Beeching's success story

[Lankyline]

As an alternative to the usual Beeching/Marples/Castle bashing that takes place whenever his name comes up, I thought it might be appropriate to highlight one of his successes, namely freightliner,

I believe that his forward thinking laid the foundations for todays rail freight industry, through long haul freight. Its easy to forget not all of his recommendations were bad for the railways.

 

[47802]

I actually think with a few exceptions which are being corrected today such as the Waverley route and a cross country route filling a void between London and the Midlands, that the overall cuts that happened to the network were on balance about right. Yes there were proposals to go much further which would have been excessive, and some lines threatened with closure which you wouldn't imagine closing today.

But Marples/Beeching weren't entirely wrong the network did need a substancial pruning, given the attitudes and travel patterns that applied at the time.

 

[Dr Hoo]

There were actually several major things that sprang from the Beeching era that we take for granted today. The British Rail corporate identity, for example. It was very much ahead of its time.

I find it ironic that many campaigners who want to "bring back British Rail" would probably want to also be numbered amongst the Beeching sceptics.

Strangely I never seem to come across people wanting to "bring back the British Transport Commission" or the Railway Executive.

 

[scott118]

let's not forget the countless miles of cycleways, he also created too..

 

[Lankyline]

We also shouldn't forget that the birth of intercity started with Beeching as well, its easy to just look at the headlines of cut, cut, cut but the basis of his overall vision for the railways, whilst drastic in its execution was fundamentally based on a sound principle, sorry 47802, think I just reiterated your post !

 

[Dr Hoo]

Yes, the Mark II coaches and (very soon afterwards) the long-overdue switch to air braking (that 'traditional' BR managers and engineers had somehow largely ignored for years, apart from for EMUs) finally got going under Beeching too.

 

[Calthrop]

Reflecting on the general Beeching theme -- said gentleman is no hero to me. However necessary and inevitable many of the closures which occurred under his programme, may have been; I confess to soppy sentimentalism, and to BR’s massive amount of service withdrawals circa 1959 – 1970 plus the concurrent end of regular-service steam, having destroyed for me most interest and joy about the British railway scene. Despite all this: as a very young teenage railway enthusiast five-and-a-bit decades ago -- loathing the very name of Beeching with the white-hot intensity, etc. – I would totally not have believed that come 2016, I’d be experiencing a bit of pity for the old monster, and a wish to defend him against accusations of stuff of which he was not guilty.

This is only because of the way in which Britons in general, “lay-persons” as regards railway matters, seem to have latched on to using “Beeching” as a figure of speech (in a generally regretful tone) in reference to more or less all-and-any rail passenger closures which have occurred in Great Britain, effectively within living memory. To a considerable extent, this over-villainises the poor old sod – who first appeared on the rail scene in 1961, and whose infamous closures-recommending Report was published in 1963. BR implemented passenger-service withdrawals in great and generally increasing quantity from its inauguration, up to the Beeching Report: somewhat over 3,000 miles of same, between 1948 and 1962. So very often, the man or woman in the street attributes passenger closures which took place in the 1950s or very early ‘60s, to “Beeching”: they’re unaware that these things happened before he had ever been heard of in a railway / transport context. The ultimate in this in my experience, has got to have been on a visit to the Dean Forest Railway: travelling on one of its trains near Parkend, a fellow-passenger ascribed to “Beeching”, the closure of that very section of line. For mercy’s sake – that particular passenger-closing happened in 1929, when the not-yet-Doctor was aged all of sixteen...

I’m inclined to guess that this phenomenon has come about, because the fellow just sounds so very right for his role. “Doctor Beeching”: irresistible overtones of a cruel-to-be-kind healer, the necessary man for the hour – or a brutal, bungling quack-and-sawbones; and with the image of lesser rail routes, become little-used, being regarded (rightly or wrongly) as dead wood, to be cut away – the verb “to beech”, i.e. to trim off dead wood, begs to be coined. If the same job had happened to be done by a different learned man brought onto the transport scene from a totally different walk of life; called (say) Professor Fortescue-Smythe: one does not see such a bod becoming a byword, in the way in which Beeching has.

 

[coppercapped]

Reflecting on the general Beeching theme -- said gentleman is no hero to me. However necessary and inevitable many of the closures which occurred under his programme, may have been; I confess to soppy sentimentalism, and to BR’s massive amount of service withdrawals circa 1959 – 1970 plus the concurrent end of regular-service steam, having destroyed for me most interest and joy about the British railway scene. Despite all this: as a very young teenage railway enthusiast five-and-a-bit decades ago -- loathing the very name of Beeching with the white-hot intensity, etc. – I would totally not have believed that come 2016, I’d be experiencing a bit of pity for the old monster, and a wish to defend him against accusations of stuff of which he was not guilty.

