Short-sightedness of 1960s line closures

[BayPaul]

In most cases people are talking about the land associated with the route, the track-bed and this could have been protected by converting it into a footpath or cycle route, which has been done in some cases.



What loss has occurred here? Most urban tram routes ran along roads and the roads still exist, they haven't been closed, it isn't feasible to leave the worn, disused tram rails in the road for 70+ years, but if you had the money to rebuild the tramlines many could be run along the same routes today. It isn't like the disused railway example, where 97% of the route is still available but someone has built something in the middle 3% of it.

The land could have been protected, but that has an expensive opportunity cost, compared to selling it as building land. Once you've decided that the line is a complete basket case, and rail traffic is on a plunge into the abyss, it takes a very forward thinking person to add 'but in the future that may change, so we're going to spend a lot of money preparing for that possibility.

With trams, I was thinking it is a shame they closed, rather than just protecting the rights of way. It was a fairly short period of time between trams being considered archaic, and lines starting to open again. Given the ridiculously high cost of opening new lines, having routes in situ and operation would surely mean we'd have much more working mileage now, in places it would be far more utilised than beeching rural closures

 

[yorksrob]

Arguing about protecting track beds is a red herring. The reality is that the closure programme in the 1960's was pushed through with now accountability and little scrutiny. The policy was rejected at the ballot box - labour won in 1964 with a pledge to halt the cuts, yet the policy was continued.

Route mileage reduction was pursued as an end in itself and as a result, too many lines were closed.

 

[Eyersey468]

Arguing about protecting track beds is a red herring. The reality is that the closure programme in the 1960's was pushed through with now accountability and little scrutiny. The policy was rejected at the ballot box - labour won in 1964 with a pledge to halt the cuts, yet the policy was continued.

Route mileage reduction was pursued as an end in itself and as a result, too many lines were closed.

I agree the closure programme went too far, though I suspect a lot of the lines that closed in 1963/4 would probably have closed anyway even without the Beeching report

 

[bingleybong]

As another poster has mentioned, I'd argue a much greater loss to modern Britain were the dozens of urban tramlines. Had they survived to the point where they could have become modern mass transit systems, our cities would probably be very different places.

Trams (and trollybusses) were even worse hit by capital and running cost issues than railways were. The majority of both tracks and vehicles were old and needed wholesale replacement and busses were cheaper and much more flexible. There was also the rather nuts situation that the only British supplier of tramway contact wire (BICC) for some reason stopped making it, import duties made getting it elsewhere unaffordable so even some otherwise viable systems closed. Add that diesel was much cheaper than electricity in the 50s/60s and the nationalisation of electricity had stopped local authorities running tram systems from generating their own wholesale closures were inevitable.

These were a very great loss, had tram systems made it into the mid 70s, even with urban railway closures, we could now have far more of the light rail systems fed directly by former heavy rail suburban systems than we do, Leeds being an obvious candidate.

 

[Eyersey468]

Trams (and trollybusses) were even worse hit by capital and running cost issues than railways were. The majority of both tracks and vehicles were old and needed wholesale replacement and busses were cheaper and much more flexible. There was also the rather nuts situation that the only British supplier of tramway contact wire (BICC) for some reason stopped making it, import duties made getting it elsewhere unaffordable so even some otherwise viable systems closed. Add that diesel was much cheaper than electricity in the 50s/60s and the nationalisation of electricity had stopped local authorities running tram systems from generating their own wholesale closures were inevitable.

These were a very great loss, had tram systems made it into the mid 70s, even with urban railway closures, we could now have far more of the light rail systems fed directly by former heavy rail suburban systems than we do, Leeds being an obvious candidate.

The other problem with trams was there were a lot of new housing estates built after the war on the edge of towns and the tram systems couldn't cover them without major investment.

 

[Falcon1200]

I'm not sure why you'd go to the expense of making infrastructure changes to the Acle route, when you already have capacity in place via Berney Arms.

