Most dubious railway closure cases

[tbtc]

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

So?

Let's say a lot of people from Sheffield take a trip to (e.g.) Cleethorpes each summer - Sheffield station has lots of revenue from the tickets - but passenger numbers aren't enough to keep Cleethorpes open - so the Sheffield passengers board trains to (e.g.) Blackpool instead - Sheffield station has broadly the same revenue, the same number of passengers, it's just that they head to a different seaside now - the railway gets the same £££ that it had before though

Whereas, if you allocate that money to Cleethorpes instead, it stays open because it's pulling it's weight, but Sheffield is no longer viable and closes. Those Sheffield passengers now no longer have the option to take a train to the seaside, so all that money is lost

Plus, re @coppercapped 's fascinating figures above, the cost of having sufficient "supply" to met the "demand" of a few summer weekends was pretty expensive (in the way that it's currently quite expensive nowadays to provide trains that are only used for one peak service a day) - so if the seaside town was only getting it's passenger numbers because they were heavily subsidised by keeping thousands of carriages in warm storage for fortysomething weeks of the year just so that they could be used for a handful of journeys each summer - so stations with very lopsided passenger volumes were always going to be tricky to solve (see also branches like Whitby where the annual passenger numbers are nothing special, but every weekend in the summer seems to have full and standing loads according to Forum experience, so that's a lot of pretty empty trains in the winter months)

 

[thedbdiboy]

Glasgow to Kilmacolm in 1983. The very fact they tried to reverse it only a few short years later says it all. By that time some of the land had been sold and sadly the line only re-opened as far as Paisley Canal.

The Kilmacolm branch was PTE funded. When the funding was withdrawn, the line was closed. It's very easy to refer to 'they' as a sort of blob, but the survival of most routes was (and is) directly linked to funding - either of the service or for capital renewals. If the funding isn't there, the route can't survive. Later on in a more benign funding regime the Paisley Canal part reopened and of course Scotland has been more successful at reopening closed lines than England. As the Borders line illustrates, if the will is there to reinstate, it matters not that part of the original formation is built on, the engineering project will adapt as required.

To get back to the beginning, March-Spalding was a good example of adapting services to modern needs.

The 'Joint Line' had had a very limited services after the 1970 Lincolnshire closures. Hardly anyone wanted to go to March as such. The main stations had 'one change' routes to London or the rest of the ECML (Gainsborough-Retford, Lincoln-Newark, Sleaford-Grantham and Spalding-Peterborough). So changing twice, at Spalding and Peterborough, was never going to be attractive. The Peterborough-Spalding service had rather an odd status, with local authority subsidy rather than being part of the 'PSO', so was obviously focussed on local needs and connections rather than through journeys.

The Spalding-March route was of value whilst there was significant slow freight to Whitemoor Yard but this had largely evaporated and the line had loads of level crossings with high expenses. Diverting and combining the Joint Line services to Peterborough made both commercial and operating sense and frequencies gradually built up from three-per-day in subsequent years.

(I had strong family connections in Spalding and even lived there for a while so know the area quite well.)


This was a case where the local Passenger Transport Authority/Executive exercised its right to terminate support for a route. People on this Forum are often very keen on localism and services being specified by locally elected politicians with a strong social agenda but in the Kilmacolm case they decided that buses would be cheaper. (Other routes that PTA/Es declined to support included Birmingham Snow Hill-Wolverhampton Low Level, Clayton West and Hunts Cross-Gateacre.) Strathclyde PTE agreed to the land sale.

March-Spalding was a typical 'late' closure where a combination of (then) falling traffic levels coupled with infrastructure that needed renewal resulted in what can very much been seen as a short term decision for closure caused by BR's extremely poor cash situation in the early 1980s. It is interesting that the route has effectively been replaced by the Peterborough and Werrington rebuilds which essentially allow March - Spalding to be operated without crossing the ECML on the level. Whilst on the one hand it demonstrates the value of the original route, these major engineering projects have on the other hand removed any rationale for replacing the original line.

Somerset & Dorset {shafted by BR(W)}

The S&D has mythical status but by the 1960s was a basket case business wise and has even less justification now. If a spare billion appeared so as to allow the replacement of a lost route, this one would be so far down the pecking order as to be invisible.