This is only because of the way in which Britons in general, “lay-persons” as regards railway matters, seem to have latched on to using “Beeching” as a figure of speech (in a generally regretful tone) in reference to more or less all-and-any rail passenger closures which have occurred in Great Britain, effectively within living memory. To a considerable extent, this over-villainises the poor old sod – who first appeared on the rail scene in 1961, and whose infamous closures-recommending Report was published in 1963. BR implemented passenger-service withdrawals in great and generally increasing quantity from its inauguration, up to the Beeching Report: somewhat over 3,000 miles of same, between 1948 and 1962. So very often, the man or woman in the street attributes passenger closures which took place in the 1950s or very early ‘60s, to “Beeching”: they’re unaware that these things happened before he had ever been heard of in a railway / transport context. The ultimate in this in my experience, has got to have been on a visit to the Dean Forest Railway: travelling on one of its trains near Parkend, a fellow-passenger ascribed to “Beeching”, the closure of that very section of line. For mercy’s sake – that particular passenger-closing happened in 1929, when the not-yet-Doctor was aged all of sixteen...

I’m inclined to guess that this phenomenon has come about, because the fellow just sounds so very right for his role. “Doctor Beeching”: irresistible overtones of a cruel-to-be-kind healer, the necessary man for the hour – or a brutal, bungling quack-and-sawbones; and with the image of lesser rail routes, become little-used, being regarded (rightly or wrongly) as dead wood, to be cut away – the verb “to beech”, i.e. to trim off dead wood, begs to be coined. If the same job had happened to be done by a different learned man brought onto the transport scene from a totally different walk of life; called (say) Professor Fortescue-Smythe: one does not see such a bod becoming a byword, in the way in which Beeching has.

Yes!

The sadness of the whole thing was Dr. Beeching arrived at a time when the old ways of doing things were finally being abandoned. Britain had just fought a war to preserve itself - and by extension its way of life. Beeching epitomised the distaste many people felt about the re-development of towns, see for example Ian Nairn's books Outrage and Counter-Attack, and the removal of familiar sights. The countryside was also going through some huge changes - stooks of wheat drying in fields were replaced by combined harvester-threshers - suburbs extended over fields. Although car ownership per head of the population was higher in remote parts than in urban areas, the effects of railway closures were mainly felt in the countryside, not the major towns and cities. As a result the branch railways were sentimentalised as being part of the old order being lost.

What people now fail to realise is that without Beeching and the changes he brought about in the way the railways were managed, it is very likely they would have faded away almost completely. The 1955 ASLEF strike showed clearly that the nation could function without the railways - it happened only five years before Beeching was appointed and afterwards it was an uphill struggle to show that railways had any relevance to the modern world.

 

[Calthrop]

Truly – as, here, eloquently and succinctly set out by you. There was a book published a couple of years ago (I take it, to coincide with the Beeching Report’s fiftieth anniversary) titled Last Trains: Dr. Beeching and the Death of Rural England, by one Charles Loft. (Possible initial impression -- that said demise was being attributed exclusively and totally to the Doctor’s actions – was one to be quickly discarded as mistaken !). I decided to refrain from reading the book – envisaged finding it just too sad; plus some weariness with the IMO overall excessive harping on Beeching, and annoyance at often seemingly automatic anniversary bandwagon-jumping. However, from the feel of things: said book is, likely, a more-long-winded rendering of your moving first paragraph.

Agree about sentimentalising of the branch railways, as a symptom of a greater and more general sense of loss. Plus – I feel – we Britons have always tended to get rather soppy over our railways: more so probably, than most other nations.

Re your second paragraph: I – self-acknowledged as in the front ranks of the gooey-and-sentimental heads-in-clouds brigade – can’t help feeling that quasi-victory for rail, as described, re what actually came to pass; was for me, at a hideous cost. I would almost as soon have had the country’s railways almost completely fade away, as intimated; than be left with what we’ve got today, which affords me little pleasure. “That’s just me”, and I’m certainly not seeking to persuade anyone who sees things otherwise.

 

[Bevan Price]

I would agree that Freightliner was a Beeching success - probably his only one. And yes, many branch lines were financial basket cases that should probably not have been built. Some closures were inevitable - indeed they had been happening steadily since the 1920s.

However, Beeching was essentially a "fall guy" for Marples - diverting blame for closures away from Transport Minister Marples. In my view, his failure was in assuming that closure was the only solution. There was little obvious attempt to find out why some lines were making losses and looking for ways to attract more traffic.

In particular, more could have been done to examine timetables, too see how these suited passenger needs, and seeing if the timetables could have been more attractive for potential commuters, shoppers, etc. For example, some timetables seemed to be based more on operator convenience rather than to provide trains at times that allowed people to get to & from work (or school, shops, etc.).

To deprive some towns with population over 25000 of their rail services was short-sighted, and Beeching made a mistake if he thought that when a line was closed, lots of passengers would use rail replacement buses to reach major railheads. Most of these passengers were totally lost to rail - a trend that only started to be reversed in the 1980s, as road congestion got steadily worse.

 

[coppercapped]

I would agree that Freightliner was a Beeching success - probably his only one. And yes, many branch lines were financial basket cases that should probably not have been built. Some closures were inevitable - indeed they had been happening steadily since the 1920s.

However, Beeching was essentially a "fall guy" for Marples - diverting blame for closures away from Transport Minister Marples. In my view, his failure was in assuming that closure was the only solution. There was little obvious attempt to find out why some lines were making losses and looking for ways to attract more traffic.

In particular, more could have been done to examine timetables, too see how these suited passenger needs, and seeing if the timetables could have been more attractive for potential commuters, shoppers, etc. For example, some timetables seemed to be based more on operator convenience rather than to provide trains at times that allowed people to get to & from work (or school, shops, etc.).