Indeed, if such additional capacity was really needed would it not have been provided in the heyday of rail travel, by the GER or the LNER ? If it was not needed then, it certainly isn't now !

labour won in 1964 with a pledge to halt the cuts, yet the policy was continued.

Presumably Labour found, as does every new administration, that what they had promised when in opposition was not always achievable when in power ?

 

[yorksrob]

Indeed, if such additional capacity was really needed would it not have been provided in the heyday of rail travel, by the GER or the LNER ? If it was not needed then, it certainly isn't now !



Presumably Labour found, as does every new administration, that what they had promised when in opposition was not always achievable when in power ?

I don't think it was a complete stop to closures promised, rather a pause to re-evaluate and plan the network. Nevertheless, it didn't happen and the closures continued until provision for the social railway was made.

 

[zwk500]

Indeed, if such additional capacity was really needed would it not have been provided in the heyday of rail travel, by the GER or the LNER ? If it was not needed then, it certainly isn't now !

The route via Acle was formerly double track.

 

[Falcon1200]

The route via Acle was formerly double track.

Thanks, I didn't know that (clearly !)

 

[Magdalia]

The route via Acle was formerly double track.

Are you sure about that?

I think that Brundall to Breydon Junction has always been single track with a passing loop at Acle.

 

[daodao]

Indeed, if such additional capacity was really needed would it not have been provided in the heyday of rail travel, by the GER or the LNER ? If it was not needed then, it certainly isn't now !

Until 1959, there were alternative direct routes to Yarmouth, terminating at Beach and South Town stations, the former originally being the terminus of the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway. South Town station survived until 1970, but was only served via Lowestoft after 1959. The rundown of rail services to Yarmouth thus took place before the 1960s. By then, road transport (coach and private car) had taken over much of the travelling to seaside resorts.

Is there now any real need to provide more than a half hourly service from Norwich to Yarmouth at peak times? If not, this could be accommodated using the route via Acle with its passing place there, allowing a 6 minute turnaround time at Yarmouth; the line from Yarmouth to Reedham could be closed.

 

[yorksrob]

Until 1959, there were alternative direct routes to Yarmouth, terminating at Beach and South Town stations, the former originally being the terminus of the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway. South Town station survived until 1970, but was only served via Lowestoft after 1959. The rundown of rail services to Yarmouth thus took place before the 1960s. By then, road transport (coach and private car) had taken over much of the travelling to seaside resorts.

Is there now any real need to provide more than a half hourly service from Norwich to Yarmouth at peak times? If not, this could be accommodated using the route via Acle with its passing place there, allowing a 6 minute turnaround time at Yarmouth; the line from Yarmouth to Reedham could be closed.

You could,. but then you're a hostage to fortune in terms of late running, disruption and breakdowns etc.

The only sensible solution is to keep the Berney Arms line in place as now.

 

[RT4038]

The route via Acle was formerly double track.

No it wasn't. If it had been the Berney Arms route would have gone long ago. (effectively this was the double track)

 

[zwk500]

No it wasn't.

Fair enough. Wikipedia was unsourced so I wasn't 100% sure but following the formation on Google maps it certainly appears wide enough to have taken 2.

 

[Bald Rick]

Fair enough. Wikipedia was unsourced so I wasn't 100% sure but following the formation on Google maps it certainly appears wide enough to have taken 2.

The formation isn’t wide enough for two - it’s definitely only ever been single track.

 

[zwk500]

The formation isn’t wide enough for two - it’s definitely only ever been single track.

That teaches me to follow the unsourced bits of Wikipedia!

 

[Brush 4]

As usual, the debate lurches between the two extremes, they all should have closed to none of them should have closed. So, lets be specific. Which shouldn't have closed not with hindsight though, those that were considered then to be a mistake and a short-sighted decision. The Varsity line (east-west) was that considered a mistake then?

