Our new ticketing site is now live! Using either this or the original site (both powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
Down in my area if the Three Bridges - Tunbridge Wells line had been retained we'd have much more extensive, usable and convenient local rail network with a large reduction in reliance on car transport. It'd have liberated rural West Kent and given them easy access to Gatwick Airport and negate the need for someone who lives in the East Grinstead conurbation to drive either 7 miles to Crawley or 11 miles to T Wells. As a result we now have the farce of going up to Croydon (or London) & back to access Gatwick Airport if you rely on the train. Crawley, East Grinstead and Forest Row were at the time were expanding even before closure.
This closure always puzzled me as services used to regularly run via the Three Bridges route with Gatwick Airport being created BEFORE the line was closed; so surely the powers at be saw the potential as a strategic link between the Central and South Eastern regions? As result we have appallingly slow bus services and chronic daily traffic issues in this area.
Worth noting that the Modernisation Plan explicitly heralded many locomotive-hauled stopping services being replaced by "appropriate road services" where DMUs were unlikely to "stimulate sufficient additional traffic". [Paragraph 67 on Page 20.]
Closure of stations had been an ongoing process. The new BR started 1948 with 5,703 passenger stations. At the end of 1961 (before the Beeching report) this figure was already down to 4,709. [Figures from relevant Annual Reports. There will have been a few transfers to London Transport, station 'mergers' and odd things like racecourse platforms but basically a reduction of nearly 1,000.]
The Modernisation Plan could hardly have recommended automatic level crossings or centralised traffic control on lightly used lines, at least on a widespread basis as a central initiative, because neither had then been used in Britain. I seem to remember from my time in Kent that the Sittingbourne-Sheerness branch was the first to be signalled from a 'power box' with a remote interlocking (on the Isle of Sheppey), in 1958. This was not a rationalisation and actually included some additional track doubling!
Probably the best example of this were the fortunes of the GC / GW lines from Marylebone. When transferred to London Midland it was run down in favour of the WCML - even into BR days, places like Banbury saw a sparse service and there was barely an service between London & Birmingham using the "old" GW route via High Wycombe, Banbury etc. It was only when, what are now, the Chiltern lines, were transferred to Western Region did things start to improve.
Was the reason for running down the GWR route between London and Birmingham not more that once the railway was nationalised, there was no simply need or justification for competing routes between the same places ? The same logic applies elsewhere, in particular regarding the GCR's London Extension. And given the fact that the LMR route to Birmingham was electrified, at great expense, as part of the wider scheme, it made sense to concentrate traffic there. IIRC the change in fortunes for the GWR's London/Birmingham route was a result of sectorisation, and to a much greater degree, privatisation - Which was meant to, and in this case did, encourage competition.
Was the reason for running down the GWR route between London and Birmingham not more that once the railway was nationalised, there was no simply need or justification for competing routes between the same places ? The same logic applies elsewhere, in particular regarding the GCR's London Extension. And given the fact that the LMR route to Birmingham was electrified, at great expense, as part of the wider scheme, it made sense to concentrate traffic there. IIRC the change in fortunes for the GWR's London/Birmingham route was a result of sectorisation, and to a much greater degree, privatisation - Which was meant to, and in this case did, encourage competition.
The GWR's London - Birmingham route passes through a lot of towns and population centres. This includes settlements from Banbury northward for which the route to London is more direct than via Oxford.
Encouraging all day leisure traffic from these places has probably had more of an effect than direct competition at the few places served by different companies.
Was the reason for running down the GWR route between London and Birmingham not more that once the railway was nationalised, there was no simply need or justification for competing routes between the same places ?
But apart from the start and end point they didn't compete - the WCML came into Birmingham via Rugby and Coventry whereas the GW line came through Leamington and Solihull. Further down the line (remembering Milton Keynes didn't exist as it does now) the WCML didn't really serve more sigbificant destinations than the GW route.
Down in my area if the Three Bridges - Tunbridge Wells line had been retained we'd have much more extensive, usable and convenient local rail network with a large reduction in reliance on car transport. It'd have liberated rural West Kent and given them easy access to Gatwick Airport and negate the need for someone who lives in the East Grinstead conurbation to drive either 7 miles to Crawley or 11 miles to T Wells. As a result we now have the farce of going up to Croydon (or London) & back to access Gatwick Airport if you rely on the train. Crawley, East Grinstead and Forest Row were at the time were expanding even before closure.
