The Black Year of 'Thirty

[Calthrop]

I see this post as a sort of a “DAA” counterpoint to the current thread on this sub-forum, “Alternatives to the Beeching cuts” – that thread, with many perceptive posts by people well au fait with the political / social / economic / rail-functional aspects of the issue, read with interest but passively, by apolitical and un-technical me. “My kind of stuff” indulged in here -- something which intrigues me, and about which I’ve posted previously in the “Railway History and Nostalgia” sub-forum: happenings on Great Britain’s railways presaging in some sort, the Beeching closures; at a time when the gentleman concerned, was a teenager giving -- so far as we know -- no thought to railways other than as a way of getting from A to B.

The turn of the decades 1920s / 30s was in Great Britain a time of withdrawals, in greater numbers than ever seen before, of passenger services on more-minor local lines of the big companies; and also of passenger-closure of many individual local stations, on routes which were themselves retained for passenger traffic. Particularly notorious in this connection, is the “great purge” as of the Sep. 22nd end of the 1930 summer timetable, featuring simultaneous passenger-closure of various lines and stations of the LMS, LNE, and GW (from what I can ascertain, no actual routes of the Southern lost their passenger services in this withdrawal-bout; individual Southern stations, maybe).

An attempted trawl through Daniels and Dench’s Passengers No More – my “bible” for these matters – would seem to reveal passenger-withdrawal on seventeen variously LMS / LNE / GW lines w.e.f. 22 / 9 / 30 – quite a dismaying total, but adding up to fewer than I had previously “misremembered”. However – this “September slaughter” would seem to be, from my investigating, just a not especially great part of 1930’s losses re the big companies’ passenger services. Another twenty-seven lines of the above-cited three of the Big Four (again, the Southern does not feature) closed to passengers during 1930 on other dates January-to-December. In “ ‘30”, a total of forty-four lines lost their passenger services, with lowland Scotland (significantly the greatest sufferer) and South Wales, being hardest-hit; but plenty of deaths elsewhere too. A bit morbid, but interesting if this stuff interests one...

By my perception, no highly-classic-acclaimed utterly delightful lines lost their passenger services in 1930, with extreme regret occasioned thereby: most were very obscure, in either non-touristed rural backwaters, or industrial regions. “Nicest, and saddest-to-lose” in my personal view: Alnwick – Coldstream, and Hexham – Allendale, in beautiful rural Northumberland; Skipton – Grassington (kept freight for decades after); the Red Wharf Bay branch in always-delectable Anglesey, previously discussed on this sub-forum (whence we understand, this one kept excursion traffic for a while after “everyday” withdrawal); and Garstang – Knott End (agreeably quirky and a bit steam-tramway-like).

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Depths of the recession - worse was to come in 1931 - the Big 4 were after all private , commercial entities.

Parts of South Wales were seriously considered for economic abandonment. Desperate times unless you were building radio sets for EKCO at Park Royal.

 

[GusB]

My local line, the Hopeman Branch, lost its passenger services a year later in 1931. By this time, I'd imagine that the road links between the village, its neighbouring settlements and nearby Elgin would have been much quicker for people.

We did a project on the local railway in primary school, and I remember being quite surprised when I found out that the line had remained open for freight until the 1950s. Fishing was probably still a source of traffic, but I'm not sure what else would have been transported. I'd be interested to find out.

 

[Calthrop]

Depths of the recession - worse was to come in 1931 - the Big 4 were after all private , commercial entities.

Parts of South Wales were seriously considered for economic abandonment. Desperate times unless you were building radio sets for EKCO at Park Royal.

The Great Depression was, for sure, under way; and I've indeed noted many passenger closures in 1931 (planning a running-through of the book and listing of same, for that year). Passenger closures were in fact getting rolling in 1929 (I've counted sixteen lines thus dealt with by the Big Four in that year).

My local line, the Hopeman Branch, lost its passenger services a year later in 1931. By this time, I'd imagine that the road links between the village, its neighbouring settlements and nearby Elgin would have been much quicker for people.

We did a project on the local railway in primary school, and I remember being quite surprised when I found out that the line had remained open for freight until the 1950s. Fishing was probably still a source of traffic, but I'm not sure what else would have been transported. I'd be interested to find out.