To deprive some towns with population over 25000 of their rail services was short-sighted, and Beeching made a mistake if he thought that when a line was closed, lots of passengers would use rail replacement buses to reach major railheads. Most of these passengers were totally lost to rail - a trend that only started to be reversed in the 1980s, as road congestion got steadily worse.

This has been said before but because it has been said before it is no less true. Dr. Beeching was called in because the Modernisation Plan had failed to stem the losses that BR was making, and BR had (as far as anyone could tell) wasted every single penny it was given: the 'investments' in diesel and electric traction and marshalling yards and new rolling stock and continuous welded rails and power signalling showed no sign whatsoever of making any sort of return. Indeed, losses had increased by a factor of about six in less than ten years.

Why the hell should attempts to save a few percent in reducing operating costs or getting a few more passengers have made any difference at all?

And anyway there was no time to find out. It simply couldn't continue. By 1960 BR was losing about £100m a year, about £4bn in today's money, and at that time only about 10% of families owned a car. Imagine what the finances would have looked like by 1970 without radical action. Passenger rail traffic did not start its present upward trend until the the mid-nineties. There was a peak around 1985 but it fell away again. Basically, in spite of HSTs and electrification BR lost passenger traffic almost continuously during the whole of its existence.

The railways had been given a vast pot of money to take radical action, and had p***ed it away on attempting to do what they currently did, only slightly better. For example, all those light duty diesels, because they wanted trip-working wagon-load freight to continue, in the face of all possible evidence. The 1955 ASLEF strike had resulted in a massive loss of wagon-load and sundries traffic which never returned.

Had the Modernisation Plan spent the one and a half billion pounds they had (about £30 billion in today's money) sensibly, Dr. Beeching would only be remembered by students of the chemical industry as a former senior manager in ICI.

The only reason that he's got the reputation he has now is because the BTC/RE/BR management made such a mess of things they essentially invited him in. it would have happened anyway if the Minister of Transport had been called Marples or Miller or Mason.

 

[yorksrob]

I actually think with a few exceptions which are being corrected today such as the Waverley route and a cross country route filling a void between London and the Midlands, that the overall cuts that happened to the network were on balance about right. Yes there were proposals to go much further which would have been excessive, and some lines threatened with closure which you wouldn't imagine closing today.

But Marples/Beeching weren't entirely wrong the network did need a substancial pruning, given the attitudes and travel patterns that applied at the time.

But many people say that the Waverley route reopening is a product of political bargaining. Are you suggesting that we should have more such reopenings, in England, for example, based on political and social needs?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

This has been said before but because it has been said before it is no less true. Dr. Beeching was called in because the Modernisation Plan had failed to stem the losses that BR was making, and BR had (as far as anyone could tell) wasted every single penny it was given: the 'investments' in diesel and electric traction and marshalling yards and new rolling stock and continuous welded rails and power signalling showed no sign whatsoever of making any sort of return. Indeed, losses had increased by a factor of about six in less than ten years.

Why the hell should attempts to save a few percent in reducing operating costs or getting a few more passengers have made any difference at all?

And anyway there was no time to find out. It simply couldn't continue. By 1960 BR was losing about £100m a year, about £4bn in today's money, and at that time only about 10% of families owned a car. Imagine what the finances would have looked like by 1970 without radical action. Passenger rail traffic did not start its present upward trend until the the mid-nineties. There was a peak around 1985 but it fell away again. Basically, in spite of HSTs and electrification BR lost passenger traffic almost continuously during the whole of its existence.

The railways had been given a vast pot of money to take radical action, and had p***ed it away on attempting to do what they currently did, only slightly better. For example, all those light duty diesels, because they wanted trip-working wagon-load freight to continue, in the face of all possible evidence. The 1955 ASLEF strike had resulted in a massive loss of wagon-load and sundries traffic which never returned.

Had the Modernisation Plan spent the one and a half billion pounds they had (about £30 billion in today's money) sensibly, Dr. Beeching would only be remembered by students of the chemical industry as a former senior manager in ICI.

The only reason that he's got the reputation he has now is because the BTC/RE/BR management made such a mess of things tUtthey essentially invited him in. it would have happened anyway if the Minister of Transport had been called Marples or Miller or Mason.

This has to be the most laughable revision of history yet seen on this forum.

You mention nothing of the Kent electrification scheme which laid the foundation for vital commuter services into the next century.

The DMU's which would have been required to run the network efficiently, regardless of staffing levels, and formed the backbone of services across the country for decades.

You conveniently forget that some of the worst excesses were due to a common carrier obligation that even the big four rightly campaigned to get rid of.

Worst of all though, you fawn over Beechings legacy like a blushing schoolgirl with a boyband whilst denigrating those far better and more practical railwaymen who began to pick up the pieces in the eighties and nineties off the back of Beechings failure.

To achieve a growing railway, even if during better economic times was no mean feat in an environment when the establishment had colluded in painting the railway as a spent force. How lucky we are that they ditched Beechings poisoned legacy.

 

[oldman]

Britain had just fought a war to preserve itself - and by extension its way of life. .... As a result the branch railways were sentimentalised as being part of the old order being lost.