This closure always puzzled me as services used to regularly run via the Three Bridges route with Gatwick Airport being created BEFORE the line was closed; so surely the powers at be saw the potential as a strategic link between the Central and South Eastern regions? As result we have appallingly slow bus services and chronic daily traffic issues in this area.
I don't think trains ran via Three Bridges. They only ran from Three Bridges to East Grinstead, and in some eras beyond to Tunbridge Wells. For the last few years before closure, on weekdays the trains ran peak hours only, owing to the small numbers of passengers travelling.
There is already a strategic link between the Central and South Eastern Regions - the Redhill-Tonbridge line - not exactly known for its well used trains, and little to suggest that, if it had survived, the Three Bridges - East Grinstead - Tunbridge Wells line would have been any better used.
In 1967, when the line shut, the airline industry was only coming out of its infancy, and the expectation would have been that most people , as has turned out, would drive to the Airport.
There is already a strategic link between the Central and South Eastern Regions - the Redhill-Tonbridge line - not exactly known for its well used trains, and little to suggest that, if it had survived, the Three Bridges - East Grinstead - Tunbridge Wells line would have been any better used.
Crawley - East Grinstead - Forest Row - Tunbridge Wells sustains an hourly bus link which is more that can be said for Redhill - Oxted - Westerham - Sevenoaks, or any other potential route in the area.
With regard to the original question we have Germany as a comparison - a very similar network which didn't have a "big cull" like Beeching. The result was a slow drip of closures of stations and lines over a long period with a very similar outcome (and still ongoing). So if Beeching hadn't happened, there would still have been closures, though perhaps in some cases different ones.
The post-war govt didn't need to subsidise the bus network - it was making good money at that time, by and large. The railways were not, and required huge capital investment to modernise , so the solution was clear - close them down. By post-war the railways had lost the local passenger battle already - the time for Govt intervention for integration would have been the 1920s/1930s. However, countries that did that have had a pretty mixed bag of results, and often still didn't prevent closure of large amounts of their rail systems. By the time of the post-war govt the die was already cast.
No, wasn't suggesting the immediate post-war bus network was subsidised - the "what if" was if there wasn't any nationalisation & the govt subsidised the existing railway companies instead - who all already had some experience with bus operations. Thus they swap in buses ( lorries too I suppose ) for branch lines themselves as an integrated operation instead of waiting until the govt says "cut things or we stop funding you".
They should really have been one in the same. The modernisation plan wasn't remotely modern enough anyway. Start by trimming off all the operational elements just throwing cash away ( how many branch stations needed staffing? ), actually modernise freight top to bottom which would have the side effect of allowing track trimming, then you can weed out absolute basket cases, stick your pilot scheme DMUs etc on the marginals to see if they make the marginals work ( and if the DMUs keep breaking down, you're not killing an actually important service either ) - at that point you've pilot schemed not only diesels, but an entire new way of working the quieter parts of the railway and still discovered areas you can trim off. Basic railway was hardly a new idea, just one that seemed to be a little out of fashion. It's not an idea that had to wait for a modernisation plan to get started - staffing could have been cut no matter what you're running, but the other cost reduction elements not being in place wouldn't give a full picture.
I don't think trains ran via Three Bridges. They only ran from Three Bridges to East Grinstead, and in some eras beyond to Tunbridge Wells. For the last few years before closure, on weekdays the trains ran peak hours only, owing to the small numbers of passengers travelling.
There is already a strategic link between the Central and South Eastern Regions - the Redhill-Tonbridge line - not exactly known for its well used trains, and little to suggest that, if it had survived, the Three Bridges - East Grinstead - Tunbridge Wells line would have been any better used.
In 1967, when the line shut, the airline industry was only coming out of its infancy, and the expectation would have been that most people , as has turned out, would drive to the Airport.
If you look at a map, Tunbridge Wells - Three Bridges passes through a lot more population settlement than Tonbridge - Redhill (which let's not forget was primarily built to be the London - Dover main line). Had it survived a little bit longer, I can't help but think an extension of services to Gatwick could have secured it.
But apart from the start and end point they didn't compete - the WCML came into Birmingham via Rugby and Coventry whereas the GW line came through Leamington and Solihull.
