Shapps to reverse Beeching cuts

[Glenn1969]

They never had a plan for growth at Northern because they thought a network that required a large subsidy wasn't worthy of investment. Which is why I worry about an OLR taking control now because I am not convinced that view has really changed

 

[Djgr]

They never had a plan for growth at Northern because they thought a network that required a large subsidy wasn't worthy of investment. Which is why I worry about an OLR taking control now because I am not convinced that view has really changed

But the OLR would still be working to a brief essentially set by central government. If you trust BoJo and his circus then all will be well.

 

[Glenn1969]

Unfortunately I don't.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

But the OLR would still be working to a brief essentially set by central government. If you trust BoJo and his circus then all will be well.

Your mention of "Bojo and his circus" seems to show what side of the political divide you are on, as I too could make a counterclaim that all the clowns (in the hypothetical circus) resided on the Opposition front bench.

It was interesting to watch a Government minister at the despatch box not so many hours ago reminding those on the opposite benches of the Labour Party pre-election claims that the NHS would be used as a pawn in a trade deal with the Trump administration should the Conservatives be returned to office and denial at that time by them, with a new reiteration for all to both see and hear that no such deal exists. The grass is not always greener on the other side.

 

[yorksrob]

Others may know better, but my reading is that in part the West Coast Route Mod, but principally the industry cost-escalation post-Hatfield accident basically took the money that might have provided for growth at Northern.

That may be true, but it's worth bearing in mind that a lot of the improvements to the network over the last ten years have occurred during a period of austerity. That financial crisis makes the Railtrack fiasco look like chicken feed.

It seems a case of it being "where there wasn't a will, there wasn't a way".

 

[Edders23]

So this proposal is about one existing line being put back into passenger service and the only closed line in England not to have been built on or converted into a bypass because it did actually carry freight up to a few years ago

The whole point of the "Beeching cuts" was to release railway lines for conversion into roads thus enabling Ernest Marples business interests to prosper. In reality it was councils and other interests who saw an opportunity to grab prime development land except in Scotland

Just about every line closed was destroyed with indecent haste so you simply cannot reverse the closures and I believe one of the preferred options for the Fleetwood line is to add it to the existing tram network

I think this is part of BOJO's charm offensive to make sure that Labour can never reestablish themselves soundbites with the promise of a limited budget

 

[coppercapped]

Others may know better, but my reading is that in part the West Coast Route Mod, but principally the industry cost-escalation post-Hatfield accident basically took the money that might have provided for growth at Northern.

This is my reading as well - but Northern wasn't the only franchise affected. The other 'no-growth' franchise that was let around the same time was Wales and Borders which also suffered from lack of rolling stock and limited infrastructure improvements.

 

[yorkie]

We do have separate threads to discuss the nationalisation of Northern Rail.

And also a thread to discuss ideas for specific routes to be reopened:
Given the Shapps announcement, which lines would you propose for reopening?

 

[WatcherZero]

I see the Government is quickly moving to further politicise this already token effort PR campaign.

Changelog
29 January 2020
Invitation requirement altered so that proposals are required to come from MP's working with local authorities and communities, rather than local authorities and communities themselves.
28 January 2020
First published.

 

[Dr Day]

Anything being ‘sold’ as ‘reversing Beeching’ is potentially a solution looking for a problem, rather than the sensible and indeed dft own guidance of looking for feasible solutions to specific problems. If there happens to be a former railway corridor where reopening happens to be the best solution to a given problem today then great, but questioning whether that is the right approach.....

May appease a few voters and generate a flurry of posts on here but remain to be convinced if any re-openings that wouldn’t otherwise be on the cards eg Northumberland Line actually proceed

 

[Meerkat]

Hopefully money won’t get wasted on nostalgia trips and will be spent on electrification and route upgrades....

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Hopefully money won’t get wasted on nostalgia trips and will be spent on electrification and route upgrades....

Agreed. Only those lines that make sense should be reopened. Obviously (IMHO) where track etc. exists and is currently freight only, that will be much more shovel ready, lower cost and much quicker to bring up to passenger standard than completely relaying track where none now exists.

Personally, I do agree I prefer available money to be spent on electrification and route upgrades too.

 

[DJ_K666]

Your mention of "Bojo and his circus" seems to show what side of the political divide you are on, as I too could make a counterclaim that all the clowns (in the hypothetical circus) resided on the Opposition front bench.

