New Lines needed

[furnessvale]

Railway management was obliged to reduce losses, at a time when the idea of government subsidies of loss making lines hadn't caught on.

Admittedly long after Beeching etc., but wasn't there a manager in East Anglia that got himself into serious trouble by eliminating losses by increasing traffic, rather than using the approved method of cutting services?

 

[A0wen]

BR cross-subsidisies enabled profit-making lines to pay for the loss-making ones. One of the many benefits of unified joined-up railway.

Cross-subsidy of that nature is a *very* dangerous game to play - as you have two very big assumptions:

1 - the loss on the existing loss makers won't get worse
2 - the profitable areas won't get less profitable

If either 1 or 2 happens then you start to have a shortfall pretty quickly.

The other problem is it leads to underinvestment in the profitable areas since the profits achieved in that area are siphoned away from that area which could be used to fund their investment in order to support unprofitable areas. With the result overall service is actually worse.

Various retailers have learnt to their cost the folly of keeping open unprofitable stores on the basis that "one day they may improve" with the result overall profitability takes a hit and the profitable stores didn't see the investment they should have to continue to allow them to grow.

 

[Tetchytyke]

It was not BR who wanted rid. It was Marples and the Tory Government.

Except it closed several years after the Conservatives had left office.

There is bitterness since it was discovered that Beeching fixed a profitable route to look like a loss making route and as a result caused the Teacher Training College in Ripon to close.

I completely agree that the methodology on some lines was incorrect. There are quite a few lines that shouldn't have shut, both during Beeching and immediately after it (e.g. Keswick in 1972). Ripon, like quite a few other lines, would probably be doing ok if it was still open.

However the argument the line shouldn't have closed is irrelevant to the argument about whether it should re-open.

the population of Ripon is 17,500 NOT 12,000 and is planned to increase to 25,000 by 2025. A new town of 25,000 is planned 5 miles north of Ripon on the Ripon-Northallerton original trackbed and adjacent to the A1.

It's actually 16,500; I misread previously.

By comparison Galashiels and Dalkeith are both at c14,000 each, with c14,000 at Hawick and c6000 at Newtown St Boswells, etc.

The new town north of Ripon- I can find no mention of this anywhere- is irrelevant to the financial justification of the line to Ripon.

Where is your evidence that reinstating a line to Ripon does not make economic sense?

The many reports that say it doesn't (well, to be more exact, that a Harrogate-Ripon line would be tenuous but there's no justification at all for a line north of Ripon).

One of the traffic drivers on the Borders Railway is the park and ride at Tweedbank, and it is clear that plenty of people do drive there from places like Hawick and Newtown St Boswells. If driving then taking the train is quicker and more convenient than driving all the way, people will do this (look at the car park at Steeton and Silsden, for instance).

So I think part of the case for re-opening to Ripon is demonstrating that there is a wider catchment area than Ripon itself. Given how close the ECML is at Thirsk (and even Northallerton), it makes it more difficult.

 

[deltic08]

Ripon was closed in 1967, so nothing to do with Beeching.

Are you barking? Of course it was Beeching. He cooked the figures then included Ripon in his Reshaping Report. Without intervention from this incompetent clown the line through Ripon would still be open.

As someone has said on here, Harrogate-York was also slated for closure but the campaign to save this route was much more vigorous than Harrogate-Northallerton because many BR workers at York HQ lived in Knaresborough and Harrogate and were able to travel to work on passes so campaigned hard to keep to keep the line. Once this route was reprieved, Harrogate Council dropped its opposition to closure of the Northallerton line and Ripon City Council was ineffectual.

Knaresborough-York was singled to save on operating costs but has been a restriction on growth, frequency and journey time reduction ever since. This will be corrected in 2018/19 with an upgrade but will still not match journey time reduction that reinstating to Northallerton will provide for journeys north.

 

[simonw]

Are you barking? Of course it was Beeching. He cooked the figures then included Ripon in his Reshaping Report. Without intervention from this incompetent clown the line through Ripon would still be open.

You really do your credibility on here no favours by using words like those above.

 

[deltic08]

Apart form the Grand Central ones? What about the hourly service between the two? Last time I went home there seemed to be an hourly service between Thirsk and Northallerton with none of them terminating there!