The rose tinted view sometimes clouds the issue. It is a shame that the S&D was and still is thought of as a single entity. If considered as just a line that went from Bath to Bournemouth, the section south of Templecombe might have been reprieved, as it would be a useful link to the Exeter line from the Poole/Bournemouth conurbation, either by reversing as before or by building a direct curve to the east of the village pointing west. Broadstone Parkway for Wimborne. Keeping the reverse would obviously be cheaper and at Gloucester, BR deliberately created a reverse by closing Gloucester Eastgate in 1975, when trains were still loco hauled. Closing central sections to turn a through route into a branch line was also a good trick, that starved the remaining sections of revenue.

Perhaps the partial answer is provided by those that have reopened or are reopening Aberdare, Ebbw Vale, Maesteg, Barry-Bridgend, Mansfield, East-West, Ashington, Fawley, Okehampton. Were those considered short-sighted in the 60's or, only later with hindsight?

 

[A0]

Arguing about protecting track beds is a red herring. The reality is that the closure programme in the 1960's was pushed through with now accountability and little scrutiny. The policy was rejected at the ballot box - labour won in 1964 with a pledge to halt the cuts, yet the policy was continued.

Route mileage reduction was pursued as an end in itself and as a result, too many lines were closed.

The reality is that Labour were going to win the '64 election whatever they'd proposed on Beeching. To pretend the '64 election was some form of referendum on Beeching is both dishonest and disingenuous.

 

[A0]

As usual, the debate lurches between the two extremes, they all should have closed to none of them should have closed. So, lets be specific. Which shouldn't have closed not with hindsight though, those that were considered then to be a mistake and a short-sighted decision. The Varsity line (east-west) was that considered a mistake then?

Bit in bold - Just to be clear, Oxford - Cambridge *wasn't* a proposed Beeching closure - that was a BR management one.

If you look at Map 9 on this (the maps published as part of Reshaping of Britain's Railways) https://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/docsummary.php?docID=35 it's clear Oxford - Bletchley - Cambridge was to remain unchanged.

 

[Irascible]

I don't think it was a complete stop to closures promised, rather a pause to re-evaluate and plan the network. Nevertheless, it didn't happen and the closures continued until provision for the social railway was made.

Closures continuned well past the Beeching report - I have suspected interests in there somewhat past any Marples connection people focus on but noone really seems to look at the MoT in that govt. The civil servants/BR mgt involved are likely the same ones as the previous govt, surely.

As usual, the debate lurches between the two extremes, they all should have closed to none of them should have closed. So, lets be specific. Which shouldn't have closed not with hindsight though, those that were considered then to be a mistake and a short-sighted decision. The Varsity line (east-west) was that considered a mistake then?

The rose tinted view sometimes clouds the issue. It is a shame that the S&D was and still is thought of as a single entity. If considered as just a line that went from Bath to Bournemouth, the section south of Templecombe might have been reprieved, as it would be a useful link to the Exeter line from the Poole/Bournemouth conurbation, either by reversing as before or by building a direct curve to the east of the village pointing west. Broadstone Parkway for Wimborne. Keeping the reverse would obviously be cheaper and at Gloucester, BR deliberately created a reverse by closing Gloucester Eastgate in 1975, when trains were still loco hauled. Closing central sections to turn a through route into a branch line was also a good trick, that starved the remaining sections of revenue.

Perhaps the partial answer is provided by those that have reopened or are reopening Aberdare, Ebbw Vale, Maesteg, Barry-Bridgend, Mansfield, East-West, Ashington, Fawley, Okehampton. Were those considered short-sighted in the 60's or, only later with hindsight?

The UK population in 1962 was apparently 53m - part of the opening question was whether closures were short-sighted, so any answer really has to consider if an extra 15m population was predictable in 1962, whether fuel prices driving people out of cars/car ownership by the late 90s was predictable, and whether looking that long term with all it's possible paths ( especially mid-cold-war ) is something that should have been done.

