What were the 5 most controversial closures of the 60s?

[Grecian 1998]

Again using the not always reliable source of Wikipedia, the passenger service had already been decimated on the Great Central Main Line before the first Beeching report as at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Central_Main_Line#Rundown_and_closure. There was apparently an intention to concentrate freight traffic on the route in the early 60s but this appears to have fallen away rapidly. So by the time of the Beeching report, there wasn't much worth saving. AIUI there was very little resistance to cutbacks or closures pre-Beeching as there was no national plan.

The route also closed in piecemeal fashion, with Aylesbury-Rugby and Nottingham - Sheffield closing in 1966, followed by Rugby - Nottingham in 1969. Closing a whole line in one go generally seems to create a stronger response than closing it bit by bit. Another factor is that the Rugby - Nottingham section wouldn't have had much 'romance' about it by 1969 compared to the Waverly route or the Somerset and Dorset. A sparse service of DMUs chugging between virtually abandoned stations would be a gloomy reminder of what once was, and probably wouldn't seem like something worth saving at all costs to most enthusiasts. If you look at any images of the route in its final years, it looks pretty rundown and pathetic.

 

[Swanley 59]

Did the closures of the Leeds - Northallerton line between Harrogate - Ripon - Northallerton in 1967 or the East Lincolnshire line (Grimsby - Boston via Louth) in 1970 not generate a lot of controversy at the time?

I'm just about old enough to remember travelling on some very busy summer Saturday services on both.

 

[Irascible]

I think claiming Beeching "manipulated" data is disingenuous. It's easy to forget that using large data sets, even 50 years ago, was a fairly new science and its only been with the advent of computers that it has been improved and refined.

I'm not sure that was a direct claim about Beeching - and certainly the last time this came up in a different rhread we had a concrete example of data being deliberately provided up the chain to show the worst possible case vs a plan to make a service viable. I remember reading an anecdotel from someone who used to work in the goods dept at Barnstaple saying something along the lines of that while the survey folks came round & decided the service was borderline unrenumerative, the actual problem was they coudn't get enough stock up there ( the number 5% short wants to come to mind for some reason ) to handle all the possible business & so they were having to turn fairly large customers away. Unfortunately I can't remember where I read it to go & refresh my memory.

"Important social needs" are quantifiable, are they not? mostly why we have any branch lines at all now. It might be interesting to apply the late 60s formula to some of the apparently more marginal early 60s closures to see if they'd still be here, but that would be another thread. Come to think of it are the case studies available per route anywhere?

The GCR closure was controversial for being a modern main line rather than being of major utility in itself, wasn't it?

 

[Journeyman]

The GCR closure was controversial for being a modern main line rather than being of major utility in itself, wasn't it?

Yeah. The GCR was chronically under-used throughout its entire existence.

 

[steamybrian]

Did the closures of the Leeds - Northallerton line between Harrogate - Ripon - Northallerton in 1967 or the East Lincolnshire line (Grimsby - Boston via Louth) in 1970 not generate a lot of controversy at the time?

I'm just about old enough to remember travelling on some very busy summer Saturday services on both.

The initial proposals were to close the whole of the Grimsby to Boston line but public and political support saved the section between Skegness and Boston.

Many lines serving coastal routes which were subsequently closed were busy on Summer Saturdays but Beeching highlighted that being profitable for peak summer of the 3 months of (for example) June/July/August is balanced against the losses incurred in the other 9 months of the year.

I remember in August 1969 travelling between Lowestoft and Yarmouth South Town on a summer Saturday and having to stand because the 2 car DMU train was crowded. The line then was being considered for closure and I said to conductor why close it when the line was so busy. He said then that few passengers use it during the winter.

 

[yorksrob]

I remember in August 1969 travelling between Lowestoft and Yarmouth South Town on a summer Saturday and having to stand because the 2 car DMU train was crowded. The line then was being considered for closure and I said to conductor why close it when the line was so busy. He said then that few passengers use it during the winter.