True, but the line didn't close, and Banbury, Leamington and Solihull retained through trains to both London and Birmingham; Although I agree the service to the former wasn't great, especially after most trains were diverted via Oxford and Reading for greater traffic potential. And Solihull lost out when trains were diverted via Coventry.
But, thanks arguably to privatisation, those three stations now have their best ever service to London !
I discovered another no-hoper railway today, one which would have closed regardless. Stafford to Newport (Shropshire), which these days forms part of NCN Route 55. It runs through so much rural territory, it had no hope of surviving in a modern world. It sure wouldn't today either, even if the full trackbed was available.
Does anyone know what railway used to be in place where the Isabel Trail is now in Stafford?
One could argue that there was a subsidy of sorts. Bus operators had the 'Fuel Tax Rebate' (i.e., didn't pay tax on fuel) and, certainly in the 1960s and 1970s, (not sure before) the licence fee for a single deck bus was cheaper than that for a car (because the former was based on number of seats, and this was only level with car tax at about 50 seats).
One might also argue that these are 'taxes' not 'charges' but they are the only payments that the bus companies made towards their use of infrastructure and, as they are lower than other users, that could be regarded as a subsidy.
And I won't mention the 'New Bus Grant'...
One could argue that there was a subsidy of sorts. Bus operators had the 'Fuel Tax Rebate' (i.e., didn't pay tax on fuel) and, certainly in the 1960s and 1970s, (not sure before) the licence fee for a single deck bus was cheaper than that for a car (because the former was based on number of seats, and this was only level with car tax at about 50 seats).
One might also argue that these are 'taxes' not 'charges' but they are the only payments that the bus companies made towards their use of infrastructure and, as they are lower than other users, that could be regarded as a subsidy.
And I won't mention the 'New Bus Grant'...
Yes, they were a subsidy, but a small one at that, and were blanket reductions to avoid fares increases (fuel duty rebate was introduced at the time of the Suez crisis) and therefore keep inflation down. Bus fares were regulated much longer than railway fares. The railways don't / didn't pay fuel tax either. These indirect 'subsidies' were never used to influence the services provided or induce integration etc. New Bus Grant, introduced in 1968, was to assist the bus industry to move speedily from crew operated to one-man buses at a time when the industry needed efficiencies due to losing custom to private cars - a bit like the railway modernisation money of the previous decade, but much less cash. Of course it also helped employment in bus manufacturing at that time, but I suspect also caused new bus prices to spiral upwards!!
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
There are some more nuanced "what if's" which are also interesting to contemplate. For example, what if the region's had been allowed to go through their more gradual weeding out of branch lines, rather than going through a top-down process of cuts as advocated by Beeching. Would we have more network today, or would the same level of closures have occurred, just over a longer period.
What if the government had maintained individual grants for services, rather than switching to a block subsidy. Would it have removed the incentive for later closures such as Bridport ?
What if the common carrier obligation had been scrapped prior to the implementation of the modernisation plan. Would more savings have been stacked up on passenger routes leading to fewer closures ? etc
The problem with any of these 'what-ifs' is their selective nature - in this case it all boils down to 'what if the govt of the day was prepared to spend more money subsidising the railways' either as they modernised and/or to slow the closure program over more years [what for?]. Surely the top-down process involving Beeching was born out of the slowness of the Regions to close lines and save money, as well as to ensure that the investment in those parts of the railway with a future was done on a consistent basis to a national plan. Not that the Regions were entirely to blame - Beeching had to pressure Govt to streamline the closure legal process in order to implement the plan timeously. It is inconceivable that a large organisation needing major changes would not have one champion for those changes - the debacle of the Western Region having a different diesel traction policy to the others shows us that.
I am not sure how maintaining individual grants for services or the block subsidy would have made any difference - the Bridport line was clearly a no-hoper that would have been picked off as soon as savings were demanded, a frequent occurrence in that era.
The railways of the UK were caught in a particular vortex at that time - had they been centrally planned from construction there would have been fewer lines; had they been nationalised in 1923 then large scale replacement of local passenger trains and lines by buses (and their integration into the main lines) could more easily have taken place in the late 20s/early 30s ; had WW2 not happened, so the infrastructure and rolling stock wasn't worn out and the country bankrupted; had wages not been kept artificially low and then forced to rise sharply at the beginning of the 60s, to co-incide with the collapse of domestic coal demand and rise of private car and motor lorry use.