One wonders why the SR never put any south-to-west curves in - neither Templecombe or Yeovil have one. While there *is* some traffic from the southwest to Bournemouth ( as the road will tell you ) I don't know if it's really enough to support keeping that part of the S&D all on it's own - is there anything else that could use it, or could have used it but isn't around in any form anymore?. Reversing at Templecombe would add a noticeable chunk of time, driving a couple of miles the wrong way, sitting around waiting for the signal lockout & then a couple of miles just to get back to where you were. Reversing in a station at least combines the stop itself.

 

[Eyersey468]

The reality is that Labour were going to win the '64 election whatever they'd proposed on Beeching. To pretend the '64 election was some form of referendum on Beeching is both dishonest and disingenuous.

Why was it certain Labour would win the 64 election?

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Why was it certain Labour would win the 64 election?

It wasn't was it? Although the opinion pollsters had predicted a swing to Labour, I'm fairly sure that Harold Wilson only won the election by a handful of seats. What did for the Conservatives was arguably the relatively unpopularity of the incumbent Sir Alec Douglas-Home.

 

[D6130]

The other problem with trams was there were a lot of new housing estates built after the war on the edge of towns and the tram systems couldn't cover them without major investment.

Leeds was a notable exception....and the reserved tracks in the centre of the suburban dual carriageways for the 1930's tramway extensions to the big new estates like Middleton and Seacroft - currently used in many cases as guided busways - could easily accommodate tramlines once again.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 Aug 2022 ==

I agree the closure programme went too far, though I suspect a lot of the lines that closed in 1963/4 would probably have closed anyway even without the Beeching report

While a lot of branch lines were obviously economic basket cases, some strategic long distance routes - especially in Scotland - were also closed. The most glaring examples are Dumfries-Stranraer ('The Port Road') and Carlisle-Edinburgh ('The Waverley Route'). With a little modernisation here and there, the former would have been very useful for the burgeoning freight traffic between England and Northern Ireland, which would have hopefully cross-subsidised both the local and long-distance passenger traffic. Had the outbreak of the troubles in Northern Ireland - and the relative movements of troops and equipment - been foreseen in the Beeching report, I suspect that this line may have been reprieved. The Waverley Route, although serving a minimal poulation South of Hawick, had a fairly buoyant passenger traffic North thereof and a lot of freight traffic over the whole line. The 'Glenfarg Route', from Cowdenbeath to Perth via Kinross, was the shortest and fastest route between Edinburgh, Perth and Inverness....but the Scottish Office were desperate to get hold of it as a cut-price route for the M90 motorway, so through rail passengers were condemned to the longer and slower routes via Stirling or Ladybank.

 

[A0]

Why was it certain Labour would win the 64 election?

They had a young leader who was considered "vibrant" and the future. The Conservatives had been in power for 13 years and had been rocked by things like Profumo. They'd selected Alec Douglas Home as leader who was considered out of touch compared to Wilson - much the same situation as 1997.

So whilst election outcomes are never "certain" until the votes are counted, Labour were favourites to win.

 

[tbtc]

If people honestly want to believe that the 1964 election was primarily a referendum on railway closures (rather than any other issue), I wonder how they explain that, after Labour continuing to close lines, Wilson’s party gained a further forty seven seats in the March 1966 election, with the Tories losing over fifty?

You’d think that, if Rail was seen as as important to the general public as some here would like to believe, there’d have been a huge defeat for them, rather than winning even more seats… funny…

But then, it’s always “other peoples” fault that lines closed. Note how people here like to praise BR for all the good things that happened during that era but any blame for things like closures is carefully attributed to one political party or the other. Nasty Labour and Tory parties, nothing is the fault of a profligate railway that saw costs out of control, oh no…

(the only exception being the occasional suggestion that some envious middle manager was responsible for closing one route over another on a parallel corridor primarily based on which “region” they had belonged to in an earlier era, e.g. the GC was unfairly targeted because of some grudge between ex-LMS/LNER staff or whatever… there’s a conspiracy theory for everyone if you want to ignore reality though!)

