The Axe's worst closure - poll

[Busaholic]

I managed to pick the Top 5, and I know very little about railways compared to most on here. Not sure what that says about the poll!

 

[RichmondCommu]

My bad.

Not a problem

 

[miami]

I'm bemused by the level of support for Woodhead. What - exactly - does it offer?

Services from Manchester to Dunford Bridge

 

[deltic08]

Bit disappointed it's all over in 24 hours - what was the hurry? Didn't get to vote!

Neither did I, but if I had Ripon would still have been 10th.
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I'm bemused by the level of support for Woodhead. What - exactly - does it offer?

The fastest route between Sheffield and Manchester. Passenger trains were timed for 75mph as that was the maximum for class 76 even though 77s were 90mph. A mile a minute should be possible to-day with one stop at Penistone.

Wasn't it the cost of conversion from life expired DC to AC that finally closed the route?

 

[DerekC]

6th equal on 37% (i.e. only 4% behind 5th) are Okehampton - Tavistock - Plymouth and Uckfield - Lewes. I think adding these to the published ranking gives a more balanced picture - and there is nothing else anywhere close. Also these are routes which actually have some possibility of being rebuilt, which Great Central certainly doesn't. (OK, so that wasn't the question I know).

 

[507021]

I agree with the results of the poll, the Woodhead Line should never have been closed in my opinion.

 

[Harbornite]

It's a shame that monument Lane to Harborne wasn't on there. I must be the only one here who cares and wants that line open again!

 

[yorksrob]

I would have thought the Exeter - Plymouth via Okehampton route would have been higher up on the list.

 

[furryfeet]

just out of interest, was Tom Fraser responsible for the first wave of closures under the Wilson government ?
Including the S & D stating "that he was powerless to overrule the decision of the previous minister"

 

[yorksrob]

just out of interest, was Tom Fraser responsible for the first wave of closures under the Wilson government ?
Including the S & D stating "that he was powerless to overrule the decision of the previous minister"

Yes, as I understand it, he didn't do anything to review the decisions already made by Marples but not yet implemented (although that would have been within his power).

 

[Lankyline]

just a thought, in order to accommodate more lines might it be worth considering doing these individually from time to time based on the old big 4 areas ?

 

[DarloRich]

no surprises here - Isn't hindsight wonderfully 20:20?

I still don't understand the criteria used to asses what is the worst? Gut feeling? local bias? Against what are we judging the decision? We are projecting our position in 21st century Britain back 30/40/50 years to a different time and a different Britain politically, economically and socially. The people making the decisions then didn't have a crystal ball to see how our society would change and how what seemed to be redundant assets then might be needed now.

Even if they did the majority of the lines listed about rightly closed on economic grounds alone.

 

[yorksrob]

no surprises here - Isn't hindsight wonderfully 20:20?.

Yes, apart from all of those people at the time who pointed out to the Establishment that a number of these closures were a bad idea, yes, hindsight, 20:20 vision, yada, yada ....

 

[miami]

Yes, apart from all of those people at the time who pointed out to the Establishment that a number of these closures were a bad idea, yes, hindsight, 20:20 vision, yada, yada ....

There's always someone to say that something is a bad move. 9 times out of 10 they're wrong, but 1 time out of 10 they're right. Doesn't mean you should listen to them.

 

[misterredmist]

no surprises here - Isn't hindsight wonderfully 20:20?

I still don't understand the criteria used to asses what is the worst? Gut feeling? local bias? Against what are we judging the decision? We are projecting our position in 21st century Britain back 30/40/50 years to a different time and a different Britain politically, economically and socially. The people making the decisions then didn't have a crystal ball to see how our society would change and how what seemed to be redundant assets then might be needed now.

Even if they did the majority of the lines listed about rightly closed on economic grounds alone.

Correct - and if some had had their way in the 70's & 80's the culling could have been more draconian.........as you said the future appears a lot brighter for the railways now than 30 / 40 years ago, and who could have foreseen the boom in demand we have nowadays ?

 

[tbtc]

Whoops, I didn't see you could only vote for 5. I picked ten.