It was interesting to watch a Government minister at the despatch box not so many hours ago reminding those on the opposite benches of the Labour Party pre-election claims that the NHS would be used as a pawn in a trade deal with the Trump administration should the Conservatives be returned to office and denial at that time by them, with a new reiteration for all to both see and hear that no such deal exists. The grass is not always greener on the other side.

^^THIS^^

Sums up the main problem, as the lines were not just closed but destroyed, sometimes in order to make it difficult to reopen, as corrupt, conflicted-interest politicians like Marples are never wrong, are they... The Transport Act 1962 meant that once closure was consented to the act that allowed the line to be built was also repealed at the same time, adding even more difficulty and cost to any reopening plan. At least Beeching thought what he was doing would stop the railway system collapsing, but ultimately he was just a fall guy to take the blame instead of Marples. This is an area where I think the French are right, in that closed lines have to stay intact for at least 20 years before any track is removed. It also would have allowed the effects to be reversed much more easily, not that the track and fittings would be usable after that time. It also marks out that land as "railway" as opposed to "Real estate for development".

 

[DJ_K666]

Agreed. Only those lines that make sense should be reopened. Obviously (IMHO) where track etc. exists and is currently freight only, that will be much more shovel ready, lower cost and much quicker to bring up to passenger standard than completely relaying track where none now exists.

Personally, I do agree I prefer available money to be spent on electrification and route upgrades too.

Definitely makes sense to start with freight lines that still have track. Marchwood to Totton is a good example, even with Marchwood station still fully intact. Then start on the longer closed and dismantled examples. Some lines will take more work as they might be nominally "open" but the trees growing up through the sleepers might make driving any rolling stock down them "interesting" to say the least.

 

[yorksrob]

Personally, I do agree I prefer available money to be spent on electrification and route upgrades too.

You need both. The transport needs of people aren't different just because they happen to live in a town that's off the network.

 

[Nagora]

At least Beeching thought what he was doing would stop the railway system collapsing, but ultimately he was just a fall guy to take the blame instead of Marples.

Beeching was no innocent bystander. He was a trained and experienced physicist who knew that a "survey of traffic" that took place over two days out of season was a sham, but he lent his name to Marples' plan. If he had had any interest in saving the railways he would have insisted on a proper survey of usage and desired usage, especially in places with high levels of seasonal traffic. He would have also looked at the emerging technologies that would have increased the efficiency of rural lines by reducing man-hours needed on stations.

Beeching was hired to write a conclusion with a report stapled to the front and given a lot of money to do it, which he took thank-you-very-much.

I'm not claiming that all the cuts were wrong, by the way, but those that were right were completely by accident. Beeching didn't give a damn.

 

[tbtc]

The whole point of the "Beeching cuts" was to release railway lines for conversion into roads thus enabling Ernest Marples business interests to prosper.

Very few railways were converted to roads - some short sections were but very few of the thousands of miles of railway that was closed down

Anything being ‘sold’ as ‘reversing Beeching’ is potentially a solution looking for a problem, rather than the sensible and indeed dft own guidance of looking for feasible solutions to specific problems. If there happens to be a former railway corridor where reopening happens to be the best solution to a given problem today then great, but questioning whether that is the right approach.....

May appease a few voters and generate a flurry of posts on here but remain to be convinced if any re-openings that wouldn’t otherwise be on the cards eg Northumberland Line actually proceed

Agreed - but there's a certain type of voter who like these nice little nostalgic ideas, even as they are happy to slash budgets for fire stations/ police numbers/ teachers and see libraries/ Sure Starts etc closed down

You need both. The transport needs of people aren't different just because they happen to live in a town that's off the network.

People who live in the kind of small towns that aren't on the railway network have transport needs, but those transport needs are often fairly thin in numbers and therefore not too suited for heavy rail - you can serve people's transport needs with minibuses, remember. It doesn't have to be heavy rail every time.

Beeching was no innocent bystander. He was a trained and experienced physicist who knew that a "survey of traffic" that took place over two days out of season was a sham

It's amazing how many parts of the country Beeching seemed to get round on a wet afternoon in February, if threads on here are to believe!