But the modernisation plan did - invest in diesels to save the increasing costs of running steam locomotives, marshalling yards to save the costs of flat shunting etc etc. And we all scoff at how much of this money was seemingly wasted. The alternative universe is 'What if the Modernisation plan funding was much bigger...' to which we would now be scoffing at how much was spent on automating level crossings on lines that were subsequently closed in the 1980s or some such. Nothing short of discovering Gold and Diamonds at Powerstock would have saved the Bridport branch.
What happened to the railways of the UK happened to the railways of most other countries, in one way or another; those which it hasn't have usually got a fundamental difference in their geography, density and/or development history to account for it.
But the modernisation plan did - invest in diesels to save the increasing costs of running steam locomotives, marshalling yards to save the costs of flat shunting etc etc. And we all scoff at how much of this money was seemingly wasted. The alternative universe is 'What if the Modernisation plan funding was much bigger...' to which we would now be scoffing at how much was spent on automating level crossings on lines that were subsequently closed in the 1980s or some such. Nothing short of discovering Gold and Diamonds at Powerstock would have saved the Bridport branch.
We ( or at least I ) scoff because the plan might have brought "diesels", and supposedly improved freight management - but the diesels were bought from anyone who could build a locomotive and then the pilot scheme was effiectively skipped so we *did* end up wasting cash on ill-tested junk - and the real revoliution in freight management started not an awfully large number of years later partly championed by the axe-man himself. Hump-shunting RCH-era wagons to have them trundle off at low speed to either another yard or a horribly inefficient transshipment centre wasn't modern, that's a slightly centralised version of the way it always had been. That's a different view from looking back & saying "well all that was a waste" because all the industry it was built for died off, which is why I also say - 25 years life for an AHB if it shut in the 80s? that seems a reasonable investment to me if it was a sound decision at the time it was taken. If the area the line served was already in terminal decline then no it wasn't a sound decision at the time, but then neither would be keeping the line at all. If it made the line economical at the time, then of course it's a good decision.
And no, nothing sane would have saved the Bridport branch.
To me the stupid mistake was separating buses and railways within the BTC at nationalisation. The railways were big players in the bus industry between the wars. They held shared in Tilling and BET concrns as well as forming joint operating committees with municipals in Yorkshire.
For they saw buses as a cheap way to penetrate areas with insifficient traffic to justify a railway.
But no. We ended with the National Bus Company and BR going their own sweet ways, and privatisation on quite different models.
We ( or at least I ) scoff because the plan might have brought "diesels", and supposedly improved freight management - but the diesels were bought from anyone who could build a locomotive and then the pilot scheme was effiectively skipped so we *did* end up wasting cash on ill-tested junk - and the real revoliution in freight management started not an awfully large number of years later partly championed by the axe-man himself. Hump-shunting RCH-era wagons to have them trundle off at low speed to either another yard or a horribly inefficient transshipment centre wasn't modern, that's a slightly centralised version of the way it always had been. That's a different view from looking back & saying "well all that was a waste" because all the industry it was built for died off, which is why I also say - 25 years life for an AHB if it shut in the 80s? that seems a reasonable investment to me if it was a sound decision at the time it was taken. If the area the line served was already in terminal decline then no it wasn't a sound decision at the time, but then neither would be keeping the line at all. If it made the line economical at the time, then of course it's a good decision.
And no, nothing sane would have saved the Bridport branch.
I suspect that the problem with the modernisation plan was 'where do you start?' , as the railway was so horribly outdated and worn out. It is easy to criticise with our 20/20 hindsight, but no doubt the thought would have gone to dealing with the problems of the there and now, plus having to deal with both the external and internal politics - buying proven diesels would have meant the USA, whom we were hugely in debt to and couldn't afford to increase that debt, plus the fate of British (steam) locomotive manufacturers and their workforces. The internal politics of organisations mean that taking decisions of closing/ streamlining large portions are particularly difficult to take, without some outside impetus. If we look back at the modernisation plan now (assuming no more money was available) we would probably go for electrification of the main lines then and still close the rest, but steam traction still had to be replaced on every line no matter what. Would spending more or all the money on electrification merely caused even greater shrinkage of the network, to contain the losses?
