Modernisation Plan -v- Beeching Report

[Harlesden]

As I understand it, the Beeching Report came about as a result of serious financial losses on British Railways.
Isn't it true that little used lines and station were only a very small part of the financial problems.
Surely the Modernisation Plan was implemented at a time when British Railways was in no position to afford it.
Hundreds of perfectly good steam locomitives were withdrawn in favour of expensive and unpredicable new non-steam locomotives.
The final five years of steam locomotive production could have given good service until the 1990's.
Instead, millions were spent on exploring new designs of locomotive for some of which orders were eventually placed.
Bearing in mind that the rail network still had a full fleet of steam locomotives in good working order, is it not true that the Modernisation Plan was hastily put together by politicians afraid of Britain being left behind in terms of the type of locomotive being operated.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Very complex - and one that needs detailed study. Basically - not much could happen till about 1953 as the nation was worn out and supplies of steel etc were very reduced for rebuilding the railway. The Modernisation plan was a huge boost to BR - but revenue and traffic was falling (and losses started to build up) - whilst some of it was implemented and a key component was massive electrification and upgrades - various governments lost patience with continuing losses and still falling traffic - and implemented the re-appraisals which resulted in Beeching. The latter did recommend some good things like Freightliner , block trains and the birth of Inter-City services on a national scale. The whole economy of the UK was in flux then - with traditional industries like coal and shipbuilding being remodelled - massive car ownership - and do not forget the changes to the urban fabric with inner-city rebuilding etc. One thing that really bothered the decision makers of the day was the escalating costs of the original West Coast modernisation - which was pared back , and very nearly got stopped. (as did the plans to wire the ECML in the early 1960's.Shall we say it was a loss of confidence....

 

[Bevan Price]

As Chief Planner writes, it is all very complex. In my opinion, BR /BTC suffered by having as its first bosses a retired civil sevant, followed by a retired general. And with typical civil service attitudes - "we have always done things this way" - in retrospect there was a lot of wasted expenditure. Vast sums were spent on marshalling yards at a time when the need for marshalling yards was starting to decline. More money was wasted on too many unproven designs of diesel loco., with an indecent haste to be rid of steam before a proper evaluation of diesel designs.

And then the financial situation was made worse by the long ASLEF strike of 1955. They probably thought they were indispensible to the movement of passengers & freight - but many customers chose to look for alternative means - often a car, although it may have taken many of them a couple of years to afford a car. A lot of freight moved onto the roads, never to return to rail.

(A lesson Mr Scargill & co. failed to heed in the 1980s - he may have thought that miners were indispensible - we would always need UK coal mines & miners - but history shows he was wrong.)

With losses increasing, the Tory pro-road lobby, with road builder / Transport Minister Marples were probably delighted to see railways closed. Beeching got all the flak, but essentially he was just doing what he had been told.

 

[David Barrett]

A lot of freight moved onto the roads, never to return to rail.

Many of the road hauliers were particularly canny on this one as they insisted on long term contracts rather than as and when arrangements for the duration of the dispute. The road men had industry by the short and curlies well and truly.
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(A lesson Mr Scargill & co. failed to heed in the 1980s - he may have thought that miners were indispensible - we would always need UK coal mines & miners - but history shows he was wrong.)

We still do, although it is evidently considered preferable to be a hostage to an unstable world energy supply rather than provide employment to our own people who have the nerve to stand up and fight for whatever principle rightly or otherwise. Maybe we should blame not Scargill et.al. for our current energy woes but the kneejerk reaction to same.

Back to the O.P. though, there was some evidence that the branch lines as such were not often all that bad when it came to losses, but the more heavily used routes, main lines, were where the money was being lost and nobody knew where it was going and why. There are certianly those who assert that there was a huge increase in central charges during the B.T.C. Era, whereas the former Railway Executive was able to exercise a close control on costs so there was probably no wonder that the Traffic Costing Service had no clue as to what was really going on.
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With losses increasing, the Tory pro-road lobby, with road builder / Transport Minister Marples were probably delighted to see railways closed. Beeching got all the flak, but essentially he was just doing what he had been told.