Apart from Grand Central what? What about the hourly service between the two? There seemed to be an hourly service? Which is it to be? You are doing exactly what you accuse me of.

There is an hourly service between Thirsk and Northallerton, peak to peak, but all except the three trains I quoted do not go north of Northallerton on the ECML. They all turn off to Teesside. No good for my most regular journey to Edinburgh if I used Thirsk as a railhead. That would require bus to Thirsk (only 4/5 a day and nothing after 17:30), changing at Northallerton and again at Darlington in both directions.

Easier to go by car all the way but much easier by rail from Ripon with one change at Darlington or the possibility of a through train to Edinburgh

 

[A0wen]

Are you barking? Of course it was Beeching. He cooked the figures then included Ripon in his Reshaping Report. Without intervention from this incompetent clown the line through Ripon would still be open.

As someone has said on here, Harrogate-York was also slated for closure but the campaign to save this route was much more vigorous than Harrogate-Northallerton because many BR workers at York HQ lived in Knaresborough and Harrogate and were able to travel to work on passes so campaigned hard to keep to keep the line. Once this route was reprieved, Harrogate Council dropped its opposition to closure of the Northallerton line and Ripon City Council was ineffectual.

Knaresborough-York was singled to save on operating costs but has been a restriction on growth, frequency and journey time reduction ever since. This will be corrected in 2018/19 with an upgrade but will still not match journey time reduction that reinstating to Northallerton will provide for journeys north.

By calling Beeching an "incompetent clown" you are demeaning your argument somewhat - what he did was ensure we had a viable rail network by removing a lot of duplication. It was inevitable that some closures would take place - indeed BR had been closing lines throughout the 1950s, long before Beeching, so you can't pretend in 1961 we somehow had a viable network.

As for the argument about saving northbound journey times - even if the line through Ripon to Northallerton was reinstated, York does and will continue to offer much better connectivity than Northallerton. And you won't get away with arguing that services from Leeds heading northwards should be diverted away from York - it's a major traffic destination in its own right - avoiding it would be madness for minimal gain.

Chances are if Ripon were ever reinstated all you'd be looking at it getting, at best, an hourly DMU running all stops to somewhere like Middlesborough or Newcastle from Leeds.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Easier to go by car all the way but much easier by rail from Ripon with one change at Darlington or the possibility of a through train to Edinburgh

Some people may decide that driving all the way is better than driving to a railhead, but that will depend on the journey. There is a train every 2 hours from Thirsk that gives you a short change at Northallerton and a short change at Newcastle, doing the journey to Edinburgh in 2h50. If you don't like the change at Northallerton, you could of course drive there (it's only another few miles) and park there instead.

Ripon-Edinburgh will be a relatively small market which is adequately served through existing transport links, either via Thirsk or via Harrogate and York. Given the standard of the roads north of Newcastle, I would say 2h50 for that journey compares very favourably to the road alternative. It takes 2h30 on the fast trains from York to Edinburgh.

The idea that there would be a through train Ripon-Edinburgh is, quite frankly, laughable. The reports commissioned state that there is no economic case whatsoever for a line Ripon-Northallerton. Intercity trains would not be diverted via Leeds and York, even if there was an economic case for reopening Ripon-Northallerton. You do your credibility no favours by attempting to argue otherwise.

 

[Chester1]

Altnabreac's golden rules of a successful rail reopening:
Population of 10,000+
60 minutes (75 at a push) journey time of a major employment centre.
Extant or mainly unobstructed trackbed
Ability to extend an existing service so more terminal capacity is not required
Regeneration potential to justify public investment
Housing growth demand to create both demand and developer contributions.

One line that would meet most of these points is Mold to Penyfford. Current journey time from Penyfford to Liverpool Central is 1 hour 6 mins including a 6 minute change at Bidston. The line is only 40mph between Wrexham and Dee Junction so speeding up Penyfford to Dee junction to 75mph would cut journey times by 10 mins, enough to do a three mile extenstion to Mold with an hours journey time. Speeding up the line would also enable trains to be terminated at Birkhenhead North instead of Bidston doubling the number of connecting trains, also some decent recovery time. The original line went under the Bidston-Wrexham line and through Kinnerton and Broughton into Chester, so I doubt Crayonistas would be happy with a new chord to run services onto a different line.