I seem to remember a publication entitled 'The Great Isle of Wight Train Robbery' which detailed how BR had messed with the figures to justify closing everything except Ryde-Shanklin. And yes Ventnor was up a hill........

And another trick was not posting up any timetables wasn't it, as happened on the Stour Valley line to reduce passenger numbers nicely.

The Isle of Wight is another set of routes which were hopeless in terms of generating any sort of return. The justification (if it were needed) was to try and ensure that funds needed to keep more critical parts of the rail network were not diverted to keep lines like IoW running where the local authorities protested the closure plans but were distinctly unable or unwilling to fund the shortfall. I love the Island's quirky railways as much as anyone but even today the current Island Line represents one of the most heavily subsidised services in the country.

 

[Djgr]

BR's case to close the Settle - Carlisle was rather dodgy; it was even famously undermined by the manager they sent in to manage the closure...

For "manager" read "hero"

 

[yorksrob]

So?

Let's say a lot of people from Sheffield take a trip to (e.g.) Cleethorpes each summer - Sheffield station has lots of revenue from the tickets - but passenger numbers aren't enough to keep Cleethorpes open - so the Sheffield passengers board trains to (e.g.) Blackpool instead - Sheffield station has broadly the same revenue, the same number of passengers, it's just that they head to a different seaside now - the railway gets the same £££ that it had before though

Whereas, if you allocate that money to Cleethorpes instead, it stays open because it's pulling it's weight, but Sheffield is no longer viable and closes. Those Sheffield passengers now no longer have the option to take a train to the seaside, so all that money is lost

Plus, re @coppercapped 's fascinating figures above, the cost of having sufficient "supply" to met the "demand" of a few summer weekends was pretty expensive (in the way that it's currently quite expensive nowadays to provide trains that are only used for one peak service a day) - so if the seaside town was only getting it's passenger numbers because they were heavily subsidised by keeping thousands of carriages in warm storage for fortysomething weeks of the year just so that they could be used for a handful of journeys each summer - so stations with very lopsided passenger volumes were always going to be tricky to solve (see also branches like Whitby where the annual passenger numbers are nothing special, but every weekend in the summer seems to have full and standing loads according to Forum experience, so that's a lot of pretty empty trains in the winter months)

Firstly, I find the idea that Sheffield Midland would somehow not be viable if journeys were properly allocated between departure and arrival stations somewhat far fetched.

Secondly, many seaside routes moved to a system of fixed formation multiple units anyway (thinking of Seaton and Swanage as examples) which would have served all year round, rather than relying on lines of old carriages.

 

[muddythefish]

There have been many examples of manufactured closure cases – what are the worst examples we can think of?

Most of the lines that closed following the Beeching report were deliberately run down.

Every accountancy trick was brought to bear in declaring lines unprofitable, and further severe stratagems to prevent anyone from proving them wrong.

 

[Rescars]

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



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:



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

Whilst this position is clearly unsustainable, it does appear to assume that all the coaches in question were of equal capital value and would incur the same annual maintenance costs. Given the average longevity of rolling stock, this assumption seems somewhat flawed.

 

[paul1609]

The case for Uckfield - Lewes was manufactured to facilitate the construction of a road by-pass. It even included a dodgy "irreparable" viaduct claim into the bargain.

Thats not really true at the time the only road bridge at Lewes over the River Ouse was the A27 Cliffe Bridge which was a single track ancient bridge that was heavily weight restricted. It was absolutely right that the county council supported the construction of a new bridge 200 yards north. There is no reason why BR could not have modified the viaduct to cross the new road which it crossed at 90 degrees. The county councils preferred option was that the line was returned to its original route north of Lewes it was BR that wanted closure. It was also BR that closed 2 miles of the up from the viaduct to Barcombe Mills due to safety concerns. The fact that the line was closed to facilitate a new bypass has come from the reopening claims and become embedded in rail enthusiast fokelaw its simply not true. BR wanted to close the line because it lost shed loads of money.

 

[Helvellyn]

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.

I agree that of it had stayed open I think it would have had fairly good traffic. It would have continued as a Penrith-Keswick shuttle, connecting with WCML services.

To go back to my original post my hunch is that electrification did for the branch due to likely operational conflicts with the new Down Loop. This would be as much as a barrier to reopening today as reinstating demolished bridges, etc. As with many things, once it's gone restoration gets a whole lot more complex.