Although the closure of routes had been on going since the First War, I have to ask that whether in later years it was much more a case of did they slip or where they pushed?

Certianly with Marples vested interest was a large consideration, as it was when, shortly before his death, he fled the country as the net closed in on him amid evidence of financial misdemeanor.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Beeching is always remembered for branch line closures (many comments previously) - though some BR management of the day went out of their way to save lines through commercial skills and (neccessary) cost cutting. Gerry Fiennes with the East Suffolk lines and East Anglia Paytrains come to mind as a fine example. A local line that would have been of huge use (albeit not commercial in the strict sense of the word) was Luton - Welwyn GC , which when closed still had staffed stations , and loco hauled 3 coach services. As a basic railway it could have survived to the 1968 Transport Act which protected many lines through a "social contract" mechanism.

 

[David Barrett]

Beeching is always remembered for branch line closures (many comments previously) - though some BR management of the day went out of their way to save lines through commercial skills and (neccessary) cost cutting. Gerry Fiennes with the East Suffolk lines and East Anglia Paytrains come to mind as a fine example. A local line that would have been of huge use (albeit not commercial in the strict sense of the word) was Luton - Welwyn GC , which when closed still had staffed stations , and loco hauled 3 coach services. As a basic railway it could have survived to the 1968 Transport Act which protected many lines through a "social contract" mechanism.

Indeed, but I often wonder how much more could have been saved had Conductor Guard operation been introduced widely a decade or more earlier with the onset of D.M.U. operation, particularly in the more rural areas. Perhaps the Common Carrier Obligation placed upon British Railways and its Constituents prevented this with provision having to be made for small consignments etc. by passenger train almost universally leading to the need for a large corps of staff to handle and administer traffic which could not possibly even cover its movement costs let alone overheads etc. The four Pre Nationalisation Companies pleaded for this 25 years before Beeching as part of the "Square Deal Campaign" through which they advocated the withdrawal of the Common Carrier Obligation (legally the Railways had to carry any traffic offered with the exception of Livestock) and following on from this the ability to charge an economic price for any services offered (Railway Freight Rates being determined by a Tribuneral and published for all to see). In other words parity with the competition, but it all fell on deaf ears and was not rectified until after much damage had been done.

There were other aspects of operation where savings could have been made eg. the automation of Level Crossings but the Ministry of Transport dragged their heels on this matter too.

There were those who advocated the bus as being a replacement for many train services, mainly Bus Companies I suspect, but the peak year for Bus Mileage in the U.K. was 1955 after which inexorable decline set in so closing the branch lines didn't save any hides there either.

The premature scrapping of steam has also been mentioned but maybe what should have been asked, and followed through at the time was, given that the four Pre Nationalisation Companies were all persuing Diesel, Electric and Gas Turbine propulsion, why were new steam designs prepared in the face of what was proposed but a few years earlier and what was going on elswhere in The World? Robert Riddles was not stupid but did, I feel, exploit the indecision and dithering of both the Railway Executive and the B.T.C. over the Electric vs. Diesel vs. Steam issue and presented the type of steam fleet to the Railways that had always been wanted for many years but which was not necessarily what would have been required in the future. Unfortunately when the 1956 plan came about much the same could have been said about some of the Diesel Types hurriedly introduced to replace some Steam Locomotives barely five or six years old.

There we have it, indecision, ineptitude, skulduggery and a reluctance to change things for what ever reason by a hidebound and corrupt Parliament, what could possibly go wrong?