Actually, a lot of those who fought in the war did not want to preserve the old British way of life, which is why they voted in a Labour government in 1945. The sentimentalisation of the rustic railway (the dreadful Titfield Thunderbolt, Betjeman's ramblings and their present day equivalents) was the work of an often urban middle-class.

 

[coppercapped]

But many people say that the Waverley route reopening is a product of political bargaining. Are you suggesting that we should have more such reopenings, in England, for example, based on political and social needs?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


This has to be the most laughable revision of history yet seen on this forum.

You mention nothing of the Kent electrification scheme which laid the foundation for vital commuter services into the next century.

The DMU's which would have been required to run the network efficiently, regardless of staffing levels, and formed the backbone of services across the country for decades.

You conveniently forget that some of the worst excesses were due to a common carrier obligation that even the big four rightly campaigned to get rid of.

Worst of all though, you fawn over Beechings legacy like a blushing schoolgirl with a boyband whilst denigrating those far better and more practical railwaymen who began to pick up the pieces in the eighties and nineties off the back of Beechings failure.

To achieve a growing railway, even if during better economic times was no mean feat in an environment when the establishment had colluded in painting the railway as a spent force. How lucky we are that they ditched Beechings poisoned legacy.

I am afraid that you have missed the point completely. I denigrate no-one, except the top management of the BTC and Railway Executive.

And their failures are a direct consequence of the fatally flawed 1947 Transport Act.

It is undeniable that apart from the surge in travel at the end of the Second World War and some smaller peaks at other times, for example at the time of the Suez crisis, BR presided over a continual fall in passenger rail traffic from the time it was formed to the time it was wound up. In addition, from carrying a large proportion of the country's freight at the end of the War the proportion had fallen to about 3.5% at the time Ed Burkhardt bought the remains of the freight businesses.

Neither the Deltics, nor the electrification of the Great Eastern suburban lines, nor that of the West Coast main line nor the Kent Coast electrification nor the dmus made any noticeable difference to the global figures.

If the railway's management had been competent it would have understood the pernicious effect of the Common Carrier Obligation and sought to have it removed. The organisation was then, for God's sake, a branch of Government, the publicly-owned railway working in the interests of the public - there was no possible justification for the Obligation's continued existence as the public didn't need the protection any longer. Or what's a nationalised railway for?

Instead the BTC/RE/BR did absolutely nothing until the obligation was removed by the 1962 Transport Act - by which time it was almost too late.

Like all organisations, BR evolved to react to the different external pressures - the biggest and most effective of these was the introduction of the sectors and their evolution into integrated business units. This is the time when BR finally started to manage, rather than just administer, its business - but this change would not have been possible if Beeching had not started the process towards building a more commercial organisation.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Actually, a lot of those who fought in the war did not want to preserve the old British way of life, which is why they voted in a Labour government in 1945. The sentimentalisation of the rustic railway (the dreadful Titfield Thunderbolt, Betjeman's ramblings and their present day equivalents) was the work of an often urban middle-class.

I could have been clearer in the use of the phrase 'way of life'. Don't confuse political changes with changes in the built environment and in the appearance of the countryside.

I remind you that the Labour government introduced the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act at least partly to control 'ribbon development' between neighbouring towns and cities in order to protect what we now call the 'environment'. The 'Green Belts' around some cities were the direct consequence - if this was not an attempt to maintain a 'way of life', I don't know what is.

Voting Labour in 1945 did NOT mean that you were voting FOR branch line closures and the end of steam on the railway.

 

[simonw]

Truly – as, here, eloquently and succinctly set out by you. There was a book published a couple of years ago (I take it, to coincide with the Beeching Report’s fiftieth anniversary) titled Last Trains: Dr. Beeching and the Death of Rural England, by one Charles Loft. (Possible initial impression -- that said demise was being attributed exclusively and totally to the Doctor’s actions – was one to be quickly discarded as mistaken !). I decided to refrain from reading the book – envisaged finding it just too sad; plus some weariness with the IMO overall excessive harping on Beeching, and annoyance at often seemingly automatic anniversary bandwagon-jumping. However, from the feel of things: said book is, likely, a more-long-winded rendering of your moving first paragraph.

Agree about sentimentalising of the branch railways, as a symptom of a greater and more general sense of loss. Plus – I feel – we Britons have always tended to get rather soppy over our railways: more so probably, than most other nations.

Re your second paragraph: I – self-acknowledged as in the front ranks of the gooey-and-sentimental heads-in-clouds brigade – can’t help feeling that quasi-victory for rail, as described, re what actually came to pass; was for me, at a hideous cost. I would almost as soon have had the country’s railways almost completely fade away, as intimated; than be left with what we’ve got today, which affords me little pleasure. “That’s just me”, and I’m certainly not seeking to persuade anyone who sees things otherwise.

Actually I would suggest you read the book as I would also suggest to those who believe all the Beeching cuts were unnecessary.

It is an interesting read and is not the kind of book you think it is.

It uses a number of closures to illustrate the issues that existed at the time the closures were taking place and how these influenced the closure programme.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Not just Freightliner - but the development of company and block trains , Coal Concentration depots , Merry-Go-Round , Inter City and (later) - thanks to Barbara Castle the concept of protected loss making services through the 1968 Act - and the development of urban networks.

