsided. Hailsham itself was run with 205 and 207 thumper units which didn't require replacement until 2005.

We have been here before. The line north of Hailsham was a hopeless loss maker at the time of closure, with something like an average of 10 passengers per train (and that being a generous interpretation, it could be have been 5). So that leaves the Hailsham- Polegate shuttle which lasted a few years after closure of the through line. This could not be compared to the Marshlink line, which anyway did not see signs of revival for another thirty years or so.

You are making an assumption that route closures would have subsided if those of the 60s had not happened. I am not so sure. The main railway would be in a far worse condition without the investments in the 60s on the back of redundant infrastructure sales and with the debilitating financial burden of all these loss making branch/minor lines lifted. I believe that the closure program would have come anyway and possibly deeper with the rest of the network in far worse shape.

 

[yorksrob]

We have been here before. The line north of Hailsham was a hopeless loss maker at the time of closure, with something like an average of 10 passengers per train (and that being a generous interpretation, it could be have been 5). So that leaves the Hailsham- Polegate shuttle which lasted a few years after closure of the through line. This could not be compared to the Marshlink line, which anyway did not see signs of revival for another thirty years or so.

You are making an assumption that route closures would have subsided if those of the 60s had not happened. I am not so sure. The main railway would be in a far worse condition without the investments in the 60s on the back of redundant infrastructure sales and with the debilitating financial burden of all these loss making branch/minor lines lifted. I believe that the closure program would have come anyway and possibly deeper with the rest of the network in far worse shape.

Or alternatively we would have had a less severe closure programme, political support for closures would have ebbed away anyway, as it was based on social factors independent of the railway, and the Government would have had to have supported what we were left with. This would have forced the railway to cut its cloth by getting better at rationalisation and basic railway working.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

Err, we are talking about Surplus Track Capacity Grants that were invented and started several years after Dr Beeching had left and a line closure that had been announced under the 1967 'Network for Development' that I think was the only conspiracy strategic planning document ever signed by both the Chairman of the BRB (Sir Stanley Raymond) and Minister of Transport (Barbara Castle).

I suspect the idea of paying British Rail (BR) to reduce track capacity was the brainchild of Stewart Joy who was appointed by Barbara Castle as BR's chief economist. In his very interesting book, The Train That Ran Away, Mr. Joy makes clear that he believed that most of BR's financial problems were caused by their failure to match their track and signalling costs to the service levels being operated.

 

[Grumbler]

The East Suffolk is an example of a line for which there was such a poor closure case that it did not close, apart from its northern spur to Great Yarmouth. Singling the track and simplifying the signalling enable costs to be cut sufficiently to save it from the axe. In recent years some of the route has been doubled again.

 

[nw1]

Locally these closed routes could probably have been retained with a bit of foresight:

Mid Hants.
Rationale: Alresford is a reasonable sized town in itself, plus it's a useful diversionary route and it opens up connectivity from the Farnham area to south Hampshire.
Suggested service if it hadn't closed: electrify, and extend one of the two half-hourly VEPs to Alton, to Southampton Central via Winchester calling at all stations.

Swanage.
Rationale: Potentially carries huge traffic in the summer months, granted there is a marked seasonal spike but it would also allow local commuting into the Bournemouth area.
Suggested service if it hadn't closed: hourly service from Bournemouth.

Hythe and Fawley.
Rationale: Large population in the area, with much of the housing built before closure. Of course there continues to be talk about it reopening.
Suggested service if it hadn't closed: hourly service from Southampton Central.

One route north of Bournemouth, EITHER the Somerset and Dorset, as far north as Evercreech Junction (thereafter, rerouting via Westbury could have taken place) OR the Salisbury route. If cost cutting was desired, only the larger settlements could have had stations retained (i.e. Wimborne, Blandford and Templecombe - for connections - on the S+D, or Fordingbridge and Downton on the Salisbury route).
Rationale: connectivity north and west of the Bournemouth/Poole area has been poor since.
Suggested service: two-hourly service to Bristol Temple Meads from Bournemouth, with hourly service at the southern end (i.e. Bournemouth-Salisbury or Bournemouth-Blandford, depending on route chosen).
Which? - not sure. On balance I'd say Salisbury; Bournemouth to Salisbury alone would probably generate a lot of traffic, though the southern S+D would provide the fairly large town of Wimborne with a rail service. Another option would have been to keep the Salisbury route open and leave an S+D stub to Wimborne. With the Swanage route retained as well as a Bournemouth-Salisbury route, there'd probably be need for a small pool of DMUs at Bournemouth so adding in a few Wimborne turns would not be that difficult.