I only voted for one (Preston - Southport), so you cancelled me out

Not sure what this poll proves other than bringing up well rehearsed opinions and conspiracy theories. The majority of these lines won't be reopened and I would rather we look forward than back.

Agreed.

Woodhead should be in the top 3.

It was predominantly a freight line.

Nowadays people seem to be more focussed on its passenger carrying background from Sheffield Victoria, but the Wath side was possibly more important. Poor old Wath, it never seems to get mentioned when Woodhead is discussed (Stocksbridge even made it into the OP’s description, but not the line through the Dearne Valley and Yorkshire’s coalfields).

Even after doubling passenger numbers, the Hope Valley route is still generally just a two/three/four coach DMU every half hour (plus a bi-hourly Pacer), so extra capacity would be relatively easy to find.

Other than Penistone (which already has hourly trains to Huddersfield, Barnsley, Meadowhall and Sheffield), it didn’t serve anywhere that big (given Sheffield’s geography, the line managed to avoid any suburbs worth sticking a station in – it goes close to the bottom of the disused ski slope and the recycling place at Parkwood but they aren’t places you’d put a station).

It’s not much use for Stocksbridge, given the hills (as I said on another thread recently, if the answer is taking a “feeder” bus from residential Stocksbridge to a train station on the Steelworks site at the bottom of the valley then a train to Nunnery Square then a tram to central Sheffield… then that’s spending millions on something no better than the current situation of a ten minute “feeder” bus running round the estates to connect to the tram at Middlewood into the heart of the city centre).

Other than that? Well, Woodhead was a non-standard route (specialist locomotives due to the electrification) through a relatively empty/ scenic part of the country, so of course it is going to be seen as a priority by a certain type of misty eyed enthusiast… case closed!

it was closed in 1981 so shouldn't be included in the poll

True

Coming soon: “Why Dr Beeching is to blame for the closure of the Silvertown branch, the Oldham Loop…”

Looking into the present day, from Barnstaple, there are six double decker buses an hour to Braunton, of which three continue to Ilfracombe. I think it would be a popular service if the towns still retained their rail link

I don't know the area, but that sounds like a good indicator of demand (if you can't find enough people to warrant a commercial bus service - e.g. between Plymouth and Okehampton - then heavy rail seems OTT - but if there are frequent double deckers then that suggests rail could work well.

The Woodhead route was electrified and rebuilt for freight traffic - the loss of that effectively condemned it in the end (not worth renewing the electrical equipment for the traffic that remained), together with it's poor connectivity at the Sheffield end for passenger purposes.

True

The OP mentions "the axe" but it doesn't mention who's axe, so thres no reason not to include it

The OP askes "Which of these were the worst closures implemented by Beeching, Marsh and Castle? " - I'd respectfully suggest that something which closed in the 1980s doesn't really fit that definition?

I'm bemused by the level of support for Woodhead. What - exactly - does it offer?

Not sure (see above)

I would have thought the Exeter - Plymouth via Okehampton route would have been higher up on the list.

I would have thought it would have been higher up the list too, given the Forum's fascination with it.

(a line from Tavistock to Okehampton would be a waste of resources and there are much bigger problems to solve elsewhere, but I thought it would have polled higher)

no surprises here - Isn't hindsight wonderfully 20:20?

I still don't understand the criteria used to asses what is the worst? Gut feeling? local bias? Against what are we judging the decision? We are projecting our position in 21st century Britain back 30/40/50 years to a different time and a different Britain politically, economically and socially. The people making the decisions then didn't have a crystal ball to see how our society would change and how what seemed to be redundant assets then might be needed now.

Even if they did the majority of the lines listed about rightly closed on economic grounds alone.

Agreed.

Even today, despite a doubling of passenger numbers, we've got lots of lightly loaded lines needing significant subsidies - are there any of the lines in the OP's poll that would be commercially viable today?

the Establishment

For the record, Beeching never proposed Woodhead for closure. In fact, he selected for further development.

Government incompetence and BR mismanagement saw to that one.

As above - it was predominantly a freight line.

When the coal was declining in the 1980s (for rather well documented reasons…), the need for a “spare” line from South Yorkshire to Greater Manchester became harder to justify.