 

[Bevan Price]

The premature scrapping of steam has also been mentioned but maybe what should have been asked, and followed through at the time was, given that the four Pre Nationalisation Companies were all persuing Diesel, Electric and Gas Turbine propulsion, why were new steam designs prepared in the face of what was proposed but a few years earlier and what was going on elswhere in The World? Robert Riddles was not stupid but did, I feel, exploit the indecision and dithering of both the Railway Executive and the B.T.C. over the Electric vs. Diesel vs. Steam issue and presented the type of steam fleet to the Railways that had always been wanted for many years but which was not necessarily what would have been required in the future. Unfortunately when the 1956 plan came about much the same could have been said about some of the Diesel Types hurriedly introduced to replace some Steam Locomotives barely five or six years old.

There we have it, indecision, ineptitude, skulduggery and a reluctance to change things for what ever reason by a hidebound and corrupt Parliament, what could possibly go wrong?

At that time, a high "balance of payments" (imports v. exports) was considered highly undesirable. Paying for imported oil was considered much less desirable than using home produced coal.

BR motive power policy was reviewed after 1948, and it was decided to pursue diesels for shunting work (although existing GWR & LNER orders for shunting tanks were allowed to proceed.)
An early move was made to specify dmus for most branch line / local train work - the earliest Derby Lightweight units were in service by 1954.

New locomotives were needed quickly, to replace a lot of older (& war-weary) steam locos, but there was not enough money to pay for lots of electrification schemes, and I think that - in addition to the balance of payments problem, UK industry was considered to have insufficient experience at that time to produce enough diesel locos of proven designs. So - the BR steam standard locos were built, adopting some of the best features of existing designs, but insisting on standard designs for the entire BR, rather than allowing regions to pursue their own traditions. .

 

[David Barrett]

At that time, a high "balance of payments" (imports v. exports) was considered highly undesirable. Paying for imported oil was considered much less desirable than using home produced coal.

BR motive power policy was reviewed after 1948, and it was decided to pursue diesels for shunting work (although existing GWR & LNER orders for shunting tanks were allowed to proceed.)
An early move was made to specify dmus for most branch line / local train work - the earliest Derby Lightweight units were in service by 1954.

New locomotives were needed quickly, to replace a lot of older (& war-weary) steam locos, but there was not enough money to pay for lots of electrification schemes, and I think that - in addition to the balance of payments problem, UK industry was considered to have insufficient experience at that time to produce enough diesel locos of proven designs. So - the BR steam standard locos were built, adopting some of the best features of existing designs, but insisting on standard designs for the entire BR, rather than allowing regions to pursue their own traditions. .

Certianly, but the Road Transport Industry weren't unduly bothered about Balance of Payments, anyone there who advocated the reversion to steam and the use of Traction Engines would surely have been laughed out of the Board Room. I suspect that the Gentlemen responsible for the L.N.E.R, G.W.R, L.M.S, and S.R. were no different.

Of course new Locomotives were needed quickly and existing designs were there to enable rapid construction without saddling often relatively small classes with high drawing office costs to be absorbed amongst an uneconomic number of units. To add further to this some of the Standard Tanks found themselves displaced very early in their lives by the D.M.U.s, two new builds in a short space of time does not suggest a lack of money but it does cast a doubt that Railway Management, along with the Civil Service were perhaps less than aware of what was going on in the outside world. Add to this the malign influence of a self interested Political Body and the revolution taking place in Industry and Society and the conditions for economic disaster were in place.

Of course the modernisation programme designed to address many problems relied heavily on diesel traction, largely from those same inexperienced manufactures who were not consulted just a few years earlier and with only small export orders and no home market didn't have the cash flow to permit anything like the levels of development required to produce acceptable designs.

Again, did they slip or were they pushed?

 

[ChiefPlanner]

One of the crazy things of the "modernisation plan" was replacing (admittedly old) steam on the quieter lines in say Mid / Central Wales with brand new "standard" locomotives - but the "train service offer" was not changed and / or costs reduced. Ergo - the newish locomotives went for scrap after around a 15 year life. Building hundreds of GWR design shunt /local trip locomotives (and later class 17 diesels etc) was equally mad. Let along 1000's of 45 mph vacuum braked wagons for fast dissapearing merchandise traffic.

