Most dubious railway closure cases

[Spaceflower]

If I read correctly, most of the Harrogate Line - Weeton to Poppleton - is Conservative Country. By your argument it should have had new stock before it did, possibly also electrification. As a fairly self-contained set of routes I don't begrudge Leeds North West getting the new trains, as the people living there kindly proved that the 'sparks effect' is real.

On-topic: Low Moor to Thornhill or Mirfield via the Spen Valley (now the Spen Valley Greenway) would have seen good patronage today if open, I think. I don't see why you would close a line that ran through the centres of the towns they served and which connected with major employment centres.

Or did the wiring of the AV routes coincide with rapidly rising levels of commuting/car use?

 

[Dr Hoo]

But Beeching was appointed by a minister who had more than a passing interest in constructing motorways......

And how many motorways were built to 'replace' lines that had minimal traffic?

The main positive (longer distance) thrusts of the Re-shaping Report were, of course, Inter City passenger and Freightliner that, err, were both intended to and did have the effect of reducing traffic on motorways.

 

[ex-railwayman]

The main positive (longer distance) thrusts of the Re-shaping Report were, of course, Inter City passenger and Freightliner that, err, were both intended to and did have the effect of reducing traffic on motorways.

Yes, Beeching also structured the MerryGoRound system for coal traffic in HAA wagons from pits to power stations, and 55 years on the operation's still on-going., I wonder how many lorries that's kept off Britain's roads?


Cheerz. Steve.

 

[yorksrob]

If only we could have just had Beeching sorting out the freight, rather than screwing up the passenger network.

 

[tbtc]

St Andrews 1969

A funny one

I can (kind of) see the case for re-opening it now (after fifty years of significantly increased tourism/ university) but I think the closure made sense at the time

There's always the problem of what would serve a St Andrews branch - it could be a stand alone Leuchars shuttle, but on every discussion about long distance routes someone points out that "passengers don't like to change trains, it's a disincentive", yet running an Edinburgh - St Andrews train would use a path that could be used for an Edinburgh - Dundee (Aberdeen) train, so that's quite an Opportunity Cost to consider

(dare I say it) The Waverley Route in 1969

Seems odd to have closed the entire thing, rather than maintaining a branch to stations in Midlothian (but then I guess the path of the line carefully snaked it's way through the countryside without being much use for the town centres of Dalkeith etc, so may have been of only limited benefit

In terms of dubious closures I've wondered about Penrith-Keswick

I suppose one issue with this is, what would run on such a branch nowadays?

The unnelectrified Windermere branch gets a single Sprinter every hour, with limited extensions through to Manchester, but that's a lot busier (and closer to Manchester) than a Keswick branch would be, so guess it'd be a quieter version of that?

Anyway - a pet one of mine , - Brynamman East - Swansea St Thomas - (Swansea Vale, Midland and LMS) - 1950 - hugely profitable in the glory years before the sky fell in after WW1 , (more passengers than the entire Midland suburban service into St Pancras and Moorgate) , but dead really after that. Worked by a 3F tank and a 2 car push pull set. Not even hourly by 1948.

Closure proposed on the basis of something like 20 new passenger coaches needed and a similar raft of "new" steam engines. Nodded through with no consultation and with full support from the 3 local bus operators - which had snatched the traffic. An easy case , - but a bit devious in hamming up the railway resource case. Not that the bus windfall lasted much beyond say 1964 or so. (when the freight service went in any case as industry had by then gone)

Really interesting example (nice to hear of one I'd not known of before)

Although there was a lot of criticism of BR for carrying out its traffic surveys in what could be seen as a quiet period, it had one (possibly unintended) advantage. If they had carried out the survey in a busy period, they would have had quite a number of lines that would appear profitable (or at least worth retaining) on the figures produced, but were really basket cases. As it was beginning to become clear that the car was starting to eat into the number of passenger journeys, you had a situation where lines that appeared profitable when surveyed had a chance of remaining so for a number of years.

Good point - if some of the lines that survived are still so quiet to barely justify a minibus in 2019, despite year-on-year of passenger growth, imagine how much worse some of the ones that actually closed would have been - it only takes one basket case for your opponents to try to portray everything as being that weak - a "runt" line would have required large annual subsidies as well as allowing anti-railway people to keep focussing on it as an example of how railways will never be viable

So what? How did closing very minor branch lines generate more motorway building contracts for Ernest Marples?

