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Most Ludicrous Attempted Closure Ever

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Ianno87

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I remember reading about how the lines south of Liverpool Central was closed down, station abandoned until revived by Merseyrail electrics.

Yes, closed 1972-1978


It'd clearly be possible, you just need more buses. However, it's a stupid idea.

How much space do you think would be needed to terminate and load/unload the number of buses required in Central London to provide the same level if capacity? Trains are far more land efficient for this.
 
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Gloster

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The Railway Conversion League 1958 to 1994, Major Angus Dalgleish and Paul Withrington. What other forgotten names are there? Gerry Adams once quipped: "They haven't gone away, you know" but I think these conversionists have gone away, for now anyway. Dalgleish later joined UKIP while Withrington died earlier this year.

Without being absolutely certain, I think that the Angus Dalgleish in the Railway Conversion League is not the person who joined UKIP. I believe that the former probably died around 1994.
 

swt_passenger

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The Railway Conversion League 1958 to 1994, Major Angus Dalgleish and Paul Withrington. What other forgotten names are there? Gerry Adams once quipped: "They haven't gone away, you know" but I think these conversionists have gone away, for now anyway. Dalgleish later joined UKIP while Withrington died earlier this year.

Paul Withrington appeared as a major objector in the Chiltern Evergreen 3 inquiry, still hammering on about running coaches into Marylebone... Had the ear of the national broadsheets, who trotted out his BS regularly...

His “Transport Watch” website is still on line, there’s a section where he shows off his letters to The Times that were never published. As late as 2015 he was suggesting closing all London’s Railways, and even transferring lorry traffic to his coach routes...
 
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Ianno87

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Paul Withrington appeared as a major objector in the Chiltern Evergreen 3 inquiry, still hammering on about running coaches into Marylebone... Had the ear of the national broadsheets, who trotted out his BS regularly...

His “Transport Watch” website is still on line, there’s a section where he shows off his letters to The Times that were never published. As late as 2015 he was suggesting closing all London’s Railways, and even transferring lorry traffic to his coach routes...

Ah, Transport Watch. I remember coming across the website for the first time in my teens, and the first time I realised how much some people have an irrational dislike of railways.
 

Bevan Price

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I believe basically all of Merseyrail was proposed for closure at one point, wasn't it? And that wasn't just in the more extreme ones like the main Serpell report. Buses and cars were thought to be enough.
Yes - much of it.
Beeching / Marples wanted to close:
Liverpool Exchange to Southport & Wigan Wallgate.
(The line to Ormskirk & Preston was not listed)

Liverpool Lime St. to St. Helens Shaw St. & Wigan North Western
Liverpool Central (High Level) to Garston & Gateacre.

Liverpool Lime St. to Manchester via Chat Moss would lose local services, with St. Helens Jn as the only intermediate station.
Rainhill, Huyton, Earlestown, Newton Le Willows, etc. were all proposed to close.
Warrington Bank Quay would have become the only stop between Manchester & Chester.

The Wirral side was unaffected - even Birkenhead Woodside was not listed by Beeching - that was a later addition.
 

ashkeba

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How much space do you think would be needed to terminate and load/unload the number of buses required in Central London to provide the same level if capacity? Trains are far more land efficient for this.
I suspect the bigger problem is the station throat approach, where each bus has to have safe stopping distance in front of it, which carriages coupled into trains do not need, only the whole train does.
 

Dr Hoo

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Yes - much of it.
Beeching / Marples wanted to close:
Liverpool Exchange to Southport & Wigan Wallgate.
(The line to Ormskirk & Preston was not listed)

Liverpool Lime St. to St. Helens Shaw St. & Wigan North Western
Liverpool Central (High Level) to Garston & Gateacre.

Liverpool Lime St. to Manchester via Chat Moss would lose local services, with St. Helens Jn as the only intermediate station.
Rainhill, Huyton, Earlestown, Newton Le Willows, etc. were all proposed to close.
Warrington Bank Quay would have become the only stop between Manchester & Chester.

The Wirral side was unaffected - even Birkenhead Woodside was not listed by Beeching - that was a later addition.
These proposed withdrawals in the Re-shaping Report essentially formed a 'wake-up' call that short-distance commuter services in metropolitan cities outside London lost money just like rural branch lines. In many cases it was because of highly-peaked resourcing and large amounts of legacy infrastructure in terminals, depots, etc., much of which was overdue for modernisation (e.g. Liverpool Exchange).
Marples had already initiated the Conurbation Studies (that led to the PTEs) including on Merseyside; planning work had already begun on the Liverpool Loop and Link; cost-benefit analysis had been introduced for rail and other public transport schemes; Traffic in Towns published; and the prospect of 'subsidy' was wicket-rolled in the Report.
Merseyrail as we know it today arose from this era. Other than at the most local level (such as Gateacre or Crossens) the closures listed above didn't actually happen. The withdrawal of the Liverpool Central-Garston-Hunts Cross service was basically 'temporary' whilst Liverpool Central had the underground lines (re-)built underneath it.
The change in government in 1964 did very little to change the direction of travel. The PTEs were set up and Surplus Track Capacity [elimination] Grants were introduced under the 1968 Transport Act. Merseyside ended up with a much leaner but better integrated suburban system.
 