 

[yorksrob]

Cross-subsidy of that nature is a *very* dangerous game to play - as you have two very big assumptions:

1 - the loss on the existing loss makers won't get worse
2 - the profitable areas won't get less profitable

If either 1 or 2 happens then you start to have a shortfall pretty quickly.

The other problem is it leads to underinvestment in the profitable areas since the profits achieved in that area are siphoned away from that area which could be used to fund their investment in order to support unprofitable areas. With the result overall service is actually worse.

Various retailers have learnt to their cost the folly of keeping open unprofitable stores on the basis that "one day they may improve" with the result overall profitability takes a hit and the profitable stores didn't see the investment they should have to continue to allow them to grow.

On the contrary, having cross subsidies is the only sensible way to run a passenger railway system. The passenger railway isn't like a chain of shops where you can axe one independently of another. Even the current system recognises that there needs to be cross subsidy within franchises.

Without cross subsidy you end up with a Serpell like scramble for a mythical core of routes that are profitable in themselves, only you never find it because mainlines rely on local routes so that they can access the majority of the country.

Following your logic to its conclusion would result in a feeble Amtrack style Passenger network which doesn't exist as a transport option for the majority of the population in any meaningful way.

 

[A0wen]

On the contrary, having cross subsidies is the only sensible way to run a passenger railway system. The passenger railway isn't like a chain of shops where you can axe one independently of another. Even the current system recognises that there needs to be cross subsidy within franchises.

Without cross subsidy you end up with a Serpell like scramble for a mythical core of routes that are profitable in themselves, only you never find it because mainlines rely on local routes so that they can access the majority of the country.

Following your logic to its conclusion would result in a feeble Amtrack style Passenger network which doesn't exist as a transport option for the majority of the population in any meaningful way.

I disagree - you should allow the profitable parts to re-invest the profits in their improvements.

You then assess each of the non-profitable parts in their own right - identifying a maximum subsidy which will be put in place and monitor the trend of how much it is costing over the medium term. If costs and losses are escalating, then it's madness to keep ploughing more and more money in on the vain hope it might one day become profitable.

Using the USA as an example is not appropriate - the sheer scale and size means there are very few areas where you can compare the US rail network with Europe, let alone just the UK. The state of Florida alone is the same georgraphic size as England and Wales put together yet has a population of only 20m, compared to the c60m of England and Wales.

The US is using rail transport primarily for urban transit in the large cities / conurbations - not as a way of connecting the various cities across the USA.

 

[deltic08]

Are you really saying a single track siding with one point machine, one axle counter and two signal heads is going to have worse return than a double track through route with full signalling and an extra platform at Ripon?

You haven't really provided any meaningful evidence that significant through traffic would use this route - and your journey time estimations are based on filling the Harrogate line with so many non stop trains that there will be little to no capacity for the 4tph that are so desperately needed on it.

It depends on traffic levels at the time of reinstatement. As I have already stated and becoming weary of repeating, looking at the last study in 2005, a simple siding had the best BCR of 1.3. The next study will look at a through route and by definition will have to be more than an extended siding.

You will have to accept, and it makes no difference to me whether you do or don't, that what I have posted is what is happening and nothing to do with the campaign to reinstate the railway to Ripon.

The DfT has requested Northern to introduce two additional trains per hour next year Leeds-Harrogate at the request of NYCC, Harrogate Council and the local Chamber of Trade after years of pressuring. If introduction of the two services reflects expectations then they will be limited stop twice an hour. As a result of resignalling in 2012, it is possible to timetable Leeds-Harrogate with one intermediate stop in 23 minutes or two stops in 25 minutes.

It is these two limited stop services per hour that would be extended to Ripon initially when the line is reinstated to Ripon. This was one option in the 2006 study.

If the severe 20mph curve at Crimple Junction could be eased to 40 or 50mph, as has been suggested in railway circles, then Leeds-Harrogate could be as little as 18 minutes post electrification.

In 2019, KX-Leeds services will be extended to Harrogate every two hours using class 800s on diesel power non-stop or with one stop at Horsforth only.

Two all station services will be retained per hour in current time of 37 minutes.

Your inference that I am clogging the Harrogate-Leeds route with non-stop trains cannot be more wrong and I wish you would recognise that. Your obsession with detail nick picking is clouding your judgement in seeing the overall picture.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

"The money" is spent as follows (I'm referring here to money spent by the local authority on the ENCTS - English National Concessionary Travel Scheme).

