The 1-page distance-based fares table simply removed the column for "second class" and renamed "third" to "second" (fares were really "simple" in those days!).
That was the "standard" fare, analogous to Anytime fares nowadays. However, in many areas there were various fares locally offered less than this, which had become the default. I remember when we moved from Somerset to the Wirral that Cheap Day tickets on the electric system there were the norm, and valid all day long. There was a later community grumbling when they were restricted to after 9.30am. It was a significant issue where the competition was council-owned bus services, which long had notably cheap fares, just a few pence, especially for the longer runs to the outer suburbs where rail was most competitive.
Stewart Joy, Beeching's chief economist, wrote that when closure was proposed a regular objection was that it would cause significant hardship to regular commuters etc with no other option. He looked at the finances of one such, and said that in this case, at least the tickets ought to be at the standard price rather than the high proportion of reduced fares he could see actually being sold. Area Manager unthinkingly told him that if standard fares were charged everyone would move to the parallel bus ...