Modernising loss making branch lines and secondary routes would never have have been a good investment decision. The savings that could be made would likely never have paid for the capital costs involved, and the lines still closed, even if a few years later.
'What if' the government had supervised the building of the railways - less railways? 'What if' the railways had got out of the rural local and secondary passenger rail business to buses in the 1930s, and these bus services had been integrated with the main lines? We may have ended up with a few more 'borderline' secondary routes with trains on? We wouldn't have ended up with lines hamstrung by poor interchange at multiple stations in the same town/city. However by 1960 we were where we were!
We still have a pretty dense railway network. There are not many countries with any denser. Most countries have gone through closure programmes in one way or another. We are not some outlier.
RT4038 makes a good point, we still have a pretty decent network of lines as it is, so we should be grateful for that. I'd say in general terms we don't do too bad really, a lot of places with no railway have buses and/or coaches which link to railways a lot of the time. It would be great if it was all integrated fully, but that's a bit of a challenge to do even in an ideal world.
I suspect that the problem with the modernisation plan was 'where do you start?' , as the railway was so horribly outdated and worn out. It is easy to criticise with our 20/20 hindsight, but no doubt the thought would have gone to dealing with the problems of the there and now, plus having to deal with both the external and internal politics - buying proven diesels would have meant the USA, whom we were hugely in debt to and couldn't afford to increase that debt, plus the fate of British (steam) locomotive manufacturers and their workforces.
I suspect it was easy to criticise even at the time, in the book 'The Train That Ran Away' about BR through its nationalisation, Modernisation, Beeching, the picture that forms is quite damning, even from a perspective far closer to the time. Other countries like the USA having experimented and perfected diesel locomotives all the way back in the 1930s, meanwhile BR was still developing large numbers of new steam locomotive designs right up until the 1950s. The impression forms of an industry where the senior management were largely yesterday's men, their experience from a different era and stuck in a time warp leaving them reluctant to adopt new technology and adapt to the revolution in transport which the motor vehicle had brought.
Somewhat ironically, both the first MCB level crossing (at Warthill on the York-Market Weighton-Beverley line, installed in 1959) and the first AHB crossing (at Spath on the Uttoxeter-Ashbourne/Leek line, installed in 1961) were on lines which were closed only a handful of years later under the Beeching plan.
I discovered another no-hoper railway today, one which would have closed regardless. Stafford to Newport (Shropshire), which these days forms part of NCN Route 55. It runs through so much rural territory, it had no hope of surviving in a modern world. It sure wouldn't today either, even if the full trackbed was available.
Does anyone know what railway used to be in place where the Isabel Trail is now in Stafford?
Possibly a bit unfair, apparently the Midland had a monopoly of rail traffic into Derby which back when rail was king was holding back the development of Derby and local industry, so the city encouraged the extra line to provide some competition. It probably made reasonable sense at the time it was built and still would if rail had retained its share of passenger and freight traffic.
Somewhat ironically, both the first MCB level crossing (at Warthill on the York-Market Weighton-Beverley line, installed in 1959) and the first AHB crossing (at Spath on the Uttoxeter-Ashbourne/Leek line, installed in 1961) were on lines which were closed only a handful of years later under the Beeching plan.
Quite! But even if there had been more money available for such things, surely BR would have gone for investing in eliminating manual crossings and resignalling on the lines that they wished to retain (which still has some way to go), or electrification, rather than sinking cash into no-hoper branch and secondary lines. The 'what if' assumption has to be a heroic quantity of cash available in 1955 and since before these kind of lines got anything, which in the meantime the losses would have been dragging the country's economy down and no doubt leaving the Inter City railway in a much worse competitive condition, probably resulting in much more being closed later in a slough of deferred maintenance and starvation of investment.
There is no way that any political party in the 1960s would have got away with pouring more money into the railways at the expense of road construction - the voting public, and businesses, wanted the freedom and convenience of the private motor vehicle, away from being reliant on railway management and trade unions. Some countries did try to act like King Canute, but all have been swept away and their inefficient (caused by their monopoly position) railway systems rapidly shrunk in the aftermath.
I only know it by the Isabel Trail as that was on the blue signs. It forms part of National Cycle Network Route 5 if that helps? It certainly sounds like the one you describe, Doxey Marsh sounds familiar.
Thanks for the information, it sounds like a railway which would have its uses. Stafford to Uttoxter certainly sounds like it would be beneficial, but it's a part of the county I know nothing about.