The bus operators run the bus services on a commercial basis. They charge people like me a fare to travel (I don't qualify for the ENCTS). Let's say it's £2.50 for a particular journey. I'm followed onto the bus by someone who does hold an ENCTS pass. They hand over no money, but the operator is required by law to allow them to travel. For free.

Some time later the local authority will send the operator a reimbursement which varies between different authorities. I know of cases where this reimbursement is said to be as little as 53p for a 20 mile journey!

I would suggest this points to the passenger being the recipient of the subsidy rather than the operator, who is forced to provide a service well below the market price.

A service carrying only ENCTS passholders is unlikely to be viable.

I find this hard to believe as the Ripon-Harrogate service frequency has only trebled since the introduction of bus passes. Where is your evidence?

 

[deltic]

ENCTS reimbursement is based on the principle "No Better, No Worse Off"

Travel Concession Authorities should compensate operators for the revenue forgone – i.e. the revenue they would have received from those concessionary passengers who
would otherwise have travelled and paid for a (full fare or discounted) ticket in the absence of a scheme; and pay operators any net additional costs they have incurred as a result of the scheme – this could for instance include the cost of carrying additional generated passengers.

DfT produces guides and manuals to calculate these figures.

As it is very difficult to show what passengers would have travelled regardless of whether the concessionary fare was available on a route by route basis some operators will lose and some will gain. The introduction of smartcards for the Scottish concessionary fare system saw reimbursement to operators fall by around 12%, from memory, due to reduction in fraud and also Transport Scotland was able to show that many concessionary card holders made the same journey everyday so would have used a weekly travelcard which would be cheaper than 5 separate day returns which the operator would have claimed for.

 

[deltic08]

We've got that Beeching didn't take into account MOD payed train tickets, as such if he had it MAY have stayed open. Even if it had beyond when it closed it still may have closed anyway.

It is easy to say that it shouldn't have closed, fine, but that is not what we have to work with now. If you have support to develop the scheme, then do so. If that development leads to a proposal to reopen then good. However until such time you need to expect that not everyone will agree with you. You may even find some deliberately wind you up, especially if you don't respond in a professional manner.

Thank you for this advice. I did realise and did what I could to egg them on. I enjoyed it really. I have had far worse over the years including threatening letters, verbal abuse in public and handbagging.

I know there are people who do not feel as passionate I do about rail as a form of transport but I remember how good it was before the cuts Beeching forced on this country. How we need some of those routes now.

Still here though and still campaigning.

 

[coppercapped]

On the contrary, having cross subsidies is the only sensible way to run a passenger railway system. The passenger railway isn't like a chain of shops where you can axe one independently of another. Even the current system recognises that there needs to be cross subsidy within franchises.

Without cross subsidy you end up with a Serpell like scramble for a mythical core of routes that are profitable in themselves, only you never find it because mainlines rely on local routes so that they can access the majority of the country.

Following your logic to its conclusion would result in a feeble Amtrack style Passenger network which doesn't exist as a transport option for the majority of the population in any meaningful way.

I don't understand at all. Do you mean cross-subsidy from the freight to the passenger business or cross subsidy within the passenger business? Or some other combination?

The railways had a revenue stream from freight and passenger of a known size. Using this revenue stream to subsidise some services only works if the donor revenue stream is greater than the costs incurred in generating it, as otherwise all that is being done is making one loss-making service yet more loss making to reduce the losses on another loss making service.

You can only cross-subsidise if your total outgoings are less than your total revenue; the issue is then just cost allocation between the different services. If you're losing money overall, which BR certainly was in shedloads, then cross-subsidy merely complicates the management accounts and conceals the true source of the losses.

The comparison with the USA is irrelevant as the size of the place and the separation and density of the centres of population means there is little in common in transport terms with the UK. Only the densely populated areas in the North East and increasingly around Los Angeles have any sort of passenger rail systems.

 

[deltic08]

Darlorich included a question mark. He was asking if you meant Flaxby.

Your ill-tempered, nasty and - sadly - characteristic response hardly helps the discussion.

You could have said something like "No, I didn't mean Flaxby. That's somewhere else entirely".