And how many motorways were built to 'replace' lines that had minimal traffic?

Good points - the conspiracy theory stuff about Marples must be a comfort for some people, allowing them to believe that everything would have survived if it wasn't for just one bad actor, but it doesn't stack up as an argument

The main positive (longer distance) thrusts of the Re-shaping Report were, of course, Inter City passenger and Freightliner that, err, were both intended to and did have the effect of reducing traffic on motorways.

Yes, Beeching also structured the MerryGoRound system for coal traffic in HAA wagons from pits to power stations, and 55 years on the operation's still on-going., I wonder how many lorries that's kept off Britain's roads?


Cheerz. Steve.

Agreed on both the above points - Beeching did a lot more good than harm - something that he doesn't get enough credit for

 

[ex-railwayman]

If only we could have just had Beeching sorting out the freight, rather than screwing up the passenger network.

He did sort out the freight in parts, he generated the improvisation of marshalling yards on the railway network, Tinsley's Hump and Marshalling Yard in Sheffield being one of the first to be built, which he personally opened in 1965, that was purpose built to close down the plethora of small freight yards around the greater Sheffield area and stopped the duplication of work in handling the same wagons as they made their way from customers premises for onward shipment around Britain, very effective it was as well at the time, especially, when it got the 25Kv electrification lines to utilise the Woodhead route across the Pennines.

Cheerz. Steve.

 

[yorksrob]

He did sort out the freight in parts, he generated the improvisation of marshalling yards on the railway network, Tinsley Hump and Marshalling Yard in Sheffield being one of the first to be built, which he opened in 1965, that was purpose built to close down the plethora of small freight yards around the greater Sheffield area and stopped the duplication of work in handling the same wagons as they made their way from customers premises for onward shipment around Britain, very effective it was as well at the time, especially, when it got the electrification lines to utilise the Woodhead route across the Pennines.

Cheerz. Steve.

Yes, I'll give him that.

 

[simonw]

Somerset was once a coal-producing area. The railway around Radstock was busy with coal trains. When the Somerset coal industry faded away, so did the justification of the Somerset & Dorset Railway.

Agreed, although there were other routes out of Radstock.

 

[JBuchananGB]

Some people consider that the electrified Crossens to Southport section of Southport to Preston should not have been closed. Nowadays people bemoan the lack of a rail link from Southport to Preston and the front page report of this week's local rag is that reinstatement of the Burscough curves has not been selected by the government for funding of feasibility study.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Some people consider that the electrified Crossens to Southport section of Southport to Preston should not have been closed.

I've heard that assertion also. How big a place is Crossens, population-wise?

 

[Pinza-C55]

It only made sense for all the traffic surveys (for passenger and freight) that underpinned the Re-shaping Report to be carried out simultaneously. This was during the third week of April 1961. Dr Beeching took over as Chairman of the then British Transport Commission on 1 June and the results were (metaphorically) waiting for him although it took another 21 months to come up with the report.

I know that it is a popular myth that Beeching somehow turned up at each of thousands of stations on a wet Tuesday evening in February but there has never been any serious evidence that the methodology was fiddled within the obvious constraints of the time - all paper based, no computers or automatic data capture and so on.

Carrying out the surveys in April 1961 would miss any holiday traffic that was carried which for instance on the lines around Skegness would be considerable. A more useful survey could have been carried out by Guards submitting passenger counts for all trains for one year. The Railway Invigoration Society produced a booklet years ago which I still have and they quoted that the "conventional wisdom" at the time was that if you closed a railway then people would get a bus or drive to the nearest railhead and then complete their journey by train but they said that studies post Beeching found that in fact they either a) Got the bus the whole way or b) Drove the whole way or c) Didn't travel. So in fact the Domino Effect kicked in and the traffic was entirely lost to the railways.

 

[simonw]

Carrying out the surveys in April 1961 would miss any holiday traffic that was carried which for instance on the lines around Skegness would be considerable. A more useful survey could have been carried out by Guards submitting passenger counts for all trains for one year. The Railway Invigoration Society produced a booklet years ago which I still have and they quoted that the "conventional wisdom" at the time was that if you closed a railway then people would get a bus or drive to the nearest railhead and then complete their journey by train but they said that studies post Beeching found that in fact they either a) Got the bus the whole way or b) Drove the whole way or c) Didn't travel. So in fact the Domino Effect kicked in and the traffic was entirely lost to the railways.

the railway was aware of holiday traiffic, but was also aware that it was concentrated into a few weeks a year and yet the railway head to run 52 weeks a year.