A much harder line with earlier "strategic planning (which we now have through the RUS processes and so on) could have been the saviour.However - hindsight is a wonderful gift. I think the pre-nationalisation companies had a better feel for this than the BTC and the early BRB.

 

[yorksrob]

To be fair to the Modernisation plan, it made some mistakes, but also some plus points. A lot of the kit in terms of multiple units and signalling ended up lasting forty years or more, so has to be looked at as a good investment.

The Kent electrification scheme for example, was an extremely well thought out programme, which as well as encompassing new trains, included up to date signalling, improving track layouts and new and improved stations. I don't doubt it probably was expensive, however doing it that way stood the Kent network in good stead right up until the Eurostar upgrades.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Agreed - the Kent Coast job was very well done - and as you say lasted very well (with some excellent service plans - !) - love to know the capital and rolling stock costs for a very successful upgrade. Much of it of course was tried and tested equipment - and the Southern certainly knew how to keep costs down on electrifiction works from the days of Sir Herbert Walker.

If only other regions had such good examples.....

 

[David Barrett]

From an outsider's point of view they didn't seem to do a bad job with Diesel Locomotives either: a Type 3 with train air brake and E.T.H. from the start needing very little modification over the years with, probably, the exception of the Push/Pull fitting for Weymouth after Bournemouth Electrification.

I think that the Eastern were ahead of the game too in this respect as, early on, they made it known that the B.T.C. vision of a 2000 H.P. Locomotive being the flagship of a 90 M.P.H. with 60 M.P.H averages railway was just not good enough.

Feinnes quoted the French Vitesse Commerciale on this one: 75 M.P.H. averages and saw in what the B.T.C. were not at all enthusiastic the 3300 H.P. to make this possible.

 

[Bevan Price]

From an outsider's point of view they didn't seem to do a bad job with Diesel Locomotives either: a Type 3 with train air brake and E.T.H. from the start needing very little modification over the years with, probably, the exception of the Push/Pull fitting for Weymouth after Bournemouth Electrification.

I think that the Eastern were ahead of the game too in this respect as, early on, they made it known that the B.T.C. vision of a 2000 H.P. Locomotive being the flagship of a 90 M.P.H. with 60 M.P.H averages railway was just not good enough.

Feinnes quoted the French Vitesse Commerciale on this one: 75 M.P.H. averages and saw in what the B.T.C. were not at all enthusiastic the 3300 H.P. to make this possible.

The early diesels were a mixed bunch, but there were probably far too many in the low power range, intended to take over work formerly done by 0-6-0 steam locos - the type of duty that was disappearing. Following the much earlier Midland Railway small engine policy, the end result was having to use pairs of low-power locos when a single loco with higher power would have been more efficient.

Classes 14, 15, 16, 17, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28 & 29 were all unnecessary - Class 20s could have done most of their work.

The Class 30 were unreliable, but became better when re-engined as Class 31. Hindsight is easy, but it might have been better if Class 37 had been available in 1955 rather than 1962/1963.

The Hydraulic experiment was worth trying - Class 42 Warships were based on the successful DB designs, and a diesel hydraulic weighed 20 to 30 tons less than a diesel electric of equivalent power. But we could have managed without Class 35 (Hymeks) - Warships could have done all their work. Whether Westerns (Class 52) were needed is questionable - but in any case their use on passenger services became doomed after the decision to use ETH rather than steam boliers to heat passenger stock.

After early problems, Class 40 became good locos, but were underpowered, especially for WCML services. Although more economic than steam, in terms of power output they were inferior to Pacifics, or even a Royal Scot in good condition. Peaks would have been a better choice, although I don't think we needed both Classes 45 AND 46; Class 47 would have been an even better choice, but did not become available until 1962.

 

[Taunton]

the BR steam standard locos were built, adopting some of the best features of existing designs, but insisting on standard designs for the entire BR, rather than allowing regions to pursue their own traditions.