D6130

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Yes - much of it.
Beeching / Marples wanted to close:
Liverpool Exchange to Southport & Wigan Wallgate.
(The line to Ormskirk & Preston was not listed)

Liverpool Lime St. to St. Helens Shaw St. & Wigan North Western
Liverpool Central (High Level) to Garston & Gateacre.

Liverpool Lime St. to Manchester via Chat Moss would lose local services, with St. Helens Jn as the only intermediate station.
Rainhill, Huyton, Earlestown, Newton Le Willows, etc. were all proposed to close.
Warrington Bank Quay would have become the only stop between Manchester & Chester.

The Wirral side was unaffected - even Birkenhead Woodside was not listed by Beeching - that was a later addition.
I believe that the Liverpool Exchange-Ormskirk-Preston line wasn't listed for closure in the Beeching Report because, at that time, it was still the main route to the North, used by the long distance services to/from Edinburgh and Glasgow, some of which joined/split at Preston with services to/from Manchester Victoria.

Another line in the North-West which was not listed by Beeching, but was closed in 1970 on Barbara Castle's watch as MOT, was Colne-Skipton. Local urban myths have it that Mrs Castle, who was Labour MP for Blackburn, told the Blackburn Chamber of Commerce that they could have the M65 motorway or keep the rail link to Yorkshire, but not both. That line is now the suject of a vigorous re-opening campaign.
 

Dr_Paul

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Ah, Transport Watch. I remember coming across the website for the first time in my teens, and the first time I realised how much some people have an irrational dislike of railways.
I somehow feel that these obsessive anti-railways types once missed a train and had wait for half an hour for the next one, and never forgave the entire railway system for inconveniencing them.
 

Bevan Price

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These proposed withdrawals in the Re-shaping Report essentially formed a 'wake-up' call that short-distance commuter services in metropolitan cities outside London lost money just like rural branch lines. In many cases it was because of highly-peaked resourcing and large amounts of legacy infrastructure in terminals, depots, etc., much of which was overdue for modernisation (e.g. Liverpool Exchange).
Marples had already initiated the Conurbation Studies (that led to the PTEs) including on Merseyside; planning work had already begun on the Liverpool Loop and Link; cost-benefit analysis had been introduced for rail and other public transport schemes; Traffic in Towns published; and the prospect of 'subsidy' was wicket-rolled in the Report.
Merseyrail as we know it today arose from this era. Other than at the most local level (such as Gateacre or Crossens) the closures listed above didn't actually happen. The withdrawal of the Liverpool Central-Garston-Hunts Cross service was basically 'temporary' whilst Liverpool Central had the underground lines (re-)built underneath it.
The change in government in 1964 did very little to change the direction of travel. The PTEs were set up and Surplus Track Capacity [elimination] Grants were introduced under the 1968 Transport Act. Merseyside ended up with a much leaner but better integrated suburban system.
By the early 1970s, the Chat Moss local services had been reduced to very sparse levels. It was only after PTEs got the power to specify rail services in the late 1970s or early 1980s that these services started to improve to regular (mostly hourly) frequencies. Even the (formerly) hourly Trans Pennine services (by then calling at St. Helens Jn & Earlestown) had been somewhat pruned by the early 1970s.
 

edwin_m

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I suspect the bigger problem is the station throat approach, where each bus has to have safe stopping distance in front of it, which carriages coupled into trains do not need, only the whole train does.
There's a bus rapid transit in Istanbul that operates with "squadrons" of four or five articulated buses that follow each other at minimum safe spacing then all stop nose to tail at each long platform. This is claimed to deliver capacity equivalent to one bus every 15 seconds, probably close to 200 people at the crush loadings when I used it. Fenchurch Street could do something similar in principle, as bus headways aren't limited by signalling. But there would need to be a space for buses to U-turn at the city end of the station, which would conflict with passenger loading and circulation.
 