My interest was piqued as a kid in the 1950s, by the Hopeman branch still being shown in the atlas, as open for freight only. My 2005 AA road atlas -- which shows freight-only rail lines perceivedly as at that date -- indicates the branch as "still there" as far as Burghead. Post-1931, line maybe useful freight-wise for stuff inbound for Burghead and Hopeman?

The majority of the lines which lost their passenger services in the 1929 / early '30s "massacre", were kept on for freight for two or three decades more; with some, longer than that. (One or two might still carry freight even today -- a thing re which I'm not genned-up.) One takes it that getting rid of little-used passenger services furnished in itself, a considerable financial saving.

 

[GusB]

My interest was piqued as a kid in the 1950s, by the Hopeman branch still being shown in the atlas, as open for freight only. My 2005 AA road atlas -- which shows freight-only rail lines perceivedly as at that date -- indicates the branch as "still there" as far as Burghead. Post-1931, line maybe useful freight-wise for stuff inbound for Burghead and Hopeman?

The maltings at Burghead used to have bulk grain hoppers delivered every now and again, but the track within the village has since been lifted and road transport has taken over.

I'm not sure when exactly this happened - I hadn't visited Burghead for years and went over one day to discover that the old station site had been completely cleared and the road bridge demolished.

There are some good photos here:

http://www.geocities.ws/highlandrailway/Burghead.html

 

[Calthrop]

I see this post as a sort of a "DAA" counterpoint to the current thread on this sub-forum, "Alternatives to the Beeching cuts"...

I’ve been asked per PM by a participant, to explain “DAA”. A slightly coarse bit of humour which was much in favour among British railway enthusiasts about fifty years ago, and which has always tickled me – seems that it may now be little-known.

It came into being in the last couple of years of BR steam, and enthusiasts’ frantic chasing of same wherever it still ran. It seems that one day, a couple of enthusiasts were travelling on a working with regularly-scheduled steam haulage – could have been on the Waterloo to Bournemouth route; a “real person” travelling on the train to get somewhere he needed to go, observing their antics (dashing up and down, heads frequently out of windows, taking numerous photographs), asked them what on earth they were up to. They explained as best they could; the chap considered for a moment, then pronounced: “If you ask me, you’re all as daft as a***holes”.

The tale went the rounds, and – in a self-mocking way – the enthusiast community very much took to this expression; abbreviating it to “DAA”. I think of it as applying to railway enthusiasm of the more dotty kind, and not of a highly serious and analytical bent: will readily admit that I reckon myself an enthusiast of the former sort, rather than the latter.

 

[Calthrop]

The maltings at Burghead used to have bulk grain hoppers delivered every now and again, but the track within the village has since been lifted and road transport has taken over.

I'm not sure when exactly this happened - I hadn't visited Burghead for years and went over one day to discover that the old station site had been completely cleared and the road bridge demolished.

There are some good photos here:

http://www.geocities.ws/highlandrailway/Burghead.html

I'm afraid that when I try your link above, my computer "goes stupid" -- can only look at the material about the branch line for a few seconds, before it's replaced by various crazy stuff.

I've never been to your part of Scotland: basically, everywhere between Inverness and Aberdeen is unknown to me at first hand -- a situation which I'd much like to remedy.

 

[Taunton]

Parts of South Wales were seriously considered for economic abandonment. Desperate times unless you were building radio sets for EKCO at Park Royal.

Only desperate for those who did not adapt.

These same early 1930s saw great expansion of bus services (providing something far better than rural branch lines ever did), air services started to have proper airliners, car ownership and manufacture, houses and house ownership (look at all the 1930s suburbia semi-detached houses still very much around), radio, as you mention, rural electric supply, and a whole lot more

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Only desperate for those who did not adapt.


Many communties could not adapt - especially in one industry / extracting town and egions - not just South Wales , but Scotland + an agriculteral depression which was global. Various Keynsian changes to counteract "laissez faire" , but large numbers of people were trapped with no jobs , little education and bare social security which was means tested. Many employers cut wages.

Large numbers of (younger) people did migrate - often to poorly paid jobs, Fine if you were living in Edgware or Pinner , different story if you were in Jarrow / Dowlais or Clydebank.

Not known as the "Devils Decade" for nothing.

 

[Calthrop]

Depths of the recession - worse was to come in 1931 - the Big 4 were after all private , commercial entities.

The Great Depression was, for sure, under way; and I've indeed noted many passenger closures in 1931 (planning a running-through of the book and listing of same, for that year).

