coppercapped
Established Member
And why was the 1962 Transport Act necessary?
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Nationalisation vs repatriation
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And why was the 1962 Transport Act necessary?
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And was anyone forecasting record numbers of passengers as at todays date in 1962? I seriously doubt it, but its easy with hindsight.
As an insider working in todays industry, the biggest issue I see is the inabilty to react at speed to what is going on relative to the outside world. Projects just take too long to come to fruition.
The railways of this period are mainly criticised for not being centralised enough and giving too much autonomy to the regions. As it happens, the Beeching era was the period of the nationalised industry when the railway was most centralised, for good - corporate identity, development of IC etc and disasterously in terms of the closure plan.
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Probably because neither the Labour Government (1945 - 51) nor the conservative government (1951 up until the act - over ten years, note) did anything to remove the common carrier obligation, forcing the railway to invest in unremunerative projects like marshalling yards.
As I have said many times before, where the railway was allowed to choose its own investment, a much of the modernisation plan money was very well spent, the electrification of Kent and much of Essex being cases in point, along with the introduction of DMU's on local routes.
The fact that a lot of this didn't yield the desired profit had much to do with the rise of the motor car. The gross error of judgement was to respond to this situation by legally requiring the railway to cover its costs year by year without making any provision for supporting socially necessary services or strategically important alternative routes. That error was committed by Beeching/Marples.
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And the railway's conservatism (both the management and the Unions) that didn't see the potential in destaffing, future technologies...and even, dare I say it, rural D....no, I don't dare say it, there's a thread for that
IOW, the choice was a fully-staffed railway with 2 crew on board and staffed ticket offices, or a one-man-operated bus. Nothing in between, such as applying light rail concepts to heavy rail.
There was a lot of truth in this. Reading G Fiennes' memoir this Christmas, it becomes apparent how prepared he was to trial this approach on the East Suffolk line. If a route was unremunerative, he was prepared to make changes such as those above, to make it cover its costs. If the route was still unable to cover its costs, he was prepared to ask the local stakeholders for support.
A very pragmatic approach. However, from the chronology of the book (which isn't always entirely linear) it appears that this only came about after Beeching had gone.
LNW-GW Joint
Veteran Member
Something for the "nationalisers" to ponder:
DB Regio has just won two 12-year contracts to run two groups of services in Baden-Wurttemburg, under a competitive tendering system.
They were of course the incumbents.
However, the bid was 40% cheaper than the previous contract, making new trains affordable.
My point is that even in the nationalised world, competition for contracts is now standard.
So my take on this is that if Labour rolled all the current franchises back into the public sector, the TOCs would still be up for competitive tendering and there is no guarantee that the "state railway" will win.
The pressure will be on for cost reductions whether the TOC is in the public or private sector.
http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/...-db-regio-selected-for-rheintal-contract.html
DB Regio has just won two 12-year contracts to run two groups of services in Baden-Wurttemburg, under a competitive tendering system.
They were of course the incumbents.
However, the bid was 40% cheaper than the previous contract, making new trains affordable.
My point is that even in the nationalised world, competition for contracts is now standard.
So my take on this is that if Labour rolled all the current franchises back into the public sector, the TOCs would still be up for competitive tendering and there is no guarantee that the "state railway" will win.
The pressure will be on for cost reductions whether the TOC is in the public or private sector.
http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/...-db-regio-selected-for-rheintal-contract.html
At the end of the day, it's just grinding the public subsidy down by making capital improvements reliant on that reduction in subsidy.
Which was pretty much Mrs Thatcher's strategy with Network SouthEast during the late 1980's.
Mikey C
Established Member
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A massive problem affecting ALL capital projects now, is how slow and expensive everything is to build, whether down to higher environmental standards, H&S, NIMBYs or higher wages.
I find it astonishing how quickly we built the motorway network in the 60s and early 70s, when all the main motorways connecting the UK were built. When you consider how slow and painful the HS2 process is when compared to the building of say the M1 and M6...
There were plenty of people warning that railways were needed to fulfill social functions rather than just (attempting) to turn a profit. Legislation allowing for the support of socially necessary and suburban services from the late 1960's is testament to that.
coppercapped
Established Member
The Beeching report certainly took this view with regard to suburban services. On page 20 it stated that the pattern of life in the larger cities (Glasgow, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Birmingham and Cardiff - with London being treated as a special case) would be unthinkable without railways but that was no reason why the services should be supplied below cost.
It goes further, on page 22 the Report states:
it goes on to say:
So, the seeds for the social railway had already been sown by 1962 and the 1968 Act turned the concept into law.
Dr Hoo
Established Member
Once again demonstrating what a genuinely insightful and visionary manager Richard Beeching was...
So you agree with my earlier statement that the 1962 transport act was fundamentally flawed in not including such a provision ?.