People concentrate on the branches etc - but a "business eye" was cast - which , though not perfect by any means - established a core railway + .

No shopkeeper for example would have stayed in business with the level of patronage that some of those rural etc services delivered ....

 

[yorksrob]

I am afraid that you have missed the point completely. I denigrate no-one, except the top management of the BTC and Railway Executive.

And their failures are a direct consequence of the fatally flawed 1947 Transport Act.

It is undeniable that apart from the surge in travel at the end of the Second World War and some smaller peaks at other times, for example at the time of the Suez crisis, BR presided over a continual fall in passenger rail traffic from the time it was formed to the time it was wound up. In addition, from carrying a large proportion of the country's freight at the end of the War the proportion had fallen to about 3.5% at the time Ed Burkhardt bought the remains of the freight businesses.

Neither the Deltics, nor the electrification of the Great Eastern suburban lines, nor that of the West Coast main line nor the Kent Coast electrification nor the dmus made any noticeable difference to the global figures.

If the railway's management had been competent it would have understood the pernicious effect of the Common Carrier Obligation and sought to have it removed. The organisation was then, for God's sake, a branch of Government, the publicly-owned railway working in the interests of the public - there was no possible justification for the Obligation's continued existence as the public didn't need the protection any longer. Or what's a nationalised railway for?

Instead the BTC/RE/BR did absolutely nothing until the obligation was removed by the 1962 Transport Act - by which time it was almost too late.

Like all organisations, BR evolved to react to the different external pressures - the biggest and most effective of these was the introduction of the sectors and their evolution into integrated business units. This is the time when BR finally started to manage, rather than just administer, its business - but this change would not have been possible if Beeching had not started the process towards building a more commercial organisation.

I'm sorry, but it's frankly non-sensical to dismiss "every single penny" spent by BR up to that point as wasted. Are you seriously suggesting that a commercial railway could have been built without electrification of routes and DMU's ? I would have liked to have seen Beeching try to do that with forty year old Maunsell carriages and steam locomotives.

Your entire assertion that all of BR's investment was wasted seems to be based upon the fact that it failed to stem losses, yet you admit that Beeching's solution of cutting route mileage also failed to stem losses. The fact is, even if BR had spent all of its modernisation money "sensibly" as you put it, given the country's ill advised dalliance with motor transport it's unclear whether it would have stemmed the losses.

There were two failures of the Beeching era that you gloss over. The obvious being a lack of pragmatism in trying to ascertain which routes should be rationalised, rather than axed in a blind determination to reduce route mileage at all costs (the worked example of York to Beverley via Market Weighton in the report itself being the obvious example) as well as the subsequent failure to look at some of the routes that had been closed and see whether they had actually saved the money expected.

The second failure is a wider political failure to consider social need and whether some railways should be publicaly supported for the greater good. This was only rectified by the next Government under Barbra Castle. It should be remembered that before becoming Chairman, Beeching was also a member of the Stedeford Committee forming Government railway policy during this period, so he is also partially culpable for this policy failure.

It's also wrong to say that BR lost passengers throughout its existance. Give or take variations around the economic cycle, numbers seem to have stablised around the 750m mark in the last decade and a bit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GBR_rail_passengers_by_year.png

 

[Bevan Price]

As I have commented elsewhere, the early problems in the BR era can be partly explained by the choice of BTC/BR chairmen. Doubtless at the recommendation of senior civil servants, the chosen managers were "in our own image types" (a retired general, then a retired senior civil servant), rather than a tough manager who knew something about railways and their problems. And with the then-prevailing civil service type of attitudes & hierarchy, anyone who recognised that there were serious problems would be afraid to criticise "the established way of doing things" because it was likely to affect their career prospects. So, wasteful complacency continued for several years - the "why change what worked in the past" attitudes. Yes - as I wrote, some cutbacks were unavoidable, but they went too far, and with too little consideration of alternatives.

All politicians like someone else to blame for unpopular policies, and Beeching became the easy target for following instructions from Marples. True - Barbara Castle continued the closures, but by then, Wilson's government was almost at the mercy of the "money market people", and was left with little option but to proceed with many closures.

 

[edwin_m]

I'm sorry, but it's frankly non-sensical to dismiss "every single penny" spent by BR up to that point as wasted. Are you seriously suggesting that a commercial railway could have been built without electrification of routes and DMU's ? I would have liked to have seen Beeching try to do that with forty year old Maunsell carriages and steam locomotives.

Your entire assertion that all of BR's investment was wasted seems to be based upon the fact that it failed to stem losses, yet you admit that Beeching's solution of cutting route mileage also failed to stem losses. The fact is, even if BR had spent all of its modernisation money "sensibly" as you put it, given the country's ill advised dalliance with motor transport it's unclear whether it would have stemmed the losses.

There were two failures of the Beeching era that you gloss over. The obvious being a lack of pragmatism in trying to ascertain which routes should be rationalised, rather than axed in a blind determination to reduce route mileage at all costs (the worked example of York to Beverley via Market Weighton in the report itself being the obvious example) as well as the subsequent failure to look at some of the routes that had been closed and see whether they had actually saved the money expected.