Given that he didn't have time to visit each line several times, it'd have been a bit pointless to focus on visiting seaside branches only on the busiest couple of weeks of the year - the idea was to assess year round use - a busy week at the start and end of the school holidays wouldn't sustain a line the rest of the year,

Much of the justification will have been based on the data available (ticket sales etc) rather than anecdotal day trips on soggy winter days

This is my reading as well - but Northern wasn't the only franchise affected. The other 'no-growth' franchise that was let around the same time was Wales and Borders which also suffered from lack of rolling stock and limited infrastructure improvements.

My memory is like that of yours and @Ianno87 - Labour were struggling with the backlog of Railtrack-related infrastructure problems

People remember Northern being "no growth" as if this were some kind of anti-north agenda but pretty much all "Regional Railways" franchises let in Labour's time were similarly parsimonious - I think that (because they were "hidden" in larger franchises) people forget how unremarkable the ex-Regional Railways bits of London Midland, EMT and GWR were treated - as well as Wales & Borders and Northern - not much in the way of "growth" in terms of rural DMUs in East Anglia or Waterloo-Exeter (though both were once NSE) - I know that some people want to tell a simple story about how anti-north things were but if anything the fact that northern England got fifty 185s to replace Sprinters was a pretty good deal, when you consider that people using Sprinters in most of the rest of the country were being stuck with their Sprinters (but that was neatly hidden away because the InterCity bits of the franchises were getting better stock - which is maybe something people should think about when they decide that they want such franchises - it's a lot easier to hide the fact that you aren't investing in marginal/rural routes!)

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I see the Government is quickly moving to further politicise this already token effort PR campaign.

Changelog
29 January 2020
Invitation requirement altered so that proposals are required to come from MP's working with local authorities and communities, rather than local authorities and communities themselves.
28 January 2020
First published.

Do you have a link for that change?

If that's true, then I'd have thought that an obvious course of action is for anyone living in a constituency where a sensible possible re-opening might exist to write to their MP and local councillors about it. Sadly (or perhaps, happily), I live in a constituency and borough where, to the best of my knowledge, no Beeching cuts took place, so there's probably not a lot I can do in that regard.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Anything being ‘sold’ as ‘reversing Beeching’ is potentially a solution looking for a problem, rather than the sensible and indeed dft own guidance of looking for feasible solutions to specific problems. If there happens to be a former railway corridor where reopening happens to be the best solution to a given problem today then great, but questioning whether that is the right approach.....

Perhaps. But since the money will certainly, in the first instance, go on feasibility studies, any daft proposals would presumably get weeded out without having spend that much of the £500M on them.

And actually, I'd say £500M is not a bad sum to put up at this stage. It's enough to pay for a lot of feasibility studies and plans, and potentially for at least one actual line to be built.

 

[Killingworth]

The reality is that reopening almost any of the closed lines is prohibitively expensive. Even reopening most closed stations is hard to justify. A few reopened and new stations, yes.

Feasibility studies will be done and the TOCs responsible for such lines and stations will dread having to operate most of them. A relatively small number of new stations opened since the Beching era are a commercial success. The rest are adding to the need for increased subsidies.

Adding more stopping services, even an odd extra stop, onto mainlines adds potential delays with knock-on implications to congestion many miles down track. Shap has been suggested. Every mainline will have its Shaps, lots of them.

Before reopening stations and old lines there are so many things that urgently need doing now on the ones that remain open. HS2 may not be the answer, but lots more little stations and quiet branch lines isn't a panacea either. We need to be very focused. Quite apart from anything else, it takes so long to deliver any new scheme, usually decades.

 

[class26]

Unfortunately I don't.

Maybe you do not but they are aware that if they do not make material improvements up north they are toast next election which, if they are only slightly intelligent will take note and do something. Don`t forget, the Conservative party are (whatever you make think of them) the most successful party electorially in the western world and that isn`t about to change.

 

[The Ham]

Maybe you do not but they are aware that if they do not make material improvements up north they are toast next election which, if they are only slightly intelligent will take note and do something. Don`t forget, the Conservative party are (whatever you make think of them) the most successful party electorially in the western world and that isn`t about to change.

Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw:
- announce reopening of Beeching lines
- HS2, delayed by 6 months with reports commissioned to look at what benefits there could be on the existing network assuming it's built
- Those reports showing wide scale improvements for many places, including extra services and longer trains
- Re announcement of every benefit each time it gets closer

As such they would be able to dine out on jam tomorrow promises for many years.