Romsey to Swindon.
Rationale: connectivity from the Solent area to the Swindon area is not good, with indirect routing via Reading or via Bath needed. Also, the Solent to Andover, the main intermediate settlement, is an indirect route.
Suggested service: again, if cost cutting were desired, the number of intermediate stations could be kept small, e.g. Stockbridge, Andover, Ludgershall, Marlborough.
Suggested service: hourly service from Southampton Central, calling at the above named retained stations. Perhaps some could work through to Cheltenham (but via the existing route rather than reopening the former route)

Guildford to Cranleigh.
Rationale: while the through route to Horsham is probably not needed (I'd say the same about Horsham to Shoreham as well), keeping open a stub to Cranleigh, which has a lot of housing, would have made sense.
Suggested service: EMU portion, detached off the Haslemere or Portsmouth stopping service at Guildford.

Bridport.
Rationale: area with few rail connections. Significant holiday traffic. Managed to stay open until 1975 so there must have been some demand. Big problem was that the service only ran to Maiden Newton, with that in mind it's hardly surprising it eventually closed as it made travelling anywhere to and from the branch a slow and long-winded affair.
Suggested service: run through to Weymouth, with good connections off London services. Two-hourly service (with one unit, or interworked with Yeovil line services) would probably be adequate.

 

[yorksrob]

Locally these closed routes could probably have been retained with a bit of foresight:

Mid Hants.
Rationale: Alresford is a reasonable sized town in itself, plus it's a useful diversionary route and it opens up connectivity from the Farnham area to south Hampshire.
Suggested service if it hadn't closed: electrify, and extend one of the two half-hourly VEPs to Alton, to Southampton Central via Winchester calling at all stations.

Swanage.
Rationale: Potentially carries huge traffic in the summer months, granted there is a marked seasonal spike but it would also allow local commuting into the Bournemouth area.
Suggested service if it hadn't closed: hourly service from Bournemouth.

Hythe and Fawley.
Rationale: Large population in the area, with much of the housing built before closure. Of course there continues to be talk about it reopening.
Suggested service if it hadn't closed: hourly service from Southampton Central.

One route north of Bournemouth, EITHER the Somerset and Dorset, as far north as Evercreech Junction (thereafter, rerouting via Westbury could have taken place) OR the Salisbury route. If cost cutting was desired, only the larger settlements could have had stations retained (i.e. Wimborne, Blandford and Templecombe - for connections - on the S+D, or Fordingbridge and Downton on the Salisbury route).
Rationale: connectivity north and west of the Bournemouth/Poole area has been poor since.
Suggested service: two-hourly service to Bristol Temple Meads from Bournemouth, with hourly service at the southern end (i.e. Bournemouth-Salisbury or Bournemouth-Blandford, depending on route chosen).
Which? - not sure. On balance I'd say Salisbury; Bournemouth to Salisbury alone would probably generate a lot of traffic, though the southern S+D would provide the fairly large town of Wimborne with a rail service. Another option would have been to keep the Salisbury route open and leave an S+D stub to Wimborne. With the Swanage route retained as well as a Bournemouth-Salisbury route, there'd probably be need for a small pool of DMUs at Bournemouth so adding in a few Wimborne turns would not be that difficult.

Romsey to Swindon.
Rationale: connectivity from the Solent area to the Swindon area is not good, with indirect routing via Reading or via Bath needed. Also, the Solent to Andover, the main intermediate settlement, is an indirect route.
Suggested service: again, if cost cutting were desired, the number of intermediate stations could be kept small, e.g. Stockbridge, Andover, Ludgershall, Marlborough.
Suggested service: hourly service from Southampton Central, calling at the above named retained stations. Perhaps some could work through to Cheltenham (but via the existing route rather than reopening the former route)

Guildford to Cranleigh.
Rationale: while the through route to Horsham is probably not needed (I'd say the same about Horsham to Shoreham as well), keeping open a stub to Cranleigh, which has a lot of housing, would have made sense.
Suggested service: EMU portion, detached off the Haslemere or Portsmouth stopping service at Guildford.

Bridport.
Rationale: area with few rail connections. Significant holiday traffic. Managed to stay open until 1975 so there must have been some demand. Big problem was that the service only ran to Maiden Newton, with that in mind it's hardly surprising it eventually closed as it made travelling anywhere to and from the branch a slow and long-winded affair.
Suggested service: run through to Weymouth, with good connections off London services. Two-hourly service (with one unit, or interworked with Yeovil line services) would probably be adequate.

I think that's a very sensible assessment, although I do think that Horsham - Shoreham should have been retained, given the substantial nature of its intermediate settlements.