The second failure is a wider political failure to consider social need and whether some railways should be publicaly supported for the greater good. This was only rectified by the next Government under Barbra Castle. It should be remembered that before becoming Chairman, Beeching was also a member of the Stedeford Committee forming Government railway policy during this period, so he is also partially culpable for this policy failure.

It's also wrong to say that BR lost passengers throughout its existance. Give or take variations around the economic cycle, numbers seem to have stablised around the 750m mark in the last decade and a bit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GBR_rail_passengers_by_year.png

Unusually, I agree on all points and would add a third failing of not considering reduced-cost infrastructure as an alternative to closure.

While we can all point to the short-lived diesel classes and marshalling yards, the DMU programme and WCML electrification were two success stories from the 1950s modernisation.

 

[341o2]

Can someone clarify the origin of merry go round, as I have been under the impression that it was Gerry Feinnes who thought up the idea a of a semi premenant unit of a diesel locomotive and a rake of wagons which would shuttle between a colliery and power station.

Certainly Feinnes saved some railways in the west country recommended for closure by Beeching - west of Plymouth, Reading - Westbury - Taunton and Salisbury - Exeter (I tried to run a railway p101) and on the basis that beeching recommended complete closure of the former SR network west of Salisbury, Exmouth and Barnstaple as well

The real damage was done subsequent to closure was the attitude that the trains were gone for good and the land sold off for redevelopment.

It was commented that Railtrack were as busy in property sales/redevelopment as running a railway

Could there be any other location remote as Halwill Junction, before the railway a few farms, now the station site is a housing estate, Bude likewise, Holsowrthy an industrial estate

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Can someone clarify the origin of merry go round, as I have been under the impression that it was Gerry Feinnes who thought up the idea a of a semi premenant unit of a diesel locomotive and a rake of wagons which would shuttle between a colliery and power station.


A chap[ called Reg(inald) Munns - ex Eastern Region claimed the honour - though Gerry was clearly part of it.

 

[Taunton]

Can someone clarify the origin of merry go round, as I have been under the impression that it was Gerry Fiennes who thought up the idea a of a semi premenant unit of a diesel locomotive and a rake of wagons which would shuttle between a colliery and power station.


A chap[ called Reg(inald) Munns - ex Eastern Region claimed the honour - though Gerry was clearly part of it.

Gerry Fiennes in his book says he thought about it in his bath one day!

Actually, knowing Gerry, he would have had a one-paragraph idea, and then have chosen the right one of his team to come up with a working concept. It is also notable that it was first developed in Yorkshire; new large power stations were being built there rather than hauling coal to power stations in cities, and some of the new hauls were so short that the railway was starting to lose traffic to conveyor belts installed overland between mine and station. It gave a bit of a clue to how the railway might compete.

As ever, the view from the railway is of the operational detail. What Fiennes understood was the larger picture, that there would need to be substantial investment in plant at mine and power station for the ground equipment, let alone the wagons. There was a significant standoff between the three nationalised businesses, NCB, BR and CEGB (for those not around at the time, National Coal Board, British Railways and the Central Electricity Generating Board respectively) over these substantial investment costs, which were basically for the benefit of the railway. This is where someone like Beeching who had the ear of the Minister and the various civil servants, and who related well to Fiennes, came into it.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

The book title has just come ot me "From Milk Churns to Merry Go Round" - by R T Munns - one of the few books dedicated to the career of a Freight Manager. Worth a read.

 

[Phil.]

Can someone clarify the origin of merry go round, as I have been under the impression that it was Gerry Feinnes who thought up the idea a of a semi premenant unit of a diesel locomotive and a rake of wagons which would shuttle between a colliery and power station.

Certainly Feinnes saved some railways in the west country recommended for closure by Beeching - west of Plymouth, Reading - Westbury - Taunton and Salisbury - Exeter (I tried to run a railway p101) and on the basis that beeching recommended complete closure of the former SR network west of Salisbury, Exmouth and Barnstaple as well

The real damage was done subsequent to closure was the attitude that the trains were gone for good and the land sold off for redevelopment.

It was commented that Railtrack were as busy in property sales/redevelopment as running a railway

Could there be any other location remote as Halwill Junction, before the railway a few farms, now the station site is a housing estate, Bude likewise, Holsowrthy an industrial estate

At one time "the railway" was the biggest landowner in the country. Much of Network Southeast's money came from selling space above and about the London termini such as Victoria.

 

[RepTCTC]

It's also wrong to say that BR lost passengers throughout its existance. Give or take variations around the economic cycle, numbers seem to have stablised around the 750m mark in the last decade and a bit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GBR_rail_passengers_by_year.png

The graph from the mid 80s on is more to do with London's rise as a financial centre, the areas roads reaching capacity, the rapid increase in the cost of motoring in the 00s, and two recessions, than it is about BR, privatisation, or anything else. NSE and their successor TOCs could have put a dog "solid" on every seat and the numbers would have looked broadly similar.

 

[yorksrob]

The graph from the mid 80s on is more to do with London's rise as a financial centre, the areas roads reaching capacity, the rapid increase in the cost of motoring in the 00s, and two recessions, than it is about BR, privatisation, or anything else. NSE and their successor TOCs could have put a dog "solid" on every seat and the numbers would have looked broadly similar.