But you didn't.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

If I had meant Flaxby, I would have said Flaxby. It was obvious to anybody I didn't mean Flaxby as I said it was to the north of Ripon on the Ripon-Northallerton former railway line whereas Flaxby is to the south. Had it not been for constantly trying to correct everything I posted for quite some time, I would have overlooked things but really. The post received the reply it deserved. I am not the type to turn the other cheek.

 

[The Ham]

I don't understand at all. Do you mean cross-subsidy from the freight to the passenger business or cross subsidy within the passenger business? Or some other combination?

The railways had a revenue stream from freight and passenger of a known size. Using this revenue stream to subsidise some services only works if the donor revenue stream is greater than the costs incurred in generating it, as otherwise all that is being done is making one loss-making service yet more loss making to reduce the losses on another loss making service.

You can only cross-subsidise if your total outgoings are less than your total revenue; the issue is then just cost allocation between the different services. If you're losing money overall, which BR certainly was in shedloads, then cross-subsidy merely complicates the management accounts and conceals the true source of the losses.

The cross subsidy that I can think that is a good example of how the UK rail network works no is that of GWR, in that the intercity services "subsidise" the Cornwall branch lines, which in turn provide some of the passengers for the intercity services.

It also means that the government doesn't pay a TOC (akin to the former Wessex franchise) a subsidy whilst getting a larger premium from another, with the saving to the DfT of only having one franchise to manage rather than two.

 

[deltic08]

If you are referring to the Ripon Training College, which my sister attended in around 1970, this was amalgamated with St John's College, York in 1975 (after 113 years of independence). The amalgamated college (The College of Ripon & York St John) then remained in existence until 2001/2 when the Ripon Campus was sold and training concentrated on the York Campus.

http://www.yorksj.ac.uk/PDF/Ripon Booklet.pdf refers.

I'm not familiar with the detail of what occurred after 1975, but to blame a line closure in 1967 for a college closure in 2001/2 may be a little tenuous or are you referring to some other Teacher Training College of which I am unaware?

Another knowall poster with no idea of the facts but is willing to give an opinion as fact. My wife has been at Ripon Campus since before closure of the line in 1967, before your sister so knew how much students used the railway for weekends home and nights out in York, Harrogate and Leeds, during amalgamation with York St John and now at the York Campus.

Closure of the Ripon line was acknowledged and publicly stated by both Students Union and final Ripon Camus Principal as the reason why numbers dropped in Ripon. Amalgamation didn't work in maintaining numbers and everything decamped to York.

Will you now accept my explanation?

 

[Tetchytyke]

Amalgamation didn't work in maintaining numbers and everything decamped to York.

And I'm sure York St John's desire to pay for the shiny new buildings in York had nothing at all to do with the decision...

 

[HSTEd]

You can only cross-subsidise if your total outgoings are less than your total revenue; the issue is then just cost allocation between the different services. If you're losing money overall, which BR certainly was in shedloads, then cross-subsidy merely complicates the management accounts and conceals the true source of the losses.

Sometimes cross subsidy actually reduces the complexity of management accounts as it does not become necessary to attempt to untangle costs to each individual route - these costs may be hard or even impossible to assign in many cases.
How do you assign the cost of the track gang? Or the costs of the lighting in a signalling centre covering dozens of routes?

Trying to get more and more accurate information to control losses can very rapidly become a false economy and can produce misleading results as to the costs of operating the components of the railway. This can lead to terrible decisions like the one that lead the Milwaukee Road to discard the only thing keeping it afloat.

 

[deltic08]

And I'm sure York St John's desire to pay for the shiny new buildings in York had nothing at all to do with the decision...

Spot on.. The Ripon Campus was sold for £15m and that was supposed to pay for new Halls of Residence on the York Campus costing £9m but it was realised there wasn't enough room so additional land had to be bought. Total cost £18m!!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Size 12 actually - could you point me to anything about this proposed development I have looked at local authority and council web sites but can't find anything detailed. It is more for personal interest than anything else


BTW - I think I might get a sign made up for work: hyaena department. Although that might detract from the serious job of finding funding for railway investment projects

Christ the things we could do with £60m in our department could make a real difference to railway operations although in ways not readily apparent to the general public

Ps unlike some posters I am happy to admit I only human and sadly I am not omnipotent - I wonder if everyone could say that?

Ok, temporary truce.