TBH most stations listed for closure generated such little traffic that it's total loss to the railway had little impact of the economic s of the mainlines.

 

[RT4038]

Carrying out the surveys in April 1961 would miss any holiday traffic that was carried which for instance on the lines around Skegness would be considerable. A more useful survey could have been carried out by Guards submitting passenger counts for all trains for one year. The Railway Invigoration Society produced a booklet years ago which I still have and they quoted that the "conventional wisdom" at the time was that if you closed a railway then people would get a bus or drive to the nearest railhead and then complete their journey by train but they said that studies post Beeching found that in fact they either a) Got the bus the whole way or b) Drove the whole way or c) Didn't travel. So in fact the Domino Effect kicked in and the traffic was entirely lost to the railways.

It would have also got the November and February lows as well. There was simply not enough time to collect one years' worth of data, nor to analyse it.
Whatever the 'conventional wisdom', the lines were often carrying so few passengers on an annualised basis that the so-called Domino effect was irrelevant. Yes, some traffic was lost entirely to the railways, but trying to retain it was simply unaffordable.

If only we could have just had Beeching sorting out the freight, rather than screwing up the passenger network.

So somebody else would have had to close down large quantities of the passenger network instead? What would be the point of that?

 

[Clarence Yard]

The Beeching surveys were also matched against the annual station revenue figures to look for such patterns as well as confirming accuracy.

The problem for such lines was the general decline in traffic levels. It made no difference that there was a holiday boost for a few weeks a year.

A good example of the general problem can be illustrated by Ventnor, which had also surveys done at various intervals in 1963. On the August Bank Holiday Saturday in 1963 the trains were rammed but in winter it was a very different story - minibus/single deck bus territory.

Ventnor also illustrated the decline in rail use that was going on at that time. It lost 25% of it’s passenger traffic between 1959 and 1963 alone, despite a near identical train service.

 

[bramling]

Didn't work out like that. It only took until 1982 for Milton Keynes Central to be built to connect it to the outside world, once planners figured out that no town or city can be truly self-contained.

It was never going to work from a social point of view. Somewhere like Stevenage retains a tie to London, hardly surprising when many of its residents came from there, something which still happens nowadays albeit to a lesser extent.

 

[RT4038]

The Beeching surveys were also matched against the annual station revenue figures to look for such patterns as well as confirming accuracy.

The problem for such lines was the general decline in traffic levels. It made no difference that there was a holiday boost for a few weeks a year.

A good example of the general problem can be illustrated by Ventnor, which had also surveys done at various intervals in 1963. On the August Bank Holiday Saturday in 1963 the trains were rammed but in winter it was a very different story - minibus/single deck bus territory.

Ventnor also illustrated the decline in rail use that was going on at that time. It lost 25% of it’s passenger traffic between 1959 and 1963 alone, despite a near identical train service.

Quite. Rail closures to seaside resorts were as a result of already declining traffic - to motor cars and to foreign holidays - further decline was predicted, and of course played out at seaside stations that were not closed at that time.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The unnelectrified Windermere branch gets a single Sprinter every hour, with limited extensions through to Manchester, but that's a lot busier (and closer to Manchester) than a Keswick branch would be, so guess it'd be a quieter version of that?

I reckon it would actually do better. One of the problems with the Windermere branch is that despite its name the station is located in a small town about half an hour's walk down a big hill (and back up) to the actual lake which is at Bowness. It has had a lot spent on it of late but there isn't much there. There is an excellent bus service, but many people don't do buses. There also isn't any attractive hillwalking immediately adjacent to it, so it isn't great for daytripping from the North West's urban centres.

By contrast, the Keswick branch would serve Keswick, a busy town which is basically a north Lakes version of Ambleside - a pleasant place to be with all manner of outdoors opportunities nearby - including famous mountains like Blencathra and Cat Bells.

In a sense, the line would have potential to be what you'd have if only the Windermere branch continued to Ambleside.