 

[Clarence Yard]

Most of the lines that closed following the Beeching report were deliberately run down.

Every accountancy trick was brought to bear in declaring lines unprofitable, and further severe stratagems to prevent anyone from proving them wrong.

Too much conspiracy theory here.

Most lines that closed were unprofitable - there wasn’t much in the way of accountancy tricks that were needed. The traffic had melted away in the previous ten or so years and traffic levels were still going down.

The kind of analysis that BR did in those days was relatively crude. Revenue flow analysis? No - it was mainly station sales and numbers of tickets collected. Hence the need to go out there in April 1961 and see who was travelling, how many wagons were actually being dealt with, etc.

Allocating costs was an area of controversy and it still is on the railway today because you can do it so many ways. What is truly fixed, what is truly variable, how much is avoidable and how and to what do you allocate all those elements? I’ve had to do it for real and it isn’t straightforward. Different people do it different ways too!

Faced with a near impossible task of trying to keep the railway’s head above water in the 1960’s, patience with groups trying to save basket case lines did run short and yes, there were some odd moves but to say the whole process was bent is too much.

The policy had been set by a Government and that was that. The railway had to cut its cloth accordingly and if it didn’t make money it had to go and if it was likely to lose money, it had to go before it started to. BR was deliberately kept cash poor so everything redundant or surplus had to be turned into pound notes pronto - nothing could be kept “just in case”.

 

[muddythefish]

Too much conspiracy theory here.

Most lines that closed were unprofitable - there wasn’t much in the way of accountancy tricks that were needed. The traffic had melted away in the previous ten or so years and traffic levels were still going down.

The kind of analysis that BR did in those days was relatively crude. Revenue flow analysis? No - it was mainly station sales and numbers of tickets collected. Hence the need to go out there in April 1961 and see who was travelling, how many wagons were actually being dealt with, etc.

Allocating costs was an area of controversy and it still is on the railway today because you can do it so many ways. What is truly fixed, what is truly variable, how much is avoidable and how and to what do you allocate all those elements? I’ve had to do it for real and it isn’t straightforward. Different people do it different ways too!

Faced with a near impossible task of trying to keep the railway’s head above water in the 1960’s, patience with groups trying to save basket case lines did run short and yes, there were some odd moves but to say the whole process was bent is too much.

The policy had been set by a Government and that was that. The railway had to cut its cloth accordingly and if it didn’t make money it had to go and if it was likely to lose money, it had to go before it started to. BR was deliberately kept cash poor so everything redundant or surplus had to be turned into pound notes pronto - nothing could be kept “just in case”.

A common comment is that they'd have never got away with half the stuff these days, because people would actually query the accounting. In those days the enquiries tended to accept the numbers at face value without looking at them.

Under TUCC rules it was forbidden to cross-examine BR on its figures - they were automatically taken as gospel. Anyone who tried to put questions on the accuracy of the figures was told to sit down by the chairman, and thrown out if they didn't. Similarly in new road enquiries it was forbidden to question the MoT's figures justifying the need for the road improvements.

The inquiries were just a rubber stamp for government policy. At least one TUCC chairman boasted how quickly he could get the whole thing buttoned up and the line shut.

Conspiracy and corruption isn't the half of it!

 

[yorksrob]

Thats not really true at the time the only road bridge at Lewes over the River Ouse was the A27 Cliffe Bridge which was a single track ancient bridge that was heavily weight restricted. It was absolutely right that the county council supported the construction of a new bridge 200 yards north. There is no reason why BR could not have modified the viaduct to cross the new road which it crossed at 90 degrees. The county councils preferred option was that the line was returned to its original route north of Lewes it was BR that wanted closure. It was also BR that closed 2 miles of the up from the viaduct to Barcombe Mills due to safety concerns. The fact that the line was closed to facilitate a new bypass has come from the reopening claims and become embedded in rail enthusiast fokelaw its simply not true. BR wanted to close the line because it lost shed loads of money.

Even the return to the original route was a substandard option which would have left the entrance to the railway facing the wrong way.

If the local authorities were truly supportive of the route, why did their preferred option not involve BR Repairing the "cough" unsafe viaduct, rather than preferring the construction of an operationally impractical new route.

Not that I'm absolving BR management at the time, who clearly had an agenda of closing as much route milage as they could get away with.

