Worst examples of BR era "vandalism"?

[43096]

I think that you need to brush up. Snow Hill was re-opened (as a terminus from Moor Street) in 1987, specifically funded by the West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive (with a European Regional Development Fund contribution). Nothing to do with NSE. It was part of 'Provincial' then, for what it's worth, but it wasn't a BR decision.

I think the reference is to Snow Hill tunnel in London, between City Thameslink and Farringdon. That was everything to do with NSE.

So maybe you also need to brush up?

 

[Cricketer8for9]

i didn’t read it as a reference to London, given that the topic being discussed was Birmingham. If if it was this was a bit of a non-sequitur in a thread that was focussed on Birmingham at the time.

 

[yorksrob]

It was Birmingham. I was out by a year or two, not that it really alters the discussion.


History seems to congeal into one long mistake from about 1962 onwards.

 

[Magdalia]

At the end it was entirely down the PTE. The 1968 Transport Act squarely put responsibility for local suburban rail services in their areas in their hands. BR would get no subsidy other than via the PTE.

The 1968 Act did set up the Passenger Transport Executives (PTEs), but at first they were governed by Passenger Transport Authorities (PTAs). The PTEs only got significant political impetus when they came under the newly created Metropolitan Counties in the 1974 reorganisation.

In 1974 the first priority for the West Midlands PTE was the National Exhibition Centre, which opened in 1976. Next came the cross city line from Four Oaks to Longbridge which started in 1978.

Birmingham Snow Hill was way down the pecking order.

 

[Falcon1200]

I think the point is that the station should never have been closed in the first place.

Given what we know, with increasing passenger numbers and congestion at New Street, perhaps. But at the time, BR had just spent millions electrifying the ex-LNWR lines in the West Midlands, and rebuilding New Street, and practically every service using Snow Hill could either be diverted to New Street or accommodated at Moor Street. It is surely better, both from the railway's and the passengers' point of view, to concentrate services at one station; For example, diverting the ex-GWR Paddington route trains to New Street allowed far better connections to other services, and the possibility of extension beyond Birmingham, eg towards Derby, Sheffield, Leeds etc, than keeping them at Snow Hill would have done.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

Given what we know, with increasing passenger numbers and congestion at New Street, perhaps. But at the time, BR had just spent millions electrifying the ex-LNWR lines in the West Midlands, and rebuilding New Street, and practically every service using Snow Hill could either be diverted to New Street or accommodated at Moor Street. It is surely better, both from the railway's and the passengers' point of view, to concentrate services at one station; For example, diverting the ex-GWR Paddington route trains to New Street allowed far better connections to other services, and the possibility of extension beyond Birmingham, eg towards Derby, Sheffield, Leeds etc, than keeping them at Snow Hill would have done.

And, hard to believe now, but there were no Cross City services to speak of south of New Street, with Redditch just having a token peak hour service and the likes of Northfield and King's Norton just having very few random calls on Worcester services.

 

[Irascible]

History seems to congeal into one long mistake from about 1962 onwards.

That's being rather kind, I feel it started rather earlier...

--

Snow Hill was only closed for 15 years & I suspect a fair bit of that was finding money to reopen it. That seems a fairly large mistake, and I usually give the benefit of the doubt...

 

[yorksrob]

That's being rather kind, I feel it started rather earlier...

Well, I could have started earlier but I couldn't include the Kent electrification scheme !

 

[Dr Hoo]

Well, I could have started earlier but I couldn't include the Kent electrification scheme !

Oh, you mean that wretched modernisation project that heartlessly swept away a lovely country railway station at Swanley Junction? (Pic from Disused Stations.)

I'll get my coat...

View attachment 154323

 

[yorksrob]

Oh, you mean that wretched modernisation project that heartlessly swept away a lovely country railway station at Swanley Junction? (Pic from Disused Stations.)

I'll get my coat...

View attachment 154323

Come now, that was the Southern about thirty years earlier !

Actually, the old station buildings swept away at Ashford looked rather handsome - but only two through platforms would never have done. And at least BR kept the 1908 platform canopies.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Come now, that was the Southern about thirty years earlier !

Actually, the old station buildings swept away at Ashford looked rather handsome - but only two through platforms would never have done. And at least BR kept the 1908 platform canopies.

Actually the main buildings at the old Swanley Junction (if not the platforms) went as part of a tidy-up around 1960, I thought.

Anyway, thanks for establishing that the British Transport Commission/Railway Executive/British Railways actually inherited 'vandalism' from the Southern Railway. The Southern also rationalised Margate and Ramsgate from two stations to one in each case, like Snow Hill and New Street in Birmingham.

And if Swanley doesn't count, I'll raise you Newington (Kent). That definitely went in the Kent Coast electrification. (Classic Lens of Sutton shot of the station platforms that appears in various places.)

 

[yorksrob]

Actually the main buildings at the old Swanley Junction (if not the platforms) went as part of a tidy-up around 1960, I thought.

Anyway, thanks for establishing that the British Transport Commission/Railway Executive/British Railways actually inherited 'vandalism' from the Southern Railway. The Southern also rationalised Margate and Ramsgate from two stations to one in each case, like Snow Hill and New Street in Birmingham.

And if Swanley doesn't count, I'll raise you Newington (Kent). That definitely went in the Kent Coast electrification. (Classic Lens of Sutton shot of the station platforms that appears in various places.)

View attachment 154338

The old Margate station was a loss (although the current one is a masterpiece, along with Ramsgate and Hastings (Hastings, no longer extant, sadly).

The network on Thanet before the Southern was a ramshackle affair. The rationalisation there didn't involve the deliberate run down of one or other of the networks (unlike the Western system through Birmingham).

 

[Greetlander]

For me it had to be the closure of Blackpool Central station and retention of Blackpool North. A terrible decision and loss of a fine station. A second would be the closure if the new Woodhead tunnel. Retaining the route as a diesel haulage freight railway utilise the new tunnel would today have helped cross pennine strategies.

I believe the tunnel wasn't constructed for predominantly diesel haulage - Portland cement or something?? Would have required serious work to render it usable and/or conversion of the line and those that fed into it to 25Kv. I think that argument has been done to death (even though I wish it was still open)

 

[Lemmy282]

Woodhead tunnel was lined with Portland cement which reacts badly with diesel exhaust. Back in the day very few trains were diesel hauled through it, only a boat train each way I think