What a pity Dr Beeching didn't do more to enshrine that position in Government policy when he had the chance as part of the Stedeford committee.
Arguably it was Dr Beeching merely coming round to what less hawkish members of the Stedeford committee had tried to argue previously.
coppercapped
Established Member
If your understanding of the topic were not so flawed you would realise that no half-way reliable costings existed for the different traffic flows until the 1961 traffic surveys. As a consequence the cost data which were a pre-requisite for the 1968 Act were not available until 1962/63 and included in the 1963 Beeching Report. These data were not available for the 1962 Act so your supposition is incorrect.
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Dr Hoo
Established Member
The presentation of the 'subsidy question' in the widely-read Reshaping Report meant that it was far more likely to be recognised and considered in the broadest political sense. The fairly secretive deliberations of the Stedeford group hardly helped to put the idea in the mainstream.
As with all major changes if often takes several steps before the final desirable outcome is achieved. As a non-politician Beeching was in no position to 'make' things happen. As is often said, Beeching opened far more [minds to ideas] than he closed.
As with all major changes if often takes several steps before the final desirable outcome is achieved. As a non-politician Beeching was in no position to 'make' things happen. As is often said, Beeching opened far more [minds to ideas] than he closed.
On the contrary, the 1962 act could easily have made provision for socially necessary services, subject to undertaking the necessary traffic surveys. Accepting that some routes were performing a wider function to society, the point of calculating what it cost to run a route should have been to ascertain which of these were necessary and worth paying for and which weren't. That the 1962 Act was merely a pre-requisite to a slash and burn policy of route reductions with the sole aim of making the railway cover it's cost year on year, was entirely an ideological/political policy decision.
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I can't see any benefit in changing the present set-up, drastically anyway. The competition takes place at bid time, so that sets things in order for the duration. What decides the winner is more important, namely the promised standard of service to the customer up front. In this respect, something has to improve in respect of staff commitment in some franchises. SWT is held up as a good example, but how that can be measured prior to a franchise bid being accepted, I am not so sure.
I can't see how the supposed nationality of the bidder or whether it is a government owned organisation is of the slightest importance.
I can't see how the supposed nationality of the bidder or whether it is a government owned organisation is of the slightest importance.
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But isn't that the problem? As we have seen with ATW, XC and Northern it's incredibly difficult to cater for growth during a contract period.
Whereas under BR moving resources around was a lot easier.
(I worked for BR and was directly involved in moving resources around.)
coppercapped
Established Member
You are getting your Acts of Parliament mixed up. It was the 1947 Transport Act which laid the financial requirement on the BTC that it should 'break even taking one year with another'. In other words the Labour government in 1946/7 did not foresee the BTC receiving any subsidy.
Of course - this didn't last and after 1952 the BTC, of which the railways were part, was in receipt of subsidy. The 1962 Act aimed to return to the status quo ante in regards to subsidies and Section 22 required the new Boards, including the British Railways Board
So - you have to agree that that requirement was not really much different to breaking even taking one year with another. So which political party should be blamed for such ideological/political policy decisions?
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Ah, so your intention is to defend the Conservative Government. Well, the the Conservative Government from 1951 up until the 1962 transport act did some good, not least the modernisation plan investment, most of which was well used. Again all Governments from the square deal campaign onwards should have got rid of the common carrier obligation then BR wouldn't have had to spend it on marshalling yards for a dead traffic. Also Governments of all shades should probably not have made BR go out to other companies for locos and rolling stock - this might have reduced some of the unnecessary variation. Marples managed to start a narrative which blamed those Government policy failures on BR, (a narrative which you revel in perpetuating) which was wrong in my opinion. But then again, Conservative Government's always blame their own policy failures on others. Remember privatisation, when the Conservative Government (1979 - 1997) managed somehow to blame its own chronic lack of investment in the railway on BR and use it as a justification for privatisation ? They're still at it, including Portillo himself. Anyhow, this is all very party political.
The labour Government of 1947 may well have included a requirement for the railway to pay for itself year on year, but crucially they didn't embark on an idealogically focused campaign of route closures without any basis of identifying and supporting socially necessary services. Marples and Beeching are entirely to blame for that. If anything, the labour Government (and to be fair, the Conservative Government up until 1962) expected BR to cross-subsidise loss making lines and weed out the worst. This was perhaps naive of both of those Governments, and in need of correction, but not a massive irreversible mistake like the Beeching inspired closure programme.
So in conclusion to your question, the 1962 act was massively different to previous regimes because the requirement to cover costs year on year went alongside, and was used to justify the disastrous closure programme.
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LNW-GW Joint
Veteran Member
The disastrous closure programme was a result of the incompetence of the BTC (and both governments) in not rationalising the railway after nationalisation, leading to uncontrolled losses.