Dr Hoo

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By the early 1970s, the Chat Moss local services had been reduced to very sparse levels. It was only after PTEs got the power to specify rail services in the late 1970s or early 1980s that these services started to improve to regular (mostly hourly) frequencies. Even the (formerly) hourly Trans Pennine services (by then calling at St. Helens Jn & Earlestown) had been somewhat pruned by the early 1970s.
The PTEs got 'powers' over local rail quite early on. For example, in the West Midlands WMPTE said right from the start (in 1970) that they had no interest in the Snow Hill lines, hence their closure in 1972. They were far too focussed on integrating the various 'corporation' bus operations and getting rid of Walsall's trolleybuses. But I agree that 'City Line' services to places like St Helens remained pretty ropey in the early days.
 
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In Greater Manchester, SELNEC/GMPTE saved Oldham to Rochdale at the last moment - BR got as far as actually publishing the closure notices. It is now part of Metrolink , of course, with a then undreamt of frequency now (in normal times). Even more amazingly, are future plans to reopen the Royton branch as part of Metrolink.
 

Djgr

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Yes - much of it.
Beeching / Marples wanted to close:
Liverpool Exchange to Southport & Wigan Wallgate.
(The line to Ormskirk & Preston was not listed)

Liverpool Lime St. to St. Helens Shaw St. & Wigan North Western
Liverpool Central (High Level) to Garston & Gateacre.

Liverpool Lime St. to Manchester via Chat Moss would lose local services, with St. Helens Jn as the only intermediate station.
Rainhill, Huyton, Earlestown, Newton Le Willows, etc. were all proposed to close.
Warrington Bank Quay would have become the only stop between Manchester & Chester.

The Wirral side was unaffected - even Birkenhead Woodside was not listed by Beeching - that was a later addition.
Although if I remember correctly there were a few station closures planned on the Wirral. Spital (now with half million passengers a year) rings a bell. And the Borderlands line of course.
 

tbwbear

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What would be the busiest station now that was actually up for closure in the original Beeching plan but stayed open? In other words an attempted closure that didn't happen. I know that doesn't exactly meet the criteria of the original question but it could be a useful indicator.

I would still guess somewhere on the Liverpool to Southport line maybe. Given that neither Liverpool Exchange nor Southport were up for closure, let me suggest Formby - used last year by 1.54 million people. Anywhere that beats that? There probably is. Maybe even on the same line ?
 

topydre

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I'd like to nominate an interesting feature of serpell C2 and D.

The maps for these options retain the Vale of Rheidol railway whilst closing the Cambrian network west of Shrewsbury! Thus the 11-mile line would have been completely isolated, 45 miles by road to Carmarthen and 75 miles to Shrewsbury.

The fact that the VoR is of necessity self-contained doesn't make the map look any more sensible!
 

yorksrob

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What would be the busiest station now that was actually up for closure in the original Beeching plan but stayed open? In other words an attempted closure that didn't happen. I know that doesn't exactly meet the criteria of the original question but it could be a useful indicator.

I would still guess somewhere on the Liverpool to Southport line maybe. Given that neither Liverpool Exchange nor Southport were up for closure, let me suggest Formby - used last year by 1.54 million people. Anywhere that beats that? There probably is. Maybe even on the same line ?

Wasn't the Dr planning to close Blackpool North (albeit in favour of Central).
 

21C101

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Thanks to @21C101 for both starting this thread and providing the source of their information, the report being availabl on the excellent Railways Archive website:


however with a pedant hat on it is actually wrong the refer this to this as the second Beeching Report as there was actually a 2nd report called: "The Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes"

that has already been discussed in this forum


People tend to forget that Beeching was appointed exactly 60 years ago in March 1961. The world was totally different then. What will be more interesting is what will happen over the next few years not dwelling on the past. What seems like a "Ludicrous Attempted Closure" today might be seen in totally different light once traffic has settled down to what will become the zero carbon post Covid & post Brexit normal.

Also I took the OP's question and opening post to talk about lines/stations that have been proposed for closure but are still open - not lines that actually closed.
Fiennes almost worshipped the ground Beeching walked on but regarded him as having two flaws.

An over fondness for Maps and an over fondness for publishing them.

The map in "The Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes" which had most of the network in grey as not for development (including the ECML north of Newcastle) was widely seen as an intention to close said routes and he was shortly after removed from his post

Fiennes noted that BR Eastern Region had spent the 50s quietly closing unrenumerative routes and stopping services with little or no protest.
 

MP33

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Dr Beeching was still round in the early 1980's. Did he ever comment on Serpell and the Busitutionites?
 

zwk500

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Fiennes noted that BR Eastern Region had spent the 50s quietly closing unrenumerative routes and stopping services with little or no protest.
They weren't the only ones - the Southern Railway had started in the '30s (although that was mainly consolidating formerly competing lines in Kent), and the Southern Region continued in the '50s. I daresay almsot every region had experienced a few closures in the '30s & '50s before Beeching even got the job. The first couple of preserved railways were operating well before the report came out.
 

bramling

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Wasn't the Dr planning to close Blackpool North (albeit in favour of Central).