 

[Magdalia]

Bit in bold - Just to be clear, Oxford - Cambridge *wasn't* a proposed Beeching closure - that was a BR management one.

If you look at Map 9 on this (the maps published as part of Reshaping of Britain's Railways) https://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/docsummary.php?docID=35 it's clear Oxford - Bletchley - Cambridge was to remain unchanged.

But Peterborough-Leicester, which was proposed as a Beeching closure, survived. This became the east-west link between the ECML and the MML that was closest to London. The impression I get, from reading BRB papers, is that the LMR were the main driving force behind this change.

Closures continuned well past the Beeching report - I have suspected interests in there somewhat past any Marples connection people focus on but noone really seems to look at the MoT in that govt. The civil servants/BR mgt involved are likely the same ones as the previous govt, surely.

The 1968 Transport Act is important here. It introduced grant aid to keep lines open, but it was done on a line by line basis and BR had to reapply periodically. Most of the early 1970s closures came as a result of BR applying for grant aid to be renewed but getting refused.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 Aug 2022 ==

I'm fairly sure that Harold Wilson only won the election by a handful of seats.

Labour's overall majority in the 1964 election was 4. This increased to a comfortable working majority after another election in 1966.

 

[yorksrob]

The reality is that Labour were going to win the '64 election whatever they'd proposed on Beeching. To pretend the '64 election was some form of referendum on Beeching is both dishonest and disingenuous.

It's as good as you get to a mandate in our democracy I'm afraid.

One party had a policy of continuing the closure process while the other had one of at least reviewing it.

Whatever other policies they had, labour could certainly not claim that they had a mandate to continue with the closure programme as before.

Closures continuned well past the Beeching report - I have suspected interests in there somewhat past any Marples connection people focus on but noone really seems to look at the MoT in that govt. The civil servants/BR mgt involved are likely the same ones as the previous govt, surely.



The UK population in 19621 was apparently 53m - part of the opening question was whether closures were short-sighted, so any answer really has to consider if an extra 15m population was predictable in 1962, whether fuel prices driving people out of cars/car ownership by the late 90s was predictable, and whether looking that long term with all it's possible paths ( especially mid-cold-war ) is something that should have been done.

One wonders why the SR never put any south-to-west curves in - neither Templecombe or Yeovil have one. While there *is* some traffic from the southwest to Bournemouth ( as the road will tell you ) I don't know if it's really enough to support keeping that part of the S&D all on it's own - is there anything else that could use it, or could have used it but isn't around in any form anymore?. Reversing at Templecombe would add a noticeable chunk of time, driving a couple of miles the wrong way, sitting around waiting for the signal lockout & then a couple of miles just to get back to where you were. Reversing in a station at least combines the stop itself.

Fraser was more or less the same as Marples in terms of the railway.

 

[A0]

It's as good as you get to a mandate in our democracy I'm afraid.

One party had a policy of continuing the closure process while the other had one of at least reviewing it.

Whatever other policies they had, labour could certainly not claim that they had a mandate to continue with the closure programme as before.

Yet the closures continued.

And voters don't usually vote on a single issue. Arguably *the only* election in the last 100 years which was a "single issue" election was 2019.

 

[yorksrob]

Yet the closures continued.

And voters don't usually vote on a single issue. Arguably *the only* election in the last 100 years which was a "single issue" election was 2019.

Voters never vote on a single issue, how is that news ?

The fact remains that the labour party did not endorse the closure programme in their manifesto and had no mandate to continue it.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

Voters never vote on a single issue, how is that news ?

The fact remains that the labour party did not endorse the closure programme in their manifesto and had no mandate to continue it.

Given there is no legal mechanism to force any government to stick to its manifesto commitments it's arguable that no mandate is necessary for any action unless it was either very actively campaigned on by the party in question or is very obviously outside that party's normal policies. As I mentioned in the ministers thread the reality in this country is that public transport is not a political priority for the majority of both voters and politicians themselves. This is not Switzerland or the Netherlands!