 

[Falcon1200]

Secondly, many seaside routes moved to a system of fixed formation multiple units anyway (thinking of Seaton and Swanage as examples) which would have served all year round, rather than relying on lines of old carriages.

Although if sufficient units were provided to cope with Summer demand, would there not still be huge excess capacity for the other 9 months of the year ?

 

[yorksrob]

Although if sufficient units were provided to cope with Summer demand, would there not still be huge excess capacity for the other 9 months of the year ?

I expect you would have had busy units in the summer and less busy in the winter.

Don't forget, this is no different than the policy adopted for regional routes onwards from the late 1980's.

Also, a 3 carriage 205 DEMU (as an example) had a high density seating layout, so could not up quite a lot of high demand.

 

[Clarence Yard]

A common comment is that they'd have never got away with half the stuff these days, because people would actually query the accounting. In those days the enquiries tended to accept the numbers at face value without looking at them.

Under TUCC rules it was forbidden to cross-examine BR on its figures - they were automatically taken as gospel. Anyone who tried to put questions on the accuracy of the figures was told to sit down by the chairman, and thrown out if they didn't. Similarly in new road enquiries it was forbidden to question the MoT's figures justifying the need for the road improvements.

The inquiries were just a rubber stamp for government policy. At least one TUCC chairman boasted how quickly he could get the whole thing buttoned up and the line shut.

Conspiracy and corruption isn't the half of it!

Again, “conspiracy and corruption” - it’s tin foil hat stuff.

Proper cost attribution on BR in those days was in it’s infancy and, arguably, didn’t really result in anything meaningful until the days of job costing and the Axis II system of the late 1980’s, early 1990’s. But even then do you cost on a percentage basis, prime user basis or an avoidable cost basis?

Of course, given the limitations of the then costing system, the methods are not going to be allowed to be debated because it would be an endless argument. You have to draw a line in the sand somewhere.

The TUCC hearings were mainly about establishing and dealing with hardships resulting from the proposed closure. As the general policy was to get out of local lines and services with low traffic levels, it was a high bar for any closure proposal to be rejected. There was no such thing as the social railway in those days and the hearings were very procedural, deliberately so, because in those days Government policy wasn’t there to be questioned.

In fact the Beeching report process was seen by some on the railway as slowing down the closure process. Of the 1527 passenger stations owned by the GWR at nationalisation, 226 (nearly 15% of that 1947 total) were closed in 1962 alone, the year before the report was published but only 90 were closed in 1963. Given their financial position at the time, the WR management really wanted to go at a quicker pace than they were allowed to do during 1963.

 

[thejuggler]

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.

This can be said of a lot of West Yorkshire former lines which served what are now very large areas of population with poor to non existent public transport.

We are now going full circle with the plans for a West Yorkshire mass transport system!

 

[Titfield]

Gourvish's book British Railways A Business History 1948 - 1973 is a very good read for an objective view of British Railways during the period.

It lays bare the decline in traffic flows, the rapidly deteriorating finances and the challenges faced by the organisation.

As an aside the decline in passenger traffic by coach to the seaside resorts is worth mentioning as this mirrors the BR experience. Whilst there is no one definitive history Tom MacLachlan's Grey Green and Contemporaries Vols 1 and 2 are worth a read especially volume 2 which reveals how this traffic declined year on year very rapidly during the 60s and 70s until there was virtually nothing left by the early 80s. Whilst this may be a slightly longer and later time frame it is worth noting that coach operators could and would keep a service going because literally half a coach of passengers (say 25) was still an economic proposition.

 

[RT4038]

Surely the most dubious line closure of all was the branch from Titfield to Mallingford? Treacherous bus competition and road roller accomplice? Must have cooked the books!

 

[Titfield]

Surely the most dubious line closure of all was the branch from Titfield to Mallingford? Treacherous bus competition and road roller accomplice? Must have cooked the books!

But in its own way revealing that a single Bedford OB capacity 29 seats could manage the normal passenger traffic flow.

Bus two crew but railway had driver, fireman, guard, buffet attendant, ticket seller (Edie Martin) ......and not to mention poor old Seth who worked day and night to get the bar finished for the first train.

 

[RT4038]

But in its own way revealing that a single Bedford OB capacity 29 seats could manage the normal passenger traffic flow.