Possibly a bit unfair, apparently the Midland had a monopoly of rail traffic into Derby which back when rail was king was holding back the development of Derby and local industry, so the city encouraged the extra line to provide some competition. It probably made reasonable sense at the time it was built and still would if rail had retained its share of passenger and freight traffic.
Sorry, I was referring to the Uttoxeter - Stafford line; can understand why the GN wanted access to Derby and, indeed, Burton for the beer!
That the link to Stafford lost its passenger service in 1939 (it may have been briefly reinstated just after the war) and its through freight services in the very early 1950s suggests it was pretty limited in usefulness.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
I only know it by the Isabel Trail as that was on the blue signs. It forms part of National Cycle Network Route 5 if that helps? It certainly sounds like the one you describe, Doxey Marsh sounds familiar.
Thanks for the information, it sounds like a railway which would have its uses. Stafford to Uttoxter certainly sounds like it would be beneficial, but it's a part of the county I know nothing about.
Having checked, the Isabel Trail* is indeed the old Stafford - Uttoxeter line.
It was built as a local enterprise, entered receivership within a few years of opening, was hawked around various potential buyers and was eventually bought by the Great Northern. It runs through good farming land but the intermediate places it served were tiny. There were suggestions that it could be used for cattle traffic from Wales (using running powers over the LNW & GW via Wellington to Shrewsbury) though I'm not sure that would have amounted to much (and would have required reversal at Stafford). Salt - the material - was I believe mined/panned/whatever in Stafford and offered some traffic; Salt - the place - was a destination for some excursion traffic, but none of it amounted to much. The introduction of a bus service in 1938 seems to have killed off most passenger demand.
* I assume the name Isabel comes from the Stafford-built Bagnall steam loco that used to be on display in Victoria Park, opposite Stafford station?
Genuinely no idea where the name Isabel came from, so your guess is as good as mine! For all I know it came from a local well known, well liked person who frequented the route and it's named in memory of her? That's only my guess!
There seems to be a lot of long-gone railways that served tiny places with next to no demand. Looking at my Sustrans map, there's a lot of such places in Staffordshire and Shropshire, but we'd be here all day discussing them all!
Surprised though I be that we haven't really discussed the more interesting/useful bits that have gone. Such as Blackpool Central, that would be incredibly useful. I wonder what might have happened if the Cross City line had extended beyond Lichfield up to Burton-on-Trent?
Also, thanks for the information there on the Stafford-Uttoxter-Derby line, I think part of the line between Uttoxter and Derby might actually form part of the National Cycle Network, Route 54 or similar. I'd have to check!
Genuinely no idea where the name Isabel came from, so your guess is as good as mine! For all I know it came from a local well known, well liked person who frequented the route and it's named in memory of her? That's only my guess!
According to Wikipedia, the trail is named after Lady Isabel Stafford, who successfully defended Stafford Castle against the parliamentary forces during a siege in the Civil War in 1643.
According to Wikipedia, the trail is named after Lady Isabel Stafford, who successfully defended Stafford Castle against the parliamentary forces during a siege in the Civil War in 1643.
The problem with any of these 'what-ifs' is their selective nature - in this case it all boils down to 'what if the govt of the day was prepared to spend more money subsidising the railways' either as they modernised and/or to slow the closure program over more years [what for?]. Surely the top-down process involving Beeching was born out of the slowness of the Regions to close lines and save money, as well as to ensure that the investment in those parts of the railway with a future was done on a consistent basis to a national plan. Not that the Regions were entirely to blame - Beeching had to pressure Govt to streamline the closure legal process in order to implement the plan timeously. It is inconceivable that a large organisation needing major changes would not have one champion for those changes - the debacle of the Western Region having a different diesel traction policy to the others shows us that.
I am not sure how maintaining individual grants for services or the block subsidy would have made any difference - the Bridport line was clearly a no-hoper that would have been picked off as soon as savings were demanded, a frequent occurrence in that era.
The railways of the UK were caught in a particular vortex at that time - had they been centrally planned from construction there would have been fewer lines; had they been nationalised in 1923 then large scale replacement of local passenger trains and lines by buses (and their integration into the main lines) could more easily have taken place in the late 20s/early 30s ; had WW2 not happened, so the infrastructure and rolling stock wasn't worn out and the country bankrupted; had wages not been kept artificially low and then forced to rise sharply at the beginning of the 60s, to co-incide with the collapse of domestic coal demand and rise of private car and motor lorry use.
