TRIVIA - Unfulfilled Beeching cuts you would've made

[nanstallon]

Why? It's well used.

If I was going to close anything round there it'd be Ellesmere Port to Helsby, but I don't know if that was on the list, was it?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 22 Dec 2021 ==

Berney Arms?

It's a lovely quirk, but removing it would get rid of an entire section of route so the saving would be considerable.

Closing Berney Arms would not necessarily 'get rid' of the line through it. Most trains don't stop. If that line were closed, the other (also single track) route to Great Yarmouth via Acle might struggle to cope.

 

[Paul Jones 88]

I'd cut the Sheerness line so I wouldn't have to visit my wife's brother in HMP Elmley.

 

[Ken H]

I would have kept Wennington-Green Ayre-Lancaster Castle and shut Wennington-Carnforth. Thus accelerating the service from Yorkshire to Lancaster/Morecambe by approx 15 minutes.

The council wanted the rail bridge for a second river crossing in Lancaster. So they lobbied hard for the current routes. But then Carnforth was more important than Lancaster <\sarc>

 

[BeijingDave]

Is Yorkshire direct to Lancaster a truly necessary route though? Most of it is rural, whereas the route a bit south to Preston provides good connections to the WCML and Blackpool, and also passes through many sizeable towns - Blackburn, Burnley etc.

 

[yorksrob]

Is Yorkshire direct to Lancaster a truly necessary route though? Most of it is rural, whereas the route a bit south to Preston provides good connections to the WCML and Blackpool, and also passes through many sizeable towns - Blackburn, Burnley etc.

Yes it is.

The copy pit lines full of day trippers to Blackpool.

 

[bramling]

Closing Berney Arms would not necessarily 'get rid' of the line through it. Most trains don't stop. If that line were closed, the other (also single track) route to Great Yarmouth via Acle might struggle to cope.

Yes Berney Arms is only there to provide a relief route to/from Great Yarmouth. Whether such a relief is necessary nowadays is open to debate, however the cost of maintaining a few miles of single track is fairly minimal in the grand scheme of things. Were the route to ever need massive expenditure then that might be another matter.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Yes it is.

The copy pit lines full of day trippers to Blackpool.

Then run longer trains on that line.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

He certainly closed the Waverley route when a minister. He later said he realised it was a mistake, but blamed bad advice from civil servants.

Waverley route closure wasn't a mistake, at least south of Gala/Tweedbank/Hawick. Enthusiasts like to romanticise it but there were many other closures that had far more of an impact on far more people.

 

[yorksrob]

Then run longer trains on that line.

Why, when you can go direct to Lancaster and either stay there or change ?

There is no real justification for closing any of them. It's just a railway enthusiast exercise in self-flagellation.

 

[davetheguard]

Waverley route closure wasn't a mistake, at least south of Gala/Tweedbank/Hawick. Enthusiasts like to romanticise it but there were many other closures that had far more of an impact on far more people.

I think whether you regard it as a mistake or not rather depends on the criteria used in making the decision: railway finances alone; or wider picture.

Pros: It's closure saved the railway & thus the taxpayer some money.

Cons: It led to an entire region of Britain being left without access to rail services, and without all the economic benefits that we now recognize they provide.

As I said earlier, even the transport minister who made the decision later came to recognize it as a mistake.

 

[nanstallon]

I think whether you regard it as a mistake or not rather depends on the criteria used in making the decision: railway finances alone; or wider picture.

Pros: It's closure saved the railway & thus the taxpayer some money.

Cons: It led to an entire region of Britain being left without access to rail services, and without all the economic benefits that we now recognize they provide.

As I said earlier, even the transport minister who made the decision later came to recognize it as a mistake.

Nobody looked at the situation in the round. No doubt, the railway saved some money by closing the line. The economic damage to the region was someone else's problem.

 

[yorksrob]

Nobody looked at the situation in the round. No doubt, the railway saved some money by closing the line. The economic damage to the region was someone else's problem.

It was a political decision not to look at the situation in the round, otherwise there would have been more grounds for contesting a closure than the incredibly flimsy "hardship" criteria.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Cons: It led to an entire region of Britain being left without access to rail services, and without all the economic benefits that we now recognize they provide.

The bit that was unquestionably a mistake did reopen eventually. South of there there are barely any people to enjoy those economic benefits the railway brings.

 

[yorksrob]

The bit that was unquestionably a mistake did reopen eventually. South of there there are barely any people to enjoy those economic benefits the railway brings.

The policy was clearly a mistake in that case as it has proven so difficult to replicate the correction of that mistake elsewhere.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

The policy was clearly a mistake in that case as it has proven so difficult to replicate the correction of that mistake elsewhere.

Again, my initial post on the subject was specifically referring to the bit that hasn't reopened. For the bit that has, I agree with the right honourable minister that it was indeed a mistake- the fact that it reopened largely proves that.

However if there had never been a railway between Galashiels and Carlisle, nobody in their right mind would suggest building one. As reopening proposals go, the southern half of the Waverley route makes Skipton to Colne look sensible by comparison.

 

[Halish Railway]

I would have closed Appleby to Carlisle via Langwathby and had trains take the NER route to Penrith and the WCML to Carlisle.

Penrith would generate traffic, Langwathby, Lazonby etc are just small villages. Heck, tourists from Yorkshire changing at Penrith may even have been able to keep the Keswick branch open - That was a post-Beeching closure. Also the NER route is fairly straight so higher speeds could be achieved, and trains could get up to their top speed on the WCML.

I don’t know where the Appleby bypass could have gone.

 

[AndrewE]

e MA
The copy pit lines full of day trippers to Blackpool.

Then run longer trains on that line.

except that holiday traffic (like commuting services) requires rolling stock and crews to be available (and only earn any return on the investment) to meet peaks of demand, rather than all day every day as is the case on most of our main lines.

I agree that the "economics" of a service should not be looked at in isolation, which is why we have a government, taxes and public spending, specifically to keep "uneconomic" services running. A publicly-owned and run railway can deliver this as long as the "management accountants" are banned from any consideration of any railway line's future...

 

[RPI]

It's interesting looking back that there were quite a lot of proposed Beeching closures that didn't happen.

St Erth to St Ives - it has a good bus service, was this reprieve necessary? Could have worked on integrated through tickets - although always challenging
The Shotts line - one of the slower routes between Edinburgh and Glasgow - is local traffic sufficient to justify the reprieve?
The Island Line - ran as buses for quite a long time last year, could it have been closed and integrated into the Isle of Wight bus system?

It is surprising that the St Ives branch was reprived at the time as it didn't become a roaring success until Lelant Saltings opened in 1978* and the park and ride introduced, which obviously saw a vast increase in passenger numbers due to the gridlock in St Ives. As @davetheguard pointed out, it is one of the busiest lines in the Southwest these days with a 4 car 150 in the summer months struggling to cope even with a half hourly service.

The Looe branch though I'm always surprised at as even today it isn't hugely busy even in the summer, a 2 car 150 every hour copes quite well the vast majority of the time. I'm awfully glad it did survive though.