Bus two crew but railway had driver, fireman, guard, buffet attendant, ticket seller (Edie Martin) ......and not to mention poor old Seth who worked day and night to get the bar finished for the first train.

Yes, but what about the contributory revenue of the long distance tickets of the Bishop and the Ministry men? I bet their revenue was not counted in the passenger census. Loss of that would have put the entire rail network at risk.......

 

[Titfield]

Yes, but what about the contributory revenue of the long distance tickets of the Bishop and the Ministry men? I bet their revenue was not counted in the passenger census. Loss of that would have put the entire rail network at risk.......

"The Bish" usually travels on the footplate (without a ticket) and as for the Men from the Ministry they use a Ford V8 Pilot.

 

[RT4038]

"The Bish" usually travels on the footplate (without a ticket) and as for the Men from the Ministry they use a Ford V8 Pilot.

Clear anti-rail bias on the part of the Ministry then? No wonder the line was making a loss with such lax revenue protection - probably a deliberate management ploy to massage the figures. Shocking evidence, in the light of which, re-opening NOW would be the only restitution? Dubious indeed. Perhaps the good Doctor saw the film before writing his report?

 

[coppercapped]

Whilst this position is clearly unsustainable, it does appear to assume that all the coaches in question were of equal capital value and would incur the same annual maintenance costs. Given the average longevity of rolling stock, this assumption seems somewhat flawed.

Wonderful knockabout stuff in the posts immediately above - but with a serious point.

Refering to your post, the quote I posted from the 'Beeching Report' makes no such assumptions. In fact it goes on to say:

A large number of the coaches available for high peak traffic were only required on a limited number of occasions as the following table, relating to the last 6,000 vehicles in the fleet, shows:-

Number of Coaches Required on not more than:
2,000 10 occasions
2,000 14 occasions
2,000 18 occasions

The annual cost of providing the 6,000 coaches was £3.4m. Against this it was estimated that they only earned £0.5m. after allowing for all other costs of the movements concerned.

Since the beginning of 1959 the number of passenger-carrying gangway coaches has been reduced by 5,584 and by the end of 1965 stock will not be available for use at high peak periods. Efforts will be made to control these peaks by seat reservation schemes and by fares policy, as is the custom with airline services.

Regardless of the capital cost of the coaches, depreciated or otherwise, such an overprovision was a nonsense.

In addition the oldest coaches were not kept up to date. A worse advertisement for the railway than taking someone to the seaside on their once-a-year trip in the late 1950s in a coach built just after the First World War can scarcely be imagined.

 

[paul1609]

Even the return to the original route was a substandard option which would have left the entrance to the railway facing the wrong way.

If the local authorities were truly supportive of the route, why did their preferred option not involve BR Repairing the "cough" unsafe viaduct, rather than preferring the construction of an operationally impractical new route.

Not that I'm absolving BR management at the time, who clearly had an agenda of closing as much route milage as they could get away with.

Again its more conspiracy theory than fact. Uckfield services normally used the down London Loop platform at Lewes which could be approached from either direction.
All the Coastway line platforms at Lewes were really short five platforms and trains could not overhang the platforms because it meant the trains blocked the electrified London to Eastbourne line. In the terms of reopening nowadays much is made of the potential for a diverted Brighton to London service but as services increased this became increasingly unattractive with the constrained layout.
I believe that it was the condition of the embankments North of the viaduct that caused the line to be singled on safety grounds. In 1960 a flash flood had occurred in Lewes that was blamed on the railway embankments, see about 25s in on this path film. Its not hard to see why the local authority took the stance they did.

 

[steamybrian]

The Kilmacolm branch was PTE funded. When the funding was withdrawn, the line was closed. It's very easy to refer to 'they' as a sort of blob, but the survival of most routes was (and is) directly linked to funding - either of the service or for capital renewals. If the funding isn't there, the route can't survive. Later on in a more benign funding regime the Paisley Canal part reopened and of course Scotland has been more successful at reopening closed lines than England. As the Borders line illustrates, if the will is there to reinstate, it matters not that part of the original formation is built on, the engineering project will adapt as required.