By a similar token, one could argue that the fall from 1952 onwards is probably more due to the falling cost of motor transport, increased road capacity and "You've never had it so good" consumerism than supposedly poor investment decisions by the BTC. Railways are, to an extent, a hostage to economic and social fortune (although NSE and its successor TOC's have done some good work in attracting people to off-peak services).

That aside, for a railway system to even shadow these conditions would require some element of a stable network. I doubt those figures would have been the same had the decided to do a Serpell.

 

[Dr Hoo]

While we can all point to the short-lived diesel classes and marshalling yards, the DMU programme and WCML electrification were two success stories from the 1950s modernisation.

Although worth noting that the first attempt at WCML electrification had effective been 'paused' at the end of the 1950s as it was running so over budget.

Once the project had been 'un-paused' by Ernest Marples most the donkey work was actually carried out under Richard Beeching (from 1961 to 1965) as the last chairman of the British Transport Commission and subsequently the first chairman of the BRB.

It is easy to forget that Dr Beeching wasn't just responsible for his Re-shaping Report. He was actually in charge of delivery of all of the railway system's activities, whilst shrewdly recognising the importance of strong regional mangement of delivery.

 

[yorksrob]

In terms of the original post, Beeching's success was in developing the freightliner industry, which of course is based on reasonably predictable container flows between ports and industrial centres.

However, as I believe he recognised in his report, one of rail's key advantages is in transporting large bulky flows for which road transport is unsuited. the problem with these sorts of flows is that they tend to be ephemeral, and might not have an established industrial centre or port at both ends. I think we should consider the recent history of the Settle Carlisle route. Forty years ago it was carrying unfitted wagons away from the WCML. Twenty years ago, heavy coal flows from the Scottish ports to power stations in Yorkshire. Now it looks as though they're going to use the route to transport stone from local quarries. For me, it seems clear that maintaining this sort of freight capability is reliant on having a fairly extensive railway network. This would only seem to be compatible with a wider policy of developing and maintaining a substantial regional network, and as freight flows tend to come and go, this in turn requires the encouragement of long term passenger flows, as has happened on the Settle Carlisle.

Unfortunately, I see Beeching's philosophy of singling and even closing secondary routes in particular, but more generally relying on shrinking route mileage, as being incompatible with maintaining this sort of freight capability.

 

[coppercapped]

The point I am trying to make is that the £1.2 billion made available to pay for the Modernisation Plan was intended to return the railways to profitability.

It didn't. In fact the loses increased for the next several years and at least three more times the Government wrote off further accumulated losses.

So the Modernisation Plan money did not achieve its aims - it was essentially tipped down a hole.

There also seems to be a confusion about the meaning of 'success'. In operational terms the electrifications, the Deltics, the Merry-go-round trains, the Freightliners and the like achieved improvements in performance and reliability over what went before and reduced costs of operation. In these terms they can be deemed to be 'successes'.

But in financial terms they were anything but as it is clear that BR never returned to profit - which was the whole point of the Modernisation Plan money. BR stopped covering its operating costs in 1955 and annual losses reached £68 million in 1960, £87 million in 1961 and £104 million in 1962. The annual deficit then fell, partly due to economic recovery and partly due to improvements in the railways' efficiency, to £67 million in 1964 but then started to rise again. The 1968 Act wrote off a large proportion of the accumulated debts, reducing interest payments by £26 million per year and depreciation by £25 million.

This series of losses explains why there was never any serious chance of money being spent on marginal routes to push them over the hump and become profitable. The whole business was losing increasing amounts of money, (apart from two years of improvements) so even if a route could have been made profitable, within a couple of years it would have been back in deficit again. There was not a blind endeavour to reduce route mileage per se, the whole point was to return the railways to a position of financial stability. It is clear from reports that a significant number of middle managers mis-understood the rationale and were 'over enthusiastic', but there was enormous pressure to generate cash and that sometimes meant selling off land and the fittings as soon as possible.

To blame BR's loss of passengers on the increase in the number of families with motor cars is dodging the question. Over this period the inland travel market grew enormously - but the railways took no part of it at all. Not only did their percentage of the travel market fall so did the absolute number of rail passengers. A simple linear regression analysis of the number of passengers carried each year between 1948 and 1995 shows a negative trend. Visual examination of the plot of passenger numbers against year does show a measure of stabilisation after 1980 as the number of passengers carried in 1980 was about the same as the number carried in 1995, but this only makes the fall between 1948 and 1980 even steeper. The explosive growth in the number of cars on the road had slowed by this time, there were about 15 million private cars in 1980 which had grown to about 20 million 15 years later. Road congestion was already an issue but it is not obviously noticeably reflected in the number of rail passengers carried.

Beaching's legacy is that he initiated the change of direction of BR from being an administration looking after an open air museum to becoming a modern commercial organisation - it even had sales and marketing! But as with all large organisations the momentum resisting change is huge - not from any ill-will but simply that trying to re-examine the ways that everything is done is more than the individuals tasked with running the business can cope with at any one time. Beeching set the scene - and out of that the development of InterCity, Freightliners and all the other new initiatives grew. Without Beeching there would have been no business sectors - and this was the time when the 'new' BR really started to evolve.