The BR Standard steam locomotives were by and large some of the worst steam traction inflicted on the system. The 9F was about the only reasonable design, and that suffered from its capability being somewhat beyond what one fireman could shovel. The mid-sized designs, particularly the smaller tender locos, were a disgrace. Much of this lay with the CME Riddles, who having decided on a steam building programme wanted to have his own set of designs for history. The crews hated them for their noise, rough riding, and penetration of dirt onto the footplate way beyond previous experience.

If you want an example, the accident report into a 1955 high-speed derailment of a "Britannia" near Didcot, with loss of life, is instructive. The new locomotives were laid out to only be driven from the left, although there were significant sections (the whole of the GWR plus some LNER) where signals were arranged for drivers to stand on the right. The view forward was restricted by smoke deflectors, plus handrails around these which further impeded the view forward (after the accident the Britannias on the Western Region had the handrails removed, and inset handholds substituted). The noise and vibration so typical of the Standards compared to the previous designs had fatigued the crew. The hooter for the ATC (GW-style AWS) was inaudible above the noise at speed. The vacuum release from an ATC warning was so incompetently designed by a non-Swindon team that the ejector overpowered it and kept the brake warning off.

With it being apparent that worldwide steam development was at an end (in the USA dieselisation was well on the way to completion by 1950), the most effective thing to have done would have been to just have continued the short-term manufacture of existing designs of the four companies, which their workshop, maintenance and running teams were already fully competent with, until diesels could arrive some time later. Nothing the Standards provided beat those, and in reality this is what happened anyway.

 

[David Barrett]

The early diesels were a mixed bunch, but there were probably far too many in the low power range, intended to take over work formerly done by 0-6-0 steam locos - the type of duty that was disappearing. Following the much earlier Midland Railway small engine policy, the end result was having to use pairs of low-power locos when a single loco with higher power would have been more efficient.

Classes 14, 15, 16, 17, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28 & 29 were all unnecessary - Class 20s could have done most of their work.

The Class 30 were unreliable, but became better when re-engined as Class 31. Hindsight is easy, but it might have been better if Class 37 had been available in 1955 rather than 1962/1963.

The Hydraulic experiment was worth trying - Class 42 Warships were based on the successful DB designs, and a diesel hydraulic weighed 20 to 30 tons less than a diesel electric of equivalent power. But we could have managed without Class 35 (Hymeks) - Warships could have done all their work. Whether Westerns (Class 52) were needed is questionable - but in any case their use on passenger services became doomed after the decision to use ETH rather than steam boliers to heat passenger stock.

After early problems, Class 40 became good locos, but were underpowered, especially for WCML services. Although more economic than steam, in terms of power output they were inferior to Pacifics, or even a Royal Scot in good condition. Peaks would have been a better choice, although I don't think we needed both Classes 45 AND 46; Class 47 would have been an even better choice, but did not become available until 1962.

Indeed, quite a rag bag imposed upon the Regions by a desperate and naive B.T.C. Engineers were even excluded from some of the decision making process which probably contributed to the excesses later heaped upon the hapless Regions for both operating and mainteance.

You have mentioned some interesting class numbers here, particularly those of 30 and 47. Both had Engine issues from the start but perhaps more specifically problems associated with Fabricated Construction rather than Cast, compounded by uprating, to a structure which was not able to readily withstand the associated increased loadings. In the case of the 30 whilst there were issues at its type 2 rating those of type 3 suffered proportionally more Crankcase problems than their lower rated bretheren. The 47s likewise when compared to the 45 with the same Power Unit but more conservatively rated. To Re-Engine was the chosen solution for what became class 31 but an extensive Re-Phasing and Balancing was the remedy for the 47, itself only partial as internal clearances prevented the complete application of this course of action.

There was experience at the time of Fabricated Construction in Railway Locomotives through General Motors whose product was also built this way as there had been similar difficulties leading to modifications and the premature withdrawal of around 600 units. Now, in the U.S.A., 600 units was neither here nor there and given the strength of G.M. at the time and a potential home market for around 100 000 units, let alone Exports, this was just a blip, a stage in development, whereas here 600 units could have been, and indeed was a calamity, both financial and operational to manufacturers and buyers alike.