In the meantime they can continue to bring forward other schemes which being faster benefits, but always with something else to promote.

Very much like the "biggest investment in railways since the Victorians", maybe something like "largest change to how we travel since the motorways" or "making it possible to travel as environmentally friendly as the Edwardians".

 

[underbank]

Very few railways were converted to roads - some short sections were but very few of the thousands of miles of railway that was closed down

Yes, but a railway line several miles long is completely useless if, say, a short railway bridge across a river had been converted to a road bridge. That means the entire line is no longer usable despite 99% of it still being there. Even more so if there is no alternative suitable point for a potential new bridge, i.e. in the centre of a town where there is no spare land, thus necessitating widespread demolition of prime real estate to create a path for a second bridge.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

Yes, but a railway line several miles long is completely useless if, say, a short railway bridge across a river had been converted to a road bridge. That means the entire line is no longer usable despite 99% of it still being there. Even more so if there is no alternative suitable point for a potential new bridge, i.e. in the centre of a town where there is no spare land, thus necessitating widespread demolition of prime real estate to create a path for a second bridge.

The point being addressed was that the colourful assertion that lines were closed to facilitate road building schemes is total nonsense. The motorways constructed during and since Ernest Marples' period in office did not run along disused railway alignments. The M1, for example, does not run over the track bed of the Great Central London Extension. More to the point, if Ernest Marples had been this corrupt schemer, he would have closed four track formations, not two track formations scarcely wide enough for a rural B road.

 

[underbank]

The point being addressed was that the colourful assertion that lines were closed to facilitate road building schemes is total nonsense. The motorways constructed during and since Ernest Marples' period in office did not run along disused railway alignments. The M1, for example, does not run over the track bed of the Great Central London Extension. More to the point, if Ernest Marples had been this corrupt schemer, he would have closed four track formations, not two track formations scarcely wide enough for a rural B road.

Certainly the closure of the Lancaster Green Ayre<>Morecambe line was encouraged by the local council wanting Greyhound Bridge to be part of the city's one way system, thus avoiding them having to finance the building of a completely new bridge.

There is a school of thought that had the council not wanted Greyhound Bridge, then the line would have remained open and the other line to Morecambe via Bare Lane would have closed instead as it was pretty obvious two lines into Morecambe weren't needed once rail traffic had fallen significantly and both lines ended up in the same place, i.e. Morecambe promenade station.

 

[edwin_m]

In many, possibly most, of the places where a "Beechinged" branch crossed one of the motorways dating from the same period, the bridge was built anyway and used by trains for a short time. A few never saw a trains because the railway closed after the motorway design was finalised. So it's probably not true that the railways were closed to facilitate the motorways. From a road contractor's point of view they would rather the railways were still there at time of completing the design, because there would be more work for them building the extra bridges and not being able to re-use railway alignments.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Certainly the closure of the Lancaster Green Ayre<>Morecambe line was encouraged by the local council wanting Greyhound Bridge to be part of the city's one way system, thus avoiding them having to finance the building of a completely new bridge.

There is a school of thought that had the council not wanted Greyhound Bridge, then the line would have remained open and the other line to Morecambe via Bare Lane would have closed instead as it was pretty obvious two lines into Morecambe weren't needed once rail traffic had fallen significantly and both lines ended up in the same place, i.e. Morecambe promenade station.

Seems to me a slightly dubious school of thought given that the Greyhound Bridge route suffers from the very obvious disadvantage of having no access to Lancaster station, other than by an awkward reversal at Green Ayre. Would BR/Beeching really have opted to preserve such an awkward route?

Also, although that line now passes well used industrial and retail developments, I'm guessing that back in the 60s most of that land would have been green fields - in contrast to the Bare Lane line, which serves a well-populated centre at Bare Lane. That would seem to imply strong reasons for keeping the Bare Lane route in preference to the Green Ayre route.

 

[Lucan]

The point being addressed was that the colourful assertion that lines were closed to facilitate road building schemes is total nonsense. The motorways constructed during and since Ernest Marples' period in office did not run along disused railway alignments.

Of course motorways were not generally built along closed railways - they are far too wide. In some ways there would be less problem re-opening the line even if they had because motorways tend to be in open country. Nevertheless, in the "Speculative Ideas" forum the point comes up time and time again that a line or a station cannot be re-opened because a road has been built on it or across it.