But the modernisation plan did - invest in diesels to save the increasing costs of running steam locomotives, marshalling yards to save the costs of flat shunting etc etc. And we all scoff at how much of this money was seemingly wasted. The alternative universe is 'What if the Modernisation plan funding was much bigger...' to which we would now be scoffing at how much was spent on automating level crossings on lines that were subsequently closed in the 1980s or some such. Nothing short of discovering Gold and Diamonds at Powerstock would have saved the Bridport branch.
What happened to the railways of the UK happened to the railways of most other countries, in one way or another; those which it hasn't have usually got a fundamental difference in their geography, density and/or development history to account for it.
I think the point is that the difference between survival and oblivion for a passenger line could be wafer thin (I refer to my example of the Marshlink compared to the mid-hants).
Obviously the modernisation programme was forced to waste money propping up a number of dead and dieing freight flows. Had more of this money been diverted away from marshalling yards and towards efficient working of passenger lines, we might not have ended up with a hawkish closure obsessive such as Beeching, and more passenger routes might have made it over the line into survival.
The point about grant subsidy is pertinent. If the management know that they can't spend it on anywhere else, there's less incentive to close the line.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
We ( or at least I ) scoff because the plan might have brought "diesels", and supposedly improved freight management - but the diesels were bought from anyone who could build a locomotive and then the pilot scheme was effiectively skipped so we *did* end up wasting cash on ill-tested junk - and the real revoliution in freight management started not an awfully large number of years later partly championed by the axe-man himself. Hump-shunting RCH-era wagons to have them trundle off at low speed to either another yard or a horribly inefficient transshipment centre wasn't modern, that's a slightly centralised version of the way it always had been. That's a different view from looking back & saying "well all that was a waste" because all the industry it was built for died off, which is why I also say - 25 years life for an AHB if it shut in the 80s? that seems a reasonable investment to me if it was a sound decision at the time it was taken. If the area the line served was already in terminal decline then no it wasn't a sound decision at the time, but then neither would be keeping the line at all. If it made the line economical at the time, then of course it's a good decision.
And no, nothing sane would have saved the Bridport branch.
The Eastern Region clearly thought that York - Market Weighton was worth investing in money saving equipment, as it had already bought it before the hatchet man turned up.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
Quite! But even if there had been more money available for such things, surely BR would have gone for investing in eliminating manual crossings and resignalling on the lines that they wished to retain (which still has some way to go), or electrification, rather than sinking cash into no-hoper branch and secondary lines.
The point is that the railway industry did wish to retain York - Beverley, hence why they were investing in it. It was only the top-down consultant parachuted in from outside that decided to close it.
And lets not forget, electrification was one thing the industry was very interested in back to the modernisation plan. The lions share of that investment (with the exception of the closed bit of Woodhead) served the railway well beyond its design life.
I think the point is that the difference between survival and oblivion for a passenger line could be wafer thin (I refer to my example of the Marshlink compared to the mid-hants).
Obviously the modernisation programme was forced to waste money propping up a number of dead and dieing freight flows. Had more of this money been diverted away from marshalling yards and towards efficient working of passenger lines, we might not have ended up with a hawkish closure obsessive such as Beeching, and more passenger routes might have made it over the line into survival.
The point about grant subsidy is pertinent. If the management know that they can't spend it on anywhere else, there's less incentive to close the line.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
The Eastern Region clearly thought that York - Market Weighton was worth investing in money saving equipment, as it had already bought it before the hatchet man turned up.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
The point is that the railway industry did wish to retain York - Beverley, hence why they were investing in it. It was only the top-down consultant parachuted in from outside that decided to close it.
The biggest problem with your post ognores the fact that, as even the Beeching report points out, freight receipts were, in 1961, amost *double* those of passenger revenues - £ 307m vs £ 158m. And operating freight trains was less costly than passenger trains as well.
Freight has long been a more profitable income than passenger and many of the marginal lines you espouse wouldn't have been built, let one survived if not for freight.
We are aware of an issue with emails from the Forum to Microsoft-based email accounts (hotmail/outlook/live.com email addresses). This is being looked into currently, thanks for your patience meanwhile.