I have always had mixed views on the Hydraulic fleet: light overall weight and low unsprung mass being amongst their advantages but that, in itself, carried a price involving lower adhesive weight for both traction and braking, the latter being particularly important in an era of unfitted freight trains which themselves did no good to the transmissions through reverse torques during deceleration. Additionally the internal resistance within the Transmissions were greater than those of Diesel Electrics and the fuel consumption was slightly higher. E.T.H. provision would only have been an issue to those who wanted it to be so and the sadness about the Hydraulics was that some of the problems which were causing real concern as outlined here were, by the time the decision was made to phase them out, rapidly diminishing anyway. In the end they were victims of an overbuilding way in excess of British Railways' needs and went as the undertaking persued a policy of Standardisation. What might have been interesting in this respect is what would have happened if, as in 1967, there was a need to remove a large number of Locomotives from the system and there was an even balance bteween the two forms instead of the strength in numbers situation that came to be.

 

[Taunton]

The Modernisation Plan was unfortunately not a full modernisation of the railway, but was pretty much confined to the rolling stock, including electrification. The issues that arose, notably the fact that it didn't seem to be addressing the slide from break-even into losses despite all the expenditure, in no small part led to Marples as MoT minister bringing in Beeching to give an overview of it all.

Part of the issue was the MoT in the 1950s saw a significant role for British Railways as encouragement of the very considerable rolling stock UK manufacturing industry, which because of the substantial rail industry in-house workshops had been principally focused on exports. The UK up to the 1950s was actually a world leader in this. It was the time of "export or die" as a government approach, and part of this was seen as getting all these exporters into the new world of dieselisation and electrification. Therefore there was a positive approach to give them a baseload of new work, at British Railways' expense, hence an approach of "spreading the work around". It looks silly in retrospect but at the time was seen as appropriate. Unfortunately a number of these established companies couldn't really hack it. North British, once the largest locomotive builder in the world, was probably the main example of a company who just didn't make the transition from steam to diesel building, but there were others. It wasn't only a UK experience - Baldwin in the USA, once the largest steam builder there, had a few failed attempts at diesels, and then faded away.

Regarding the hydraulics, nice locos, unfortunately they couldn't easily do electric train heating when that became standard (how could anyone have imagined that steam heat had a long-term future?) and couldn't do rheostatic braking at all. As this had been well established by General Motors and others in the USA. Again, how did nobody see this.

Beyond dieselisation, the electrification plans suffered from exactly the same thing. Power systems were ordered from EE, AEI, GE and others, all to different concepts. 25Kv was seen as the way forward (for once, correctly), so the new at the time 1500v system out of Liverpool Street was all converted, before much of the infrastructure even got to its first overhaul. There were some significant failures of this new technology, just like with diesels, including a series of on-train explosions in the power equipment which led to a formal accident report, where even the inspector seems fully bought into the concept that technical developments in no small part are driven by the need to support a range of exporters.

Beeching was probably the best chairman the old BR had, and is unfairly maligned for the closures aspect (most of which were before or well after his time), a significant number of which were well-merited. But he had many more positives that somehow get overlooked. Building up Inter-City. Development of Freightliner. Merry-go-round coal trains. All needed big investment and he drove the ideas along. Gerry Fiennes and he were good buddies who thought along the same lines. You should read Fiennes' book, and also Stewart Joy's "The Train That Ran Away". Joy was Beeching's Chief Economist at the BRB, another outsider with a very practical bent. He describes all sorts of nonsenses that got unearthed, massaging of figures, pretending that passenger counts on board equalled revenue when it was found that 90% of the "passengers" were actually railwaymen travelling to work free on privilege tickets, etc.