Have done planned working through of Daniels and Dench’s book, for 1931 passenger closures (feeling a little bit callous for deriving gricing-trivia entertainment from what was a component of a very miserable time for the less fortunate people in Britain; but, “there you are”). Have counted up, in fact, thirty-five lines of the “Big Four”, which lost passenger services in the course of ’31 (as against forty-four for ’30); plus -- as in the previous year -- a number of stations on routes which were themselves retained. Unlike in 1930, the Southern Railway -- as well as the other three -- features in ’31, with four of its branch lines or parts-thereof, closed to passengers. Once more, the majority of the lines affected kept their freight service.

Most corners of Great Britain feature in 1931’s withdrawals: however, Scotland and South Wales, hard-hit in 1930, do get off relatively lightly. Quite an impact perceived in the more northerly parts of Wales, including loss of passenger services on two of the GWR’s narrow-gauge lines at that time: the Welshpool & Llanfair, and the Corris.

As in 1930: the axe would seem to have fallen on decidedly obscure lines -- no publicly well-known and greatly loved ones, whose demise would have been at the time, a widely-perceived tragedy. A sad scene for lovers of the Welsh narrow gauge, as mentioned; and possibly for real-ale buffs, with the closure w.e.f. the beginning of the year of the LNER’s branch from Melmerby to Masham, home of Theakstons’ Old Peculier !

 

[edwin_m]

There are also quite a few lines and stations that closed as economy measures towards the end of WW1, some of which never re-opened. I suspect these get even less attention, because closure when it came was stated to be "only for the duration" and by the time it became clear the service wasn't coming back people had made alternative arrangements and/or forgotten about it.

 

[RichmondCommu]

I think it's worth mentioning here that quite a few stations in London were closed before 1920 including at least one between Cricklewood and St Pancras. However the names of the stations escape me.

 

[Calthrop]

There are also quite a few lines and stations that closed as economy measures towards the end of WW1, some of which never re-opened. I suspect these get even less attention, because closure when it came was stated to be "only for the duration" and by the time it became clear the service wasn't coming back people had made alternative arrangements and/or forgotten about it.

Two favourite ones of mine in this category (I have the feeling that both were “curiosities” which would have proved quite easy to live without) are the Bideford, Westward Ho! & Appledore Railway – about which I recently started a thread; and another about which I’ve posted on these Forums – an alternative route from Peterborough to Leicester. This one has always struck me as delightfully bonkers: a Great Northern / LNWR collaborative undertaking, trains actually worked, I gather, by the GNR. They took an interestingly tortuous route (not that the Midland line between the two cities via Oakham, is anything like arrow-straight): from Peterborough (North), round the Fletton “north-to-west” link line, along the Peterborough – Rugby line to Drayton Junction a little way short of Market Harborough, northerly thence along a two-or-three-mile “mega-curve” (abandoned with the passenger withdrawal, I believe) including a station at Medbourne; to join the north – south GN / LNW Joint line as far as the Marefield Junctions; from where, due west along the branch to Leicester Belgrave Road. This service had the distinction of being the last to be worked – up to its withdrawal in 1916 – by Stirling “8-foot” 4-2-2 locos.

I think it's worth mentioning here that quite a few stations in London were closed before 1920 including at least one between Cricklewood and St Pancras. However the names of the stations escape me.

A fair number of odd station, and line, closures, had indeed been happening pretty well since the railways' infancy: I have the impression, though, that big bouts of closures which were simultaneous, or not far off so, were a thing first seen in 1929 / 30.

 

[randyrippley]

The OP mentions the Garstang-Knott End line as an example. When you think about it what use was it? It ran to the mouth of the River Wyre - an important ferry and fishing dock, Fleetwood - but terminated on the wrong side of the river. There was no significant passenger traffic on the line - and anyway that was better catered for by buses to Blackpool and Lancaster.
The line itself was running over often flooded bogland - the Fylde marshes - and must have been a nightmare to keep above the peat.
All in all, a total waste of time and money

 

[Calthrop]

All in all, a total waste of time and money

In my view -- as an unabashed DAA-merchant, as mentioned upthread -- the nicest lines usually are ! (I'd venture to say in the Knott End line's defence, that it remained open for freight Garstang -- Pilling until, I think, the 1960s: someone must have found at least a bit of use in it.)

 

[Elecman]

Ah the Pilling Pig

 

[Calthrop]

I've read of that name for it -- so called because of the shrill squeal of its whistle, I gather?