Probably not enough potential for a reopening, but if it hadn't been closed I reckon it would have done OK for itself. I reckon probably better than Okehampton.

 

[frodshamfella]

It was a really useful service until the Covid timetable reduced the frequency.

It really should be back to hourly by now.

 

[507020]

I've heard that assertion also. How big a place is Crossens, population-wise?

Crossens is just the northern bit of Southport, a good 4 miles from the town centre. The previous station at Churchtown would see more passengers but I wouldn’t be surprised if the electrification had been extended to Banks by now. The network is completely unbalanced now because you can’t have stations at Birkdale, Hillside and Ainsdale but not at Hesketh Park, Churchtown and Crossens. Half the town has access to the railway and the other doesn’t.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Although the Beeching closure proposals were illustrated in the report by some simplistic costings of the train movements involved, I think at that late stage BR knew it had to drastically downsize and eliminate whole areas of cost on a regional basis - partly linked to the end of steam and all its inefficiencies.
Plus the need to rationalise the multiple routes inherited from the private construction years (eg the GC, S&D, even S&C).
BR and the DfT had lost the opportunity for a more gradual and analytical approach in the 15 years after nationalisation, as the overall profitability vanished.
Some of the route rationalisations (eg engineering new connections between lines, enabling the closure of some major terminals) came in the late 60s, well after Beeching.
The speed of the Beeching process was quite remarkable, compared to the snail's pace of change today.
Putting up a barrage of closure proposals simultaneously was another way of minimising opposition and making the outcome (mostly) inevitable.

 

[Recessio]

Primrose Hill (and indeed the dubiously low-capacity signalling and power supply of the whole Watford DC lines that still causes issues restricts today).

Timetables set up so that trains leaving Primrose Hill at the typical morning peak times took a slow amble and arrived in the City at 9.05am... Not suitable if you need to be at the desk for 9am.

 

[yorksrob]

The Beeching surveys were also matched against the annual station revenue figures to look for such patterns as well as confirming accuracy.

The problem for such lines was the general decline in traffic levels. It made no difference that there was a holiday boost for a few weeks a year.

A good example of the general problem can be illustrated by Ventnor, which had also surveys done at various intervals in 1963. On the August Bank Holiday Saturday in 1963 the trains were rammed but in winter it was a very different story - minibus/single deck bus territory.

Ventnor also illustrated the decline in rail use that was going on at that time. It lost 25% of it’s passenger traffic between 1959 and 1963 alone, despite a near identical train service.

Station revenue figures wouldn't have been much use for incoming holiday/day trip traffic.

The speed of the Beeching process was quite remarkable, compared to the snail's pace of change today.
Putting up a barrage of closure proposals simultaneously was another way of minimising opposition and making the outcome (mostly) inevitable.

Indeed - a quite effective way of avoiding scrutiny.

 

[Randomer]

Not to bang the Beeching holiday traffic drum too much but one of the most dubious ones I've learnt about recently was the Porthcawl branch line. Yes traffic levels for local holidays were decreasing but using both of the below seem incredibly dubious as a methodology:
-A winter month for physical passenger counting when traffic was heavily summer seasonal.
-Only counting the station revenue made from ticket sales year round when the majority of passengers bought returns from areas around Cardiff and Swansea (so the station itself sold few tickets but had a large amount of traffic.)

Anecdotally it was still heavily used by day trippers from the Cardiff and the Valleys right up until closure. Something not replicated in bus or car traffic.

Does anyone know if the Beeching yearly revenue figures were done on a basis of sales made both from and too the station concerned? I think it was done purely on sales made at the station concerned which probably didn't pick up a lot of the year round usage in many places.

I agree that summer holiday traffic was decreasingly rapidly at the time of closure but it might be interesting to see a comparison between areas heavily used by day trippers from nearby towns versus those used mainly by longer distance holiday makers. I have a suspicion but no evidence that traffic levels were effected very differently.

 

[Clarence Yard]

In those days tickets sold and tickets collected were recorded at station level.

In the case of the Isle of Wight, those figures were used to justify retention of the Ryde to Shanklin section, which was (then) beyond the capability of buses to serve in summer.