 

[David Barrett]

Both good volumes there Taunton, the latter of which I have mentioned elsewhere on this forum. I would add two others to this: British Rail The First 25 Years by Michael R. Bonavia, particularly the chapter "Messing About With Diesels", and Blueprints For Bankruptcy by E. A. Gibbins which reads like a text full of worked examples. Both Senior Railwaymen and their works are well worth seeking out. I also have the impression that Stewart Joy's term of office was much longer than that of Beeching although he originally came from and returned to Australia afterwards. As he noted in the book, a crossing of the planet twice in persuit of a lost cause, or words to that effect.

 

[yorksrob]

Beeching was probably the best chairman the old BR had, and is unfairly maligned for the closures aspect (most of which were before or well after his time)

Seems like hyperbole, particularly when compared to the public relations successes of the Peter Parker era and the management developments of the Robert Reid era that made a far better job or organising the railway than Beeching managed.

The fact remains that the approach to closures exemplified by the Beeching era turned out to be highly damaging to the country, therefore it hardly seems unfair that this legacy is maligned.

 

[David Barrett]

Beeching probably had far reaching and deeper personal effects more than any other Chairman given that, as has already been pointed out, much of the closure and re-shaping programmes were actually carried out after his departure in 1965. I even recall that there was a regular section in the news pages of Railway World detailing the latest handfull of closures, what a shock when one month, probably around five years after R.B.s departure there was none. My first period of employment on the Railways was between 1973 and 1977, mostly under Richard Marsh but also during the first year or so of Peter Parker's Chairmanship. There was still a cloud hanging over the industry which reflected on many of the staff with whom I worked with an ever present "The end is nigh" feel to it all. It did vary from location to location though and was not necessarily directly related as to how an individual place was affected by the changes of the previous fifteen years or so.

On this basis it could be argued that the worst Chairman was Richard Marsh but following on from years of sometimes agonising and traumatic change what chance would almost anybody have during that period with a shell shocked, and exhausted staff where doubt and corrosive cynicism had reached epidemic levels?

 

[Bevan Price]

The BR Standard steam locomotives were by and large some of the worst steam traction inflicted on the system. The 9F was about the only reasonable design, and that suffered from its capability being somewhat beyond what one fireman could shovel. The mid-sized designs, particularly the smaller tender locos, were a disgrace. Much of this lay with the CME Riddles, who having decided on a steam building programme wanted to have his own set of designs for history. The crews hated them for their noise, rough riding, and penetration of dirt onto the footplate way beyond previous experience.

I would not agree that the BR Standards were all bad. Too many different classes - yes, imperfect - maybe but not bad. There was an "attitude" problem with some staff, especially perhaps with the Western Region, where a lot of people seemed to dislike anything not designed at Swindon & fitted with a copper-capped dome / chimney, and some were reluctant to adapt driving / firing techniques to get the best performance out of the BR Standards. (From memory, only Cardiff Canton drivers got good performances from the Britannias on the WR.)

The 73000 class was essentially a modified Stanier 5MT 4-6-0, and performed equally well. Although the GWR Halls were competent, they had limited route availabity on non-GW lines, and BR was never likely to build new locos that could be used in only one region. The SR had a need for new Class 5 locos, but had no modern designs - their N15 & S15 4-6-0s dated from the 1920s (or earlier)
The 76000, 78000 & 84000 classes were essentially modified versions of Ivatt LMS designs, competent for the work they were intended to do, but more or less obsolete whilst they were still being built .Likewise, the 80000 class was basically an updated LMS design. The SR had no modern designs for a mixed traffic passenger tank loco., so a BR standard design was probably the best choice, given the failure to proceed directly to dieselisation.

In my opinion, the 72000 (Clan), 75000, 77000 and 82000 were probably superfluous - their duties could have been performed equally well by other "Standards", or by redistribution of existing locos.

 

[edwin_m]

The 76000, 78000 & 84000 classes were essentially modified versions of Ivatt LMS designs, competent for the work they were intended to do, but more or less obsolete whilst they were still being built.

"Obsolete" in the sense of being an outdated design, or in the sense that the work for these small classes was drying up?