That's always surprised me about that route. The landscape it goes through is almost all urban/suburban with well sited stations in Lowestoft and Yarmouth, so I would have thought there would be a good market for local traffic all year round.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I dont think it wouldve been easy to divert them into the High Level without spending much money, and they wanted the service gone, so that wasn't going to happen. It was easy to divert the Leamington Spa services into New Street, and the Stourbridge trains could be diverted when they relaid a short section of track between Smethwick Junction and Galton Junction which had been disused since the mid 1950s.

There was at one time a link between the OWW and LNW routes where the lines crossed at Tipton.
I'm fairly sure that could have been used to route trains from Stourbridge Jn/Dudley into Wolverhampton HL and been a strategic asset.
But the whole line was closed, leaving Dudley FLT and Round Oak depots on a dead end from the south.

 

[Swanley 59]

The initial proposals were to close the whole of the Grimsby to Boston line but public and political support saved the section between Skegness and Boston.

Many lines serving coastal routes which were subsequently closed were busy on Summer Saturdays but Beeching highlighted that being profitable for peak summer of the 3 months of (for example) June/July/August is balanced against the losses incurred in the other 9 months of the year.

I remember in August 1969 travelling between Lowestoft and Yarmouth South Town on a summer Saturday and having to stand because the 2 car DMU train was crowded. The line then was being considered for closure and I said to conductor why close it when the line was so busy. He said then that few passengers use it during the winter.

I take your point about the feast or famine nature of traffic on coastal routes.

I believe that daily direct Cleethorpes/Grimsby - Kings Cross services ran over the ELL until closure. I guess the passenger numbers were never enough to save the line as a through route, and the alternative route (via Doncaster?) would have catered for the market.

 

[coppercapped]

The premise of the OP is flawed - it is not possible to quantify degrees of controversy, as controversy is subjective. In the early 1960s the only sources of news were local and national newspapers, the BBC and ITV and specialist journals. Any opposition to closure proposals were local, and because each individual branch line only carried penny numbers of people the number of people affected was small. The only campaign I can remember from those times[1] which hit the national press was that for retaining the Waverley route - and that was right at the end of the main closure period.

One can try to argue that branch and secondary line passenger numbers would have been larger if timetables had been re-written, but the 1950s and 60s were a period of increasing prosperity and car ownership increased dramatically. In 1950 there were some 2 million cars registered, this grew to nearly 5 million by 1960 and to 10 million by 1970 so any permanent increase in rail traffic would have been unlikely.

Quite simply the market had voted with its wallet — and rural railways were no longer relevant. In a few cases no objections to closure proposals were received at all. Historically — right from the state of motoring at the turn of the 20th century — there were more cars per head of population in rural areas than in towns or cities. The reasons are obvious and the situation has not changed today.

There was much more press and broadcast interest in the completion of the electrification to Manchester and Birmingham a few years later. Even the journalist Sir William Neil Connor, ‘Cassandra’ in the Daily Mirror, praised the new trains. Unbelievable!

[1] I am probably one of the few posters here who can remember the Beeching Plan being published - I was at college in London at the time; I scratched some of my student grant together and bought a copy. There was much coverage in the press and the BBC's ‘That Was The Week That Was’ broadcast a wonderful lament about the lost stations with their evocative names. But other events swamped the Beeching Plan; the Beatles had released their debut LP (Please Please Me) a couple of days before; in the summer John Profumo resigned and Kim Philby was named as the ‘Third Man’. And, of course, Kennedy was assassinated in November — and, yes, I know exactly what I was doing on that day. The Beeching Plan only became newsworthy in retrospect.

 

[Merle Haggard]

Most of Northampton - Harborough's stations closed in the 50s. The passenger service was withdrawn on 4th Jan 1960, so the decision on closure was clearly in the 1950s. As a freight / diversion route it stayed open until 1981, so its final closure was really in the 80s.

I have been told that the reason for the passenger closure was an operational one. It was in the days when more revenue was earned from freight than passenger and so more importance was attached to through freight traffic than the passenger service.It was a busy through route for freight, particularly coal from the Notts. coalfield to London coal depots served via Willesden Brent. The operational complication was that, because of crossing the Northamptonshire Uplands there was a steep climb from Market Harborough to Kelmarsh and most trains were banked. The passenger service created difficulties with pathing the bankers back to Market Harborough.