As Underbank said, the real issue is not in open country but at pinch points in towns and in areas of difficult topology. I have not made a study of this, but two places that spring to my mind are through Dolgellau and the re-use of the railway bridges as roads in the Highlands such as at Connel Ferry. I'm not saying those particular lines should be re-opened but just giving examples of where it happened, and I'm sure others could pitch in with more examples. Even re-using lines as foot and cycle paths causes massive obstacles to re-opening, such as the Midland line through north-east Bristol which would make an ideal metro route - and BTW the A4174 Bristol ring road is also built along part of that line.

But Marples and Co got pelnty of business even without building roads directly on closed railways. New and wider roads were needed anyway to take the traffic displaced from the railways they closed.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Yes, but...
Most of the lines closed (or proposed for closure) were carrying very little traffic anyway (or were patently duplicate routes where there was ample scope to accommodate it on remaining lines).
Many of Beeching’s wider proposals were intended to achieve a transfer of lost freight traffic back to rail.

 

[Killingworth]

It might help some to understand the situation back in 1963 when Beeching produced his report (it makes interesting reading), and subsequently as passenger numbers continued to spiral downwards until the Serpell Report of 1982.

This was a period of almost freefall, at a time when passenger railways in the USA all but died. The car was king and we all had to have one. Rows of terraced houses near stations and bus routes were left behind as many aspired to new houses built in the leafy outskirts with gardens, away from stations and frequent buses. Factories were being built on new sites unconnected to rail for passengers or freight. There was a lot more to it than motorways.

Abandoned railway trackbeds, station yards and strategic bridges were lost to local and regional road schemes and all sorts of retail and housing developments.

We now know that when Serpell wrote his 1982 report the downward plunge had about stopped. He wasn't to know that then. See the figures and you may understand the panic in government. The birth of the Pacer generations of units. (My local interest is the singling in 1985 of the tracks through Dore & Totley, justifiable when the total of passenger services across that section had been reduced to 3 tph.)

We are in a different age and can't put the clock back. Reopening facilities closed 60 years ago can only work in a few places where subsequent development has changed the original rationale for closure AND there is clear space to build new facilities and tracks at justifiable cost.

The following figures are extracted from ORR Passenger Rail Usage showing relatively stable passenger numbers into the 1960s when things went rapidly downhill,

"Passenger journeys by year - Table 12.5
Number of franchised passenger journeys made (millions)
Great Britain
Annual data (calendar year): 1950 to 1984
Annual data (financial year): 1985-86 to 2018-19

Financial year Total passenger journeys

1950 1,010.0
1951 1,030.0
1952 1,017.0
1953 1,015.0
1954 1,020.0
1955 994.0
1956 1,029.0
1957 1,101.0
1958 1,090.0
1959 1,069.0
1960 1,037.0
1961 1,025.0
1962 965.0
1963 938.0
1964 928.0
1965 865.0
1966 835.0
1967 837.0
1968 831.0
1969 806.0
1970 824.0
1971 816.0
1972 754.0
1973 728.0
1974 733.0
1975 730.0
1976 702.0
1977 702.0
1978 724.0
1979 748.0
1980 760.0
1981 719.0
1982 630.0
1983 694.0
1984 702.0
1985-86 686.0
1986-87 738.0
1987-88 798.0
1988-89 822.0
1989-90 812.0
1990-91 810.0
1991-92 792.0
1992-93 770.0
1993-94 740.0
1994-95 735.1
1995-96 761.2
1996-97 800.2
1997-98 845.7
1998-99 891.9
1999-00 931.0
2000-01 956.6
2001-02 959.6
2002-03 975.5
2003-04 1,011.7
2004-05 1,039.5
2005-06 1,076.5
2006-07 1,145.0
2007-08 1,218.1
2008-09 1,266.5
2009-10 1,257.9
2010-11 1,353.8
2011-12 1,460.0
2012-13 1,500.9
2013-14 1,586.5
2014-15 1,653.7
2015-16 1,715.9
2016-17 1,729.1
2017-18 1,705.5
2018-19 1,756.3

Source(s): LENNON ticketing and revenue database, Train Operating Companies (TOCs), Office of Rail and Road (ORR) and Department for Transport (DfT)"