 

[Taunton]

some were reluctant to adapt driving / firing techniques

Well, if "reluctant to adapt" means you have to work on the opposite sides of the footplate to how the majority of your locos at the depot were laid out or the signals on the line were arranged, the fireman having to fire opposite hand to what they otherwise did, then yes. Would you like your next car to have the steering wheel on the opposite side?

From memory, only Cardiff Canton drivers got good performances from the Britannias on the WR

Well, Canton got stuck with them. The majority of the mainstream and fastest South Wales expresses were handled by either Old Oak or Landore, and they stuck to Castles; Canton had the lesser jobs

The 73000 class was essentially a modified Stanier 5MT 4-6-0, and performed equally well

. ROFLMAO! Ask old-time Patricroft men who got stuck with a big batch of them, equally with proper Black 5s.

76000, 78000 & 84000 classes were essentially modified versions of Ivatt LMS designs

Strangely, the 78000 and 84000 allocated to the same depots as 464xx and 412xx supposed equivalents were notably poorer.

In my opinion, the 72000 (Clan), 75000, 77000 and 82000 were probably superfluous - their duties could have been performed equally well by other "Standards", or by redistribution of existing locos.

We had 82xxx at Taunton, allocated mainly to the Minehead jobs. Crews found them less capable than the much smaller GWR 55xx, let alone the larger 41xx which they were supposed to be equivalent to. When a series of more powerful 61xx got sent down from London they were great - nobody wanted to touch the 82xxx then, apart from the Foreman who got reprimands from Swindon for them doing such low mileage. A round trip down the branch and back left all concerned fatigued and face-blackened from the eddy draughts that carried coal dust all round. Churchward had cracked that one 60 years beforehand.

 

[yorksrob]

Well, at the end of the day, the Marshalling yards are built on and the loco's, whether they be the right ones or not have long gone to the torch or the hobbyists.

Mistakes some of these may have been, but compared to the strategic blunder of assuming that the Country would never have needed routes such as the Great Central, or assuming that towns like Uckfield or Hailsham didn't need a railway line, or that it was better to cook the books to fabricate a case for closure for routes such as York - Beverley (by assuming that end to end traffic would go via a longer route for example) seems to be a far greater strategic blunder by orders of magnitude.

The disasterous consequences of the closure programme are being felt across the country to this day. Even the second Beeching plan shows that he had little to offer the Regional Railway even had he not "resigned".

 

[Bevan Price]

"Obsolete" in the sense of being an outdated design, or in the sense that the work for these small classes was drying up?

They were starting to build dmus whilst still building steam locos for branch line passenger services. And soon after all the steam locos had been built, along came Marples + Beeching to close many of the branch lines.

That even left a lot of newish dmus with no suitable work, and some were redeployed on longish distance services for which they were not really suited. (e.g. Crewe & Manchester to North Wales, which merited something of at least Class 120 / 123 /124 standard, but mostly got lumbered with units having 3+2 seating.)

 

[Taunton]

That even left a lot of newish dmus with no suitable work, and some were redeployed on longish distance services for which they were not really suited. (e.g. Crewe & Manchester to North Wales, which merited something of at least Class 120 / 123 /124 standard, but mostly got lumbered with units having 3+2 seating.)

I am still surprised that in the 1960s-70s some of these dmus were not refitted with proper seats like the cross-country units. They had the same bodyshells and mechanical parts so it was only a case of redoing the interiors. They could even have fitted seats from all the saloon hauled stock being withdrawn. The only consolation was that they were normally run on these services in significant rakes of 6 or 8 cars, and were rarely more than half full, if that. I'd much rather be 75 people spread around one of the BRC&W 3-car sets running Crewe to Derby in those days than 75 people squashed into a single car class 153 doing the run nowadays.

 

[Harpers Tate]

That last bit, I certainly agree with. (Too) short trains - whether its 1x153 where three would be comfortable; or pretty much all XC services, to name two examples - is one of the biggest deficiencies with the present Railway IMO.

(And before the defensive shouting starts - no, I don't blame the TOCs).