Should we have kept it open in case the South Yorkshire coal fields returned to their post-war heights?

 

[Tetchytyke]

When the coal was declining in the 1980s (for rather well documented reasons…), the need for a “spare” line from South Yorkshire to Greater Manchester became harder to justify.

I think the obsession with the Woodhead line is that it was faster and more direct, and had only been expensively upgraded 20 years previously. There's the enormous sense of waste on top of the closure itself.

I'd agree that the decline in freight traffic meant that only one line needed to remain open, really. The Hope Valley served places that didn't really have much alternative transport, and so remained open, which was so important for communities like Hathersage. Nowhere really lost out with Woodhead going: the line stayed open to Glossop/Hadfield and Penistone kept the slower train via Barnsley.

Buxton-Matlock going was probably worse.

 

[yorksrob]

There's always someone to say that something is a bad move. 9 times out of 10 they're wrong, but 1 time out of 10 they're right. Doesn't mean you should listen to them.

And do you have any basis for that ratio ?

Why shouldn't we have listened to those whose communities relied on the railway, rather than an Establishment that at worst had a massive conflict of interest (Marples) or at best had a naive belief that motor transport would solve all of the country's transport issues ?

 

[miami]

And do you have any basis for that ratio ?

Why shouldn't we have listened to those whose communities relied on the railway, rather than an Establishment that at worst had a massive conflict of interest (Marples) or at best had a naive belief that motor transport would solve all of the country's transport issues ?

The ratio isn't important, the fable of the boy who cried wolf is.

 

[yorksrob]

The ratio isn't important, the fable of the boy who cried wolf is.

I seem to have stumbled into an episode of "Tales of the Unexpected" since this peculiar reference has no relevance to anything on the forum.
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The OP askes "Which of these were the worst closures implemented by Beeching, Marsh and Castle? " - I'd respectfully suggest that something which closed in the 1980s doesn't really fit that definition?

Without wishing to criticise the OP (except perhaps for the unexpectedly short duration of the poll) I would respectfully suggest that that is an arbitrary cut off point with little relation to the history of the railway.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I seem to have stumbled into an episode of "Tales of the Unexpected" since this peculiar reference has no relevance to anything on the forum.

I think the point is that, whenever the Government makes any decision, there's almost always someone who'll stand up and say that decision is wrong (Just like the mythical boy always crying wolf). If the Government stopped whenever someone said what they were doing is wrong, then the Government would basically never do anything at all!

 

[yorksrob]

I think the point is that, whenever the Government makes any decision, there's almost always someone who'll stand up and say that decision is wrong (Just like the mythical boy always crying wolf). If the Government stopped whenever someone said what they were doing is wrong, then the Government would basically never do anything at all!

Although it's generally accepted that the 1960's were the tail end of the "age of deference" during which time people were far less likely than now to question the decisions of those in authority.

The fact that closures such as Waverley inspired such opposition, and that the closure programme still attracts opprobrium many years after that era strongly suggests to me that policy was at odds with a large proportion of the population.

 

[DarloRich]

Yes, apart from all of those people at the time who pointed out to the Establishment that a number of these closures were a bad idea, yes, hindsight, 20:20 vision, yada, yada ....

I am not in any way saying that mistakes were not made. However some of those lines listed above are basket cases in the extreme and deserved to be closed.

Apart from some spotterish nostalgia what point would there be for say the Somerset and Dorset line today?

 

[yorksrob]

I am not in any way saying that mistakes were not made. However some of those lines listed above are basket cases in the extreme and deserved to be closed.

Apart from some spotterish nostalgia what point would there be for say the Somerset and Dorset line today?

Although if you look at the list, the vast majority of routes would have linked important towns to the network or filled in gaps in today's network, the majority of which wouldn't have been countenanced for closure had they survived to the 1980's.

As for the S&D, yes there probably is an element of nostalgia in this one, but then again, it's not difficult to see how it might have developed as a social railway. A sort of "Heart of Wales" line for the South.

 

[backontrack]

Regarding Woodhead, it closed to passenger services in 1970 so just about makes the list.