If you think the modernisation plan money was "well used", read The Train That Ran Away by Stewart Joy (BRB Chief Economist 1970).
I spent my formative years travelling around on modernisation plan investment, thank you and it served the railway well into the 21st century. We've gone over many times on here what aspects of the plan were good and which weren't so, and "Surprise Surprise" it turns out the not so good parts were to meet Government requirements.
That the BTC should have done more to rationalise is true. That was still no excuse to embark upon a politically inspired closure programme without considering what passenger services were needed. Beeching and Marples must take the blame for the way they responded to the situation.
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Gareth Marston
Established Member
Can you provide examples of how bid competition has improved things on the railway?
The Beeching closures were one manifestation of a mindset that was prevalent in the 1960s: new = good, old = bad. Architecture suffered similarly, buildings that had stood since the middle ages in some cases, were torn down to build ring roads and car parks. People who sought to protect existing structure and infrastructure were portrayed as cranks trying to halt the march of progress. It was a kind of madness, a popular delusion that would only be stemmed by seeing the consequences.
Preservation was perceived as reactionary, a forfeit of the right to modernity. In hindsight almost all the closed passenger lines would have seen sufficient growth to keep them open. The sad thing is some people still can't see railways as a social benefit worthy of public support.
So very true.
It's notable that Sir John Betjeman tried to stop the rot in terms of both the railways and architecture. His statue at St Pancras is well deserved.
You are making an assumption that Government wanted to make provision for socially necessary services at that time, and that it was all the fault of Beeching/Marples that they didn't. I am not so convinced! I suspect that cutting, or at best not increasing, subsidies to the railways was the main agenda, based on the contracting experience of USA passenger loadings. Funnily enough, many other countries have had similar passenger service withdrawals either before or after ours.....
I suspect that you are correct. Marples was the Minister responsible, however under collective cabinet responsibility, the Government of which Marples was part, was ultimately responsible for the policy. Though Marples will have developed it and justified it at cabinet. Beeching was important in forming railway policy before he became chairman of BR.
However, the fact that the Government at the time chose not to support socially necessary services is the core of my argument. I was at no time assuming that that Government wanted to support such services. Their decision not to, is precisely what I blame them for.
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You can blame them, with the benefit of hindsight, but I suspect that the concept of socially necessary service wasn't particularly understood, or certainly was not seen as important. At that time people were deserting public transport in their droves (trains and buses) and there did not appear to be any real effect apart from a bit of urban traffic congestion; and this could apparently be solved with a bit of road building ((and some of this involving slum clearance). Yes a motorway network needed to be built (all forward thinking countries would have them) and isn't that what the majority of voters aspired to - the lure of the open road in their own vehicle? We now know what these events have resulted in, but i'm not so sure it was at all obvious then. Some local objections for sure, but there wasn't exactly a massive outcry over the line closures when they took place.
A possible parallel - over the last few years many libraries have closed down, the victim of the need for local authorities to save money. Library usage has taken a massive dive over the last 20 years or so, for various reasons including greater affluence that people can afford to own their own books, competition from other media, kindles etc etc. There is some objection to the closures (not a massive outcry though), and although a certain amount of social necessity is recognised, financial considerations are largely nullifying this. The closed library infrastructure is being sold off with little thought that it may come back into use. Who knows what the next generation might think of this in different, unforeseeable circumstances of the future???
People say that, but Barbra Castle was a contemporary politician at the time, and she clearly saw the need for some services to be run on a social basis because she legislated for them, both for suburban and rural areas. So the idea that nobody thought about social need is a bit of a misnomer.
Dr Hoo
Established Member
To be quite clear, Barbara Castle recognised the need for "certain" commuter and rural services to be retained where there were no realistic alternatives.
The Network for Development of 1967, published jointly over the minister's and BRB Chairman's names (a 'conspiracy' if ever there was one), still envisaged further closures, such as Kyle of Lochalsh, Mallaig, Settle & Carlisle, Central Wales and Pwllheli.
This was a long way from an 'all/most Beeching closures were a mistake' position.
But it was a major step forward to enshrine the concept of subsidy, as already recognised by Beeching several years earlier; as noted previously.
The Network for Development of 1967, published jointly over the minister's and BRB Chairman's names (a 'conspiracy' if ever there was one), still envisaged further closures, such as Kyle of Lochalsh, Mallaig, Settle & Carlisle, Central Wales and Pwllheli.
This was a long way from an 'all/most Beeching closures were a mistake' position.
But it was a major step forward to enshrine the concept of subsidy, as already recognised by Beeching several years earlier; as noted previously.
It would have been better if justifications for retention other than "hardship" had been allowed. However it was a start, and certainly better than not allowing for any socially necessary lines to be retained, as was the position of the deeply flawed 1962 Act.
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