There was certainly a demand for a Northampton - Market Harborough - Leicester - Nottingham travel but this was fulfilled by the frequent United Counties express services (X1 and X5, later MX1/5).

The line closed to passengers twice; the Glasgow via the Midland/ GSWR sleeper service was routed that way from about 1968 to about 1970. When it was withdrawn the need to go through the closure process was not realised until someone alerted the TUCC.

 

[steamybrian]

That's always surprised me about that route. The landscape it goes through is almost all urban/suburban with well sited stations in Lowestoft and Yarmouth, so I would have thought there would be a good market for local traffic all year round.

The area has been heavily re-developed since closure in 1970. I was staying in Hopton-on-sea at a holiday camp in 1969 with the camp and the adjacent station surrounded by fields. South of the station the railway was on a high embankment. Station Road then was a quiet "country lane".
A recent look on "google maps- street view" shows no trace of the railway and the whole area now covered by housing development.
Both Yarmouth and Lowestoft have rapidly expanded in 50 years..!

 

[RT4038]

The premise of the OP is flawed - it is not possible to quantify degrees of controversy, as controversy is subjective. In the early 1960s the only sources of news were local and national newspapers, the BBC and ITV and specialist journals. Any opposition to closure proposals were local, and because each individual branch line only carried penny numbers of people the number of people affected was small. The only campaign I can remember from those times[1] which hit the national press was that for retaining the Waverley route - and that was right at the end of the main closure period.

One can try to argue that branch and secondary line passenger numbers would have been larger if timetables had been re-written, but the 1950s and 60s were a period of increasing prosperity and car ownership increased dramatically. In 1950 there were some 2 million cars registered, this grew to nearly 5 million by 1960 and to 10 million by 1970 so any permanent increase in rail traffic would have been unlikely.

Quite simply the market had voted with its wallet — and rural railways were no longer relevant. In a few cases no objections to closure proposals were received at all. Historically — right from the state of motoring at the turn of the 20th century — there were more cars per head of population in rural areas than in towns or cities. The reasons are obvious and the situation has not changed today.

Probably the most controversial closure, in terms of hassle and publicity at the time, was (pre-Beeching) the East Grinstead - Horsted Keynes-Lewes line, well known for the emptiness of its trains.

I have been told that the reason for the passenger closure was an operational one. It was in the days when more revenue was earned from freight than passenger and so more importance was attached to through freight traffic than the passenger service.

Nothing to do with the emptiness of the trains then? As none of the intermediate stations were remotely near the settlement they purported to serve, and the area splendidly served by omnibuses, I doubt the trains carried many at all.

 

[Cheshire Scot]

Most of Northampton - Harborough's stations closed in the 50s. The passenger service was withdrawn on 4th Jan 1960, so the decision on closure was clearly in the 1950s. As a freight / diversion route it stayed open until 1981, so its final closure was really in the 80s

Not directly relevant to the subject but for a spell in the early seventies it was the booked route for the former Glasgow - St Pancras overnight which was re-routed to Euston prior to being truncated at Nottingham (at which point the northbound reverted to starting St Pancras with sleepers attached Nottingham). I believe it had a public call at Northampton in that era.

 

[RT4038]

That's always surprised me about that route. The landscape it goes through is almost all urban/suburban with well sited stations in Lowestoft and Yarmouth, so I would have thought there would be a good market for local traffic all year round.

The local bus service between Yarmouth and Lowestoft, running four times more frequently than the trains, with a greater number of more convenient stops, would have rendered the train uncompetitive.

 

[yorksrob]

The area has been heavily re-developed since closure in 1970. I was staying in Hopton-on-sea at a holiday camp in 1969 with the camp and the adjacent station surrounded by fields. South of the station the railway was on a high embankment. Station Road then was a quiet "country lane".
A recent look on "google maps- street view" shows no trace of the railway and the whole area now covered by housing development.
Both Yarmouth and Lowestoft have rapidly expanded in 50 years..!