March-Spalding was a typical 'late' closure where a combination of (then) falling traffic levels coupled with infrastructure that needed renewal resulted in what can very much been seen as a short term decision for closure caused by BR's extremely poor cash situation in the early 1980s. It is interesting that the route has effectively been replaced by the Peterborough and Werrington rebuilds which essentially allow March - Spalding to be operated without crossing the ECML on the level. Whilst on the one hand it demonstrates the value of the original route, these major engineering projects have on the other hand removed any rationale for replacing the original line.

The S&D has mythical status but by the 1960s was a basket case business wise and has even less justification now. If a spare billion appeared so as to allow the replacement of a lost route, this one would be so far down the pecking order as to be invisible.

The Isle of Wight is another set of routes which were hopeless in terms of generating any sort of return. The justification (if it were needed) was to try and ensure that funds needed to keep more critical parts of the rail network were not diverted to keep lines like IoW running where the local authorities protested the closure plans but were distinctly unable or unwilling to fund the shortfall. I love the Island's quirky railways as much as anyone but even today the current Island Line represents one of the most heavily subsidised services in the country.

I have been watching the comments on this forum for somewhile and fully agree with everything that was said here. At the time in the early 1960s everything was against rail travel- Falling passenger numbers, increase in car travel. Ernest Marples Minister for Cars sorry Minister for Transport. A number of lines/ stations in the Beeching Report of 1963 were basket cases loosing vast sums of money or requiring heavy investment to maintain. No-one could forecast the rapid spread of housing development. One case I would like to mention was Hayling Island branch which in 1963 was making a profit but was closed that Langston Bridge required heavy expenditure.

 

[yorksrob]

Again its more conspiracy theory than fact. Uckfield services normally used the down London Loop platform at Lewes which could be approached from either direction.
All the Coastway line platforms at Lewes were really short five platforms and trains could not overhang the platforms because it meant the trains blocked the electrified London to Eastbourne line. In the terms of reopening nowadays much is made of the potential for a diverted Brighton to London service but as services increased this became increasingly unattractive with the constrained layout.
I believe that it was the condition of the embankments North of the viaduct that caused the line to be singled on safety grounds. In 1960 a flash flood had occurred in Lewes that was blamed on the railway embankments, see about 25s in on this path film. Its not hard to see why the local authority took the stance they did.

The main service on the route certainly at the time of closure was the Tonbridge - Brighton train. This wouldn't have been able to use the proposed diversion (or the down London loop) without a reversal beyond the station, something not impossible but not desirable either.

 

[D6130]

when it got the 25Kv electrification lines to utilise the Woodhead route across the Pennines.

Pedant alert: I think you mean 1.5Kv dc electrification!

 

[Bevan Price]

Yes - many lines were basket cases and should never have been built; their closure was inevitable.
But, quite a few died from neglect and lack of rational thinking by some railway managements.

In particular, if you look at some old timetables, you are left wondering just how "they" expected people to want to use the trains.
Yes, long distance commuting was less common in the 1950s/1960s -- but in many cases, the timetables were so poorly planned that it would have been impossible to get to/from work (or school) by train. Likewise, trips for leisure / shopping to the nearest city / large town were often "difficult". There was no way that some timetables could ever be attractive enough to generate profitable amounts of traffic.

 

[Sprinter107]

I'm not really sure if the figures were altered to make the case for 1960s line closures as it was before my time, but I do remember reading (think it may have been in the OPC book Lines to Avonmouth, but cant check as I lent it out a few years ago and never got it back) that when the Severn Beach line was put up for closure, the booking clerk at Clifton Down collected the figures for all the passenger takings at every station on that line, and at the enquiry into the closure, it was found that British Rails figures varied wildly from the correct ones.

 

[yorksrob]

Fundamentally, I believe that if the railway management at the time, and by extension the Government, had looked at each threatened line with a genuinely open mind, rather than an agenda to reduce milage, there would have been a lot fewer closures, particularly in the late 1960's.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Fundamentally, I believe that if the railway management at the time, and by extension the Government, had looked at each threatened line with a genuinely open mind, rather than an agenda to reduce milage, there would have been a lot fewer closures, particularly in the late 1960's.

What makes you think that it was ‘mileage’ rather than ‘losses’?

A lot of closures were of individual stations on lines that retained passenger services. Many other cases were withdrawal of loss-making passenger services on lines that remained open for freight, especially in industrial areas.

I am genuinely interested in where your ‘fundamentalism’ comes from.