Only now, within the last couple of years, does the railways' income cover the costs of train operation and infrastructure maintenance. This is the first time that this has happened for 60 years - it's quite a milestone and bodes well for the future. The days of cutting back the network and the thinning out of train services are, if this situation can be held, behind us.

The next hill to conquer is the reduction of the costs and timescales in infrastructure works and to work out how to deal with Network Rail's accumulated borrowings. Ideally Network Rail should generate sufficient surplus to be able to start paying down the principal. lt might happen - whoever would have thought, a decade ago, that the railways would ever generate an operating surplus?

 

[yorksrob]

The point I am trying to make is that the £1.2 billion made available to pay for the Modernisation Plan was intended to return the railways to profitability.

It didn't. In fact the loses increased for the next several years and at least three more times the Government wrote off further accumulated losses.

So the Modernisation Plan money did not achieve its aims - it was essentially tipped down a hole.

There also seems to be a confusion about the meaning of 'success'. In operational terms the electrifications, the Deltics, the Merry-go-round trains, the Freightliners and the like achieved improvements in performance and reliability over what went before and reduced costs of operation. In these terms they can be deemed to be 'successes'.

But in financial terms they were anything but as it is clear that BR never returned to profit - which was the whole point of the Modernisation Plan money. BR stopped covering its operating costs in 1955 and annual losses reached £68 million in 1960, £87 million in 1961 and £104 million in 1962. The annual deficit then fell, partly due to economic recovery and partly due to improvements in the railways' efficiency, to £67 million in 1964 but then started to rise again. The 1968 Act wrote off a large proportion of the accumulated debts, reducing interest payments by £26 million per year and depreciation by £25 million.

This series of losses explains why there was never any serious chance of money being spent on marginal routes to push them over the hump and become profitable. The whole business was losing increasing amounts of money, (apart from two years of improvements) so even if a route could have been made profitable, within a couple of years it would have been back in deficit again. There was not a blind endeavour to reduce route mileage per se, the whole point was to return the railways to a position of financial stability. It is clear from reports that a significant number of middle managers mis-understood the rationale and were 'over enthusiastic', but there was enormous pressure to generate cash and that sometimes meant selling off land and the fittings as soon as possible.

• If the modernisation plan didn't achieve its aims - i.e. making the railway profitable, then neither did the closure programme.

• The modernisation plan money wasn't tipped down a hole. The efficient railway of the 80's and beyond, relied on a lot of the kit built during the investment plan. Yes, some of it could have been better spent, but the idea that the railway could have continued on any basis at all, let alone commercial without the majority of investments in electrification, traction, rolling stock and signalling etc is ludicrous.

• Your statistics do illustrate how intertwined with the economy the fortunes of the railway were. Gives a good idea of why simply cutting route miles didn't make the railway profitable.

To blame BR's loss of passengers on the increase in the number of families with motor cars is dodging the question. Over this period the inland travel market grew enormously - but the railways took no part of it at all. Not only did their percentage of the travel market fall so did the absolute number of rail passengers. A simple linear regression analysis of the number of passengers carried each year between 1948 and 1995 shows a negative trend. Visual examination of the plot of passenger numbers against year does show a measure of stabilisation after 1980 as the number of passengers carried in 1980 was about the same as the number carried in 1995, but this only makes the fall between 1948 and 1980 even steeper. The explosive growth in the number of cars on the road had slowed by this time, there were about 15 million private cars in 1980 which had grown to about 20 million 15 years later. Road congestion was already an issue but it is not obviously noticeably reflected in the number of rail passengers carried.

Not at all. Both motor and air transport were becoming more fashionable at the time, in comparison to rail and bus transport. Personal transport within the country and foreign holidays abroad both ate into rails traditional passenger market. To deny this is simply untrue.

If rail passenger usage fell from 1953 to 1980 then stabilised, that represents a notable change in fortune for the railway. Clearly a more stable passenger base makes planning and investment easier, as the investments during that time prove. That stabilisation of passenger usage relied on a stable network.

Beaching's legacy is that he initiated the change of direction of BR from being an administration looking after an open air museum to becoming a modern commercial organisation - it even had sales and marketing! But as with all large organisations the momentum resisting change is huge - not from any ill-will but simply that trying to re-examine the ways that everything is done is more than the individuals tasked with running the business can cope with at any one time. Beeching set the scene - and out of that the development of InterCity, Freightliners and all the other new initiatives grew. Without Beeching there would have been no business sectors - and this was the time when the 'new' BR really started to evolve.

Surely Beeching would have inherited even more of a "museum" if BR hadn't been electrifying lines and building rolling stock beforehand ("tipping money down a whole" as you succinctly put it). Whizzy marketing and business re-organisations can get you so far, but ultimately you need kit as well.

I also don't buy this assertion that BR had time to write lists and reports and go through closure processes, but somehow didn't have time investigate costs and savings for one single line that could be reproduced elsewhere. Imagine how much more useful "Reshaping of British Railways" would have been if, as part of the Market Weighton worked example, a concerted effort to reduce the identified costs of the route had been made and used to develop a blueprint that could be used for similar marginal passenger services ?