I don't know where to find any documentation on the proposal now but your best source would be Darlington and Stockton Times late 1980s/early 1990s I think if NYCC have no documents. If you are really interested then I can check with friends at County Hall. I have a meeting with the Council Leader Carl Les in a couple of weeks time and the County Chairman and I meet fairly regularly, at least once a month. There should be archived records as at the time it was big news. Leave it with me.

It was in the area between Melmerby and Sinderby right on the Harrogate/Hambleton District border. The Business Park at Melmerby was allowed to expand as it was to be the main local site of employment but was recognised that due to the A1 there would be commuting to York, Leeds, Northallerton Darlington and even Newcastle by road unfortunately. The railway was not considered at that time as being an option.

 

[muddythefish]

On the contrary, having cross subsidies is the only sensible way to run a passenger railway system. The passenger railway isn't like a chain of shops where you can axe one independently of another. Even the current system recognises that there needs to be cross subsidy within franchises.

Without cross subsidy you end up with a Serpell like scramble for a mythical core of routes that are profitable in themselves, only you never find it because mainlines rely on local routes so that they can access the majority of the country.

Following your logic to its conclusion would result in a feeble Amtrack style Passenger network which doesn't exist as a transport option for the majority of the population in any meaningful way.

Correct. In many countries, telecomms, postal services and electricity tariffs among others are cross subsidised. In some cases, there is a universal price ceiling for the services, leading to cross subsidies benefiting the areas where the costs of provision are high. The same applied to BR's less well used lines. BR also ran other businesses such as shipping lines and hotels, some of which were profitable and others loss-making, but they all contributed to a multi-faceted and unified transport organisation that served the nation. Then came along John Major and broke it up into thousands of pieces, with the result that none of it makes any sense and costs the taxpayer far more than the old cross-subsidised BR ever did.

 

[coppercapped]

Sometimes cross subsidy actually reduces the complexity of management accounts as it does not become necessary to attempt to untangle costs to each individual route - these costs may be hard or even impossible to assign in many cases.
How do you assign the cost of the track gang? Or the costs of the lighting in a signalling centre covering dozens of routes?

It is essential if one runs a business to know what activities generate income and which ones generate costs. If you can't work out how to allocate such costs that you mention - and therefore be in a position to control them - then you'd better be prepared to call in the liquidator sooner rather than later.

Trying to get more and more accurate information to control losses can very rapidly become a false economy and can produce misleading results as to the costs of operating the components of the railway. This can lead to terrible decisions like the one that lead the Milwaukee Road to discard the only thing keeping it afloat.

If you can't control your losses - then you're going to end up in Carey Street anyway.

All the arguments against having detailed management accounts and how one's business is structured - what its markets are, how to meet the demands set by them and what such activity costs and so on - seem to be based on people's interpretation of decisions that were taken decades ago with which one disagrees. Life, and accounting techniques, has moved on.

You can still make bad decisions, but that's not because of not knowing what the numbers are, but because of misunderstanding the business one is in and misinterpreting the numbers, the latter often because of preconceptions of what business you think you are in.

 

[HSTEd]

It is essential if one runs a business to know what activities generate income and which ones generate costs. If you can't work out how to allocate such costs that you mention - and therefore be in a position to control them - then you'd better be prepared to call in the liquidator sooner rather than later.

Ok, so how do you assign the costs of, for example, the lighting in a signalling control centre that might control dozens of routes?
Any one of those routes would require the lights to be kept on, and closing one or more of them will not save any lighting money - but at the same time is it really reasonable to assign all of those costs to one route, which is best able to handle it? Surely this represents a cross subsidy of the type you abhor?

If you can't control your losses - then you're going to end up in Carey Street anyway.

Indeed, but it is not actually necessary to know where exactly the resources that must be paid for are actually spent to control the costs produced.
Do you really need to know how much diesel, to the litre, is expended in trains on every single route?
The extra effort to obtain this granularity of data can easily wash out any benefits associated with collecting it.

 

[muddythefish]

Are you barking? Of course it was Beeching. He cooked the figures then included Ripon in his Reshaping Report. Without intervention from this incompetent clown the line through Ripon would still be open.

I don't know if Beeching cooked the figures (though I wouldn't be surprised) because he was the agent of a Tory government and corrupt transport minister hell bent on decimating the railway system.