The local bus service between Yarmouth and Lowestoft, running four times more frequently than the trains, with a greater number of more convenient stops, would have rendered the train uncompetitive.

I think if it had been integrated with the Beccles line, it would have become more useful for intermediate distance journeys.

 

[RT4038]

I take your point about the feast or famine nature of traffic on coastal routes.

I believe that daily direct Cleethorpes/Grimsby - Kings Cross services ran over the ELL until closure. I guess the passenger numbers were never enough to save the line as a through route, and the alternative route (via Doncaster?) would have catered for the market.

The line had a very large number of manually operated level crossings, which the staffing costs were rising faster than inflation, and the investment money simply not available to mechanise them. The line was very rural and the traffic available simply could not pay for modernisation.

 

[A0wen]

Nothing to do with the emptiness of the trains then? As none of the intermediate stations were remotely near the settlement they purported to serve, and the area splendidly served by omnibuses, I doubt the trains carried many at all.

Nail. Hit. Head.

Brixworth - the largest place en route - had its station almost 1.5mi away. And it's up a fairly steep hill, which is why even now Google Earth reckons its nearly a 30 minute walk from the station site to the centre of Brixworth.

Even now the X7 operated by Stagecoach, UCOC's successor, runs through the village and not a mile away.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

Abandoning canals wholesale was itself abandoned when it was realised that it would cost more to build the infrastructure to cope with all the drainage that they accepted than it would to keep them as they were, even if not open to navigation. They would have had to extend all the field drains to connect up with the [new] drain pipe along the middle of the canal and then maintain all that. Much easier and cheaper to keep it as an open channel/drain/ditch

That was certainly an argument that was made, particularly when closure of the Manchester Ship Canal was mooted in the 1980s. But outside of the MSC, which had effectively remodelled much of the drainage of the North-West, I don't think you'll find any waterway historians who would say it was the clincher.

Certainly the government of the time never accepted the argument: "'Mr Austin repeats the popular fallacy that it costs more to close a canal than to maintain it... This belief is just not true', [John] Hay [Parliamentary Secretary] wrote." (Race Against Time, David Bolton, p200.)

 

[75A]

Nail. Hit. Head.

Brixworth - the largest place en route - had its station almost 1.5mi away. And it's up a fairly steep hill, which is why even now Google Earth reckons its nearly a 30 minute walk from the station site to the centre of Brixworth.

Even now the X7 operated by Stagecoach, UCOC's successor, runs through the village and not a mile away.

Having lived in Brixworth for a while, I think 30 minutes is very optimistic.

 

[Dr_Paul]

The area has been heavily re-developed since closure in 1970. I was staying in Hopton-on-sea at a holiday camp in 1969 with the camp and the adjacent station surrounded by fields. South of the station the railway was on a high embankment. Station Road then was a quiet "country lane". A recent look on "google maps- street view" shows no trace of the railway and the whole area now covered by housing development. Both Yarmouth and Lowestoft have rapidly expanded in 50 years!

I also suspect that the fact that the Lowestoft to Yarmouth line was by the mid-1960s an 'orphan' line, as it were, disconnected from the Norwich to Yarmouth line, ending up in a corner of the sorry remnants of South Town station, and with no through running from Beccles, didn't help. As it is, considering how much the area between the two towns has been developed, had the line lasted a little longer, I wonder if it may have revived. (I'm astonished at the expansion of Lowestoft: large tracts of what I knew as fields north of Oulton Broad are now residential streets, as are other outlying areas. Seeing that Lowestoft has lost most of its industries since the 1960s, how explain this huge expansion?)

 

[Merle Haggard]

Probably the most controversial closure, in terms of hassle and publicity at the time, was (pre-Beeching) the East Grinstead - Horsted Keynes-Lewes line, well known for the emptiness of its trains.


Nothing to do with the emptiness of the trains then? As none of the intermediate stations were remotely near the settlement they purported to serve, and the area splendidly served by omnibuses, I doubt the trains carried many at all.