ISTR the council wanted the land, which ironically never really got used for anything. Having said that, I’m not sure how the approaches would have worked - the quick route is now largely used for roads, so this would have trains having to approach via the Blackpool South route. Likewise Poulton-le-Fylde and Layton would presumably have been closed.
 

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Surely the point was that Blackpool was a busted flush in business terms. It had facilities based on an Edwardian boom that had been declining in the face of car ownership, foreign holidays, the decline of 'wakes weeks', etc. for years. Some rationalisation was inevitable. Whether it was North or Central could sensibly be influenced by local interests and priorities.
 

WesternLancer

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Wasn't there a viaduct, or anyway large bridge, just north of Lewes on this route -- in bad condition; and repairs to it would have been extremely expensive; this cited as a factor, at the time of closure? One could argue over excuses, versus compelling reasons; but this could be seen as having genuine relevance.
As I see others have posted, there was a viaduct - but it was OK AFAIK, it's just that the county council wanted to build a new road that meant it suited them to see it removed. That road is Phoenix Causeway, IIRC, part of the A26.

Even now East Sussex County Council have never seemed more than lukewarm about re-opening Lewes Uckfield, despite it's obvious benefit to their poor road network.
 

MP33

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The East Anglian Railway Museum sold a reprint of a poster of the GER network just after WW1. Even then there were two services as a dotted line which were omnibus services. One in West Norfolk and another in Suffolk near Felixstowe. They had decided even then that the light branch line had had its day.

It may not have helped that two branch lines were extended for tourist traffic to Tollesbury Pier in the middle of nowhere and Aldeburgh which opened on the day WW1 started.
 

yorksrob

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ISTR the council wanted the land, which ironically never really got used for anything. Having said that, I’m not sure how the approaches would have worked - the quick route is now largely used for roads, so this would have trains having to approach via the Blackpool South route. Likewise Poulton-le-Fylde and Layton would presumably have been closed.

I'd assumed that had Central stayed, the fast route would have as well.
 

Gloster

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Looking at the Beeching report and maps, Poulton to Blackpool North would close, but the direct line from Kirkham to Central would stay open. The line to Fleetwood would stay open, but (seemingly) only as far as Wyre Dock.
 

zwk500

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As I see others have posted, there was a viaduct - but it was OK AFAIK, it's just that the county council wanted to build a new road that meant it suited them to see it removed. That road is Phoenix Causeway, IIRC, part of the A26.

Even now East Sussex County Council have never seemed more than lukewarm about re-opening Lewes Uckfield, despite it's obvious benefit to their poor road network.
As I posted above, the viaduct in question had flood damage but was NORTH of the town. Phoenix Causeway was built through an embankment. It used to be part of the A26 when it ran to Brighton, but is now only part of the A2029 and the A26 runs through the Caulfail Tunnel to the A27 bypass, both built in response to the eventual defeat of the relief road scheme.

ESCC are not particularly enthusiastic about the line because the problems at either end can only be solved with lots of cash.
 

WesternLancer

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As I posted above, the viaduct in question had flood damage but was NORTH of the town. Phoenix Causeway was built through an embankment. It used to be part of the A26 when it ran to Brighton, but is now only part of the A2029 and the A26 runs through the Caulfail Tunnel to the A27 bypass, both built in response to the eventual defeat of the relief road scheme.

ESCC are not particularly enthusiastic about the line because the problems at either end can only be solved with lots of cash.
Thanks for the added info.
 

Revaulx

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Surely the point was that Blackpool was a busted flush in business terms. It had facilities based on an Edwardian boom that had been declining in the face of car ownership, foreign holidays, the decline of 'wakes weeks', etc. for years. Some rationalisation was inevitable. Whether it was North or Central could sensibly be influenced by local interests and priorities.
Absolutely. By the 60s it had huge overcapacity in its rail facilities.

Concentrating the long distance traffic at North, which bizarrely only happened in the early 70s, made perfect sense, though it’s a shame the old station didn’t survive. Retaining Central as a simple two-platform terminus for the Lytham line would have still released huge amounts of land for the council to do nothing with, while retaining a much more useful location than the rather remote South.
 

21C101

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Absolutely. By the 60s it had huge overcapacity in its rail facilities.

Concentrating the long distance traffic at North, which bizarrely only happened in the early 70s, made perfect sense, though it’s a shame the old station didn’t survive. Retaining Central as a simple two-platform terminus for the Lytham line would have still released huge amounts of land for the council to do nothing with, while retaining a much more useful location than the rather remote South.
Reopening Blackpool South to Central, even if just as a single line and single platform, really ought to be a priority
 
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