I believe the same problem existed with Skegness.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Not to bang the Beeching holiday traffic drum too much but one of the most dubious ones I've learnt about recently was the Porthcawl branch line. Yes traffic levels for local holidays were decreasing but using both of the below seem incredibly dubious as a methodology:
-A winter month for physical passenger counting when traffic was heavily summer seasonal.
-Only counting the station revenue made from ticket sales year round when the majority of passengers bought returns from areas around Cardiff and Swansea (so the station itself sold few tickets but had a large amount of traffic.)

Wasn't this supposedly a "flaw" in the survey methodology of many other similar lines/stations which had seasonal flows and/or were primarily a destination rather than origin for ticket sales.

Survey was undertaken the week ending Sunday 23rd April 1961, if I rightly recall, so the survey week was a fortnight after Easter Sunday, i.e. early Spring.

 

[JBuchananGB]

How big a place is Crossens, population-wise?

There was a large industrial site adjacent to Crossens station, which has only just now been bulldozed and is being developed for housing. (The station site and other sites along the route have long since been built over.) It was said at time of closure that there were 2 million passenger journeys on the route each year. The route was unusual in that local services included a reversal at Meols Cop (only one of which platforms was electrified!).

 

[Dr Hoo]

Primrose Hill (and indeed the dubiously low-capacity signalling and power supply of the whole Watford DC lines that still causes issues restricts today).

Timetables set up so that trains leaving Primrose Hill at the typical morning peak times took a slow amble and arrived in the City at 9.05am... Not suitable if you need to be at the desk for 9am.

That was really only an issue towards the very end when the service was down to only one train per day each way (which was presumably built around suiting a 0930-1730 working day in the City from stations along the route).

Primrose Hill had been on the skids since before the First World War. (It was closed for several years, around the time of the track remodelling too in 1917-1922ish.)

Why anyone would use Primrose Hill for the City when the nearby Northern Line station at Chalk Farm had a far more comprehensive service is lost on me. (I get that some people might have been travelling to Highbury or wherever.)

 

[BeijingDave]

Can I nominate the short-sighted downsizing of Manchester Victoria in favour of an arena that could have been built on any number of brownfield sites in central Manchester?

Only for Victoria to now be increasing in services - 17 platforms (or something rationalised in the same space) would be much more useful than the current clogged-up 6 (only 4 of which are through).

 

[Rescars]

Can I nominate the short-sighted downsizing of Manchester Victoria in favour of an arena that could have been built on any number of brownfield sites in central Manchester?

Only for Victoria to now be increasing in services - 17 platforms (or something rationalised in the same space) would be much more useful than the current clogged-up 6 (only 4 of which are through).

In a similar vein, it's a bit unfortunate now that half of the Marylebone concourse was sold off for housing back in the distant past.

 

[coppercapped]

Wasn't this supposedly a "flaw" in the survey methodology of many other similar lines/stations which had seasonal flows and/or were primarily a destination rather than origin for ticket sales.

Survey was undertaken the week ending Sunday 23rd April 1961, if I rightly recall, so the survey week was a fortnight after Easter Sunday, i.e. early Spring.

In reply to this and other posts on this topic, the 'Beeching Report' (page 10) had this to say:

The traffic surveys, which were made in great detail, extended over only one week, the week ending on 23rd April, 1961, because it was impossible to continue the massive recording effort involved for a longer period. It was realised, there-fore, that conclusions about some streams of traffic and about some parts of the system which are affected by seasonal changes could not be based firmly on the traffic surveys alone. Subject to this limitation, however, there can be little doubt about the general reliability of the picture revealed.

Even if traffic picked up during the 3 to 4 months of summer, there were still 8 to 9 months of little traffic. And of the summer peak most would be compressed into a few weekends. The Report on page 15 makes it clear how uneconomic most of the seasonal traffic really was. In 1959:

Total number of gangwayed coaches allocated to fast and semi-fastservices .. .. .. .. .. .. 18,500
______________________________________________________________________
Number in year-round service .. .. .. .. .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ..5,500
Additional vehicles for regular summer service .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... . .. .. 2,000
Available for high peak service .. .. .. .. .... .. .... .. .... .. .... .. .... .. .... .. .... .. .... .. .... .. .. .. .. 8,900
Under repair .. .. .. .. .. .. .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ..... .. 2,100

There were nearly twice as many coaches available for seasonal traffic as were needed to run the year round service. This was financially unsustainable.