In my view he was certainly the beginning of a great Tory privatisation plan cooked up in the 1950s and 60s, carried on 20 years later by the Wicked Witch of Grantham and then over the past 6 years by Cameron and Osborne

Namely, in the case of BR (and now with the NHS) the idea is to starve an organisation of investment so things don’t work, promote dissatisfaction via your friends in the media (and shift the blame to the unions at the same time), say the entity cannot work without major reform, with the solution being to break it up and shift its function into private hands, namely Tory-supporting crony companies, with Tory MPs, Lords and family members stuffed on their boards.

 

[simonw]

I don't know if Beeching cooked the figures (though I wouldn't be surprised) because he was the agent of a Tory government and corrupt transport minister hell bent on decimating the railway system.

In my view he was certainly the beginning of a great Tory privatisation plan cooked up in the 1950s and 60s, carried on 20 years later by the Wicked Witch of Grantham and then over the past 6 years by Cameron and Osborne

Namely, in the case of BR (and now with the NHS) the idea is to starve an organisation of investment so things don’t work, promote dissatisfaction via your friends in the media (and shift the blame to the unions at the same time), say the entity cannot work without major reform, with the solution being to break it up and shift its function into private hands, namely Tory-supporting crony companies, with Tory MPs, Lords and family members stuffed on their boards.

The railways had been losing money since the mid 1950s.

Starved of investment? I think you forget the 1955 modernisation plan.

 

[jayah]

Agreed - and one of the factors in favour of the Borders railway is the fact it was a significant distance from the main places being served to existing rail-links. So for Galashiels you were looking at Berwick or Edinburgh.

Whereas Ripon is not a significant distance from Harrogate, Knaresborough or Thirsk. Add in decent road access to the A1 - something else the Borders area doesn't have, with only the A7 / A68 - and you can see why the Borders railway was a much more viable proposition than Ripon would be - even on the same BCR.

It wasn't really a viable proposition. The business case for improving the roads would have been far better. What is worth remembering is that demand has been far higher than the models predicted, and usage would be far higher were it not for the well publicised problems with parking and overcrowding.

For some reason the Ripon BCR was coated at £100m, when other studies suggest a far lower figure. The existing level of bus services towards Harrogate already tells you it is almost certain to be a popular and attractive option of it is ever reopened. Like all reopening schemes the BCR is not great, but it one of the better schemes outbthere and should be better value than Borders.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

I don't know if Beeching cooked the figures (though I wouldn't be surprised) because he was the agent of a Tory government and corrupt transport minister hell bent on decimating the railway system.

In my view he was certainly the beginning of a great Tory privatisation plan cooked up in the 1950s and 60s, carried on 20 years later by the Wicked Witch of Grantham and then over the past 6 years by Cameron and Osborne

Namely, in the case of BR the idea is to starve an organisation of investment so things don’t work, promote dissatisfaction via your friends in the media (and shift the blame to the unions at the same time), say the entity cannot work without major reform, with the solution being to break it up and shift its function into private hands, namely Tory-supporting crony companies, with Tory MPs, Lords and family members stuffed on their boards.

This is such a political reply and down right nonsense - absolute codswallop.

The railways had been losing money since the mid 1950s.

Starved of investment? I think you forget the 1955 modernisation plan.

+ the 39 Billion of investment now, plus "The wicked witch of Grantham" driving through a rail channel tunnel, + all the electrification in the 1980s. I will post a YouTube video where Roger Ford says "It maybe politically unfashionable to say so, but the railways did rather well under Margaret Thatcher."

 

[HSTEd]

+ the 39 Billion of investment now, plus "The wicked witch of Grantham" driving through a rail channel tunnel, + all the electrification in the 1980s. I will post a YouTube video where Roger Ford says "It maybe politically unfashionable to say so, but the railways did rather well under Margaret Thatcher."

Just a pity John Major had to come along isn't it?

 

[muddythefish]

This is such a political reply and down right nonsense - absolute codswallop.

Political - yes. Correct - yes.

Thatcher wanted the Channel tunnel to be a road link but was told by engineers it was too dangerous. Hardly an endorsement. She also famously avoided travelling by train and told appalled BR board members that if "they were any good they would be in the private sector". Wicked - certainly; a witch I'll leave for others to decide.