I would have said that it was more a cross country link between the LNWR route and the Midland than a village service. I think (not sure) that some trains ran through from Northampton to Leicester and possibly Nottingham. Previously, there had been a passenger service via the LNWR and GNR Joint line to Nottingham with a connection to Leicester and when these were withdrawn (about 1953-4), I think that a replacement via the ex Midland route was provided. Travelling regularly in the 1960s on the UCOC express services I mentioned, there was certainly demand - usually more than one coach on each departure. Agreed, all the intermediate stations were poorly situated - but so were Finedon, Burton Latimer, Glendon and Desborough, but that line stayed open after they were closed!

 

[Swanley 59]

The line had a very large number of manually operated level crossings, which the staffing costs were rising faster than inflation, and the investment money simply not available to mechanise them. The line was very rural and the traffic available simply could not pay for modernisation.

Thanks for the insight into the true nature of the line. I only knew the area from holidays in Mablethorpe and Skegness as a kid. My abiding memory is being force to stand on DMUs crammed to the gunwales with summer visitors.

 

[Mikey C]

[1] I am probably one of the few posters here who can remember the Beeching Plan being published - I was at college in London at the time; I scratched some of my student grant together and bought a copy. There was much coverage in the press and the BBC's ‘That Was The Week That Was’ broadcast a wonderful lament about the lost stations with their evocative names. But other events swamped the Beeching Plan; the Beatles had released their debut LP (Please Please Me) a couple of days before; in the summer John Profumo resigned and Kim Philby was named as the ‘Third Man’. And, of course, Kennedy was assassinated in November — and, yes, I know exactly what I was doing on that day. The Beeching Plan only became newsworthy in retrospect.

A lot of reports are commissioned by governments and either ignored or watered down, so it's not surprising that the report itself didn't raise that much interest at the time

After all Labour who won the election a year later could have campaigned on a "no to Beeching" mandate

 

[A0wen]

A lot of reports are commissioned by governments and either ignored or watered down, so it's not surprising that the report itself didn't raise that much interest at the time

After all Labour who won the election a year later could have campaigned on a "no to Beeching" mandate

They *did* campaign on stopping Beeching in 1964, yet when in office continued the closures.

 

[yorksrob]

A lot of reports are commissioned by governments and either ignored or watered down, so it's not surprising that the report itself didn't raise that much interest at the time

After all Labour who won the election a year later could have campaigned on a "no to Beeching" mandate

Indeed, it's understandable really. Most people aren't going to notice a report until their own train service isn't there anymore.

I bet there were also a lot of people who thought all those other lines were carting around fresh air and it was about time they were closed.

 

[Mikey C]

They *did* campaign on stopping Beeching in 1964, yet when in office continued the closures.

So maybe we should call the closures "Labour Party closures" or "Wilson closures" rather than Beeching closures

 

[A0wen]

So maybe we should call the closures "Labour Party closures" or "Wilson closures" rather than Beeching closures

Good luck with that round here, much as I might agree with you.

It will always be Beeching and Marples fault.

 

[yorksrob]

Good luck with that round here, much as I might agree with you.

It will always be Beeching and Marples fault.

I'd put Fraser in the same category as Marples in terms of policy. He was given ample opportunity to live up to Labour's manifesto commitment and didn't.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

Not so much "lines" but I think BR could have retained some chords/links for diversions during engineering works. One that springs to mind close to my heart is the former chord linking the Canterbury East and West lines just northeast of what was Harbledown Junction (that served the Elham Valley Line). It hasn't been built over so theoretically could be possible, cost permitting

Sure there are loads of other examples up and down the country.

 

[paul1609]

2 of those you cite were being considered for closure by the Southern Railway in the 1930s - Hythe and the K&ESR - it was only the fact WW2 intervened that they got a stay of execution.

Sorry that's not correct about the K &ESR it was never part of the Southern Railway. It was one of the small independent railways that was not part of the grouping. It only ceased to be independent upon nationalisation in 1948. The Headcorn to Tenterden section was closed and lifted in 1955 with the passenger service removed from the rest of the line. Tenterden to Robertsbridge closed to freight in 1961 so the whole closure predated Beeching.