Can We Overturn This Loss of a Line from 1964?

[Andy873]

I must say straight away, this one is not a Beeching topic, It's one about overturning a loss of £3,600 at one particular station in 1964 - Gt. Harwood.

For six years until April this year I've known BR were blaming a loss of £3,600 on one third of coal traffic to the station, but now with the extra details I can try to overturn this loss. The situation:

2 Porters (full time), one of which doubled as a signalman.
2 Permanent way (PW) staff.
10 Coal traders.
40 Tons of coal delivered per day over 5 days.

As management quoted wages for 3 non-existent PW staff (2,100) this must come off the loss = 1,500 loss.
If only 1 porter / signalman was really needed we can save another porter's wages (1,000) = 500 loss.

Add in nominal amounts of income that management refused to do:
200 Rent p.a. from the coal traders and 100 Rent of space in the goods yard = 200 loss.
Nominal income from day / Evening / Period return excursions? 200? (Management did agree they made a little money but would not include this income).

I could also go one further if it would have been allowed - Cut the deliveries down to three per week, this would have saved another £480 (BR's own figures), which would bring us to a profit of that amount.

One interesting fact - the £3,600 loss quoted give or take a few pounds was the same amount as the wages of the four staff!

Given the facts (situation) as stated at the start, could you overturn this 3,600 loss?

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

You have to include the working expenses, of course - rail deliveries of coal to individual stations by trip working was pretty inefficient and the move was to area 'coal concentration' depots. I suspect the whole operation was a sea of red ink. The passenger service might have been saved by singling the line, de-staffing the stations and making it a basic railway with little or no signalling.

 

[Gloster]

You would probably need both porters. When you are dealing with the goods train you would need one porter/signalman in the signal box and the other assisting with the shunting.

Who employed the coal traders? Was it really BR?

I don’t see what you mean by ‘non-existent PW staff’. If the jobs were vacant, then that might be acceptable on a short-term basis (it reduces redundancy payments) if closure is expected, but it would quite possibly not be acceptable on a long-term basis if the line was retained.

You can’t base long-term planning on vague expectations of a bit of extra income from excursions and the like.

Even if you cut the deliveries to three days a week, you are probably not going to save much as there has to be someone to keep an eye on the yard during trading hours. It is also quite possible that the staff were on a guaranteed week: 44-hours then, I think.

 

[Dr Hoo]

@Gloster has beaten me to it on many points. Whilst ten coal traders (not BR staff) at one location doesn't surprise me we're only talking about an average of around three wagons per day. So ten different one-person businesses to keep distinct for accountancy purposes and general 'management'. The trip would have run with driver, fireman/secondman and guard with locomotive and brake van. A Carriage & Wagon examiner involved somewhere nearby. The line would have required ancillary maintenance and inspection, such as fences and culverts. A 'stationmaster' would have to come out on a pay run every week. There was an explicit policy of keeping vacant posts open to allow for resettlement of staff made redundant elsewhere. The normal 'run rate' of recruitment was over 50,000 in 1962 but consciously reduced to around 30,000 in 1963 as the Reshaping Report was completed. Obviously every flow had to be allocated a share of overheads from District/Divisional/Regional level in those far off clerical-intensive days.

 

[Helvellyn]

What would have happened to the figures if the coal tarffic had just been stopped but the line retained for passenger service? As in what were tbe passenger accounts (receipts v outgoings) like.

 

[Rescars]

. Obviously every flow had to be allocated a share of overheads from District/Divisional/Regional level in those far off clerical-intensive days.

The other side of this argument of course is that the more flows that are closed, the fewer flows are left to absorb the central admin and management costs. For some strange reason, reducing the costs of (senior) management is seldom terribly popular!

 

[Dr Hoo]

The other side of this argument of course is that the more flows that are closed, the fewer flows are left to absorb the central admin and management costs. For some strange reason, reducing the costs of (senior) management is seldom terribly popular!

You’re missing the point. By getting ‘wayside’ coal merchants to use a Coal Concentration Depot all of the individual billing and lease arrangements are effectively ‘taken on’ by British Fuels (or whichever larger firm operates there).
And Divisional/admin offices came under the microscope too, I can assure you.

 

[Rescars]

And Divisional/admin offices came under the microscope too, I can assure you.

That I can well believe. It's more of a general observation that in most organisations, however much rationalising and cost saving is made at operating and supervisory levels, the same enthusiasm to trim overheads seldom extends to such matters as senior management remuneration and benefits!

 

[6Gman]

I must say straight away, this one is not a Beeching topic, It's one about overturning a loss of £3,600 at one particular station in 1964 - Gt. Harwood.

For six years until April this year I've known BR were blaming a loss of £3,600 on one third of coal traffic to the station, but now with the extra details I can try to overturn this loss.

Can you explain what you mean by the highlighted section?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Sunday at 18:06 ==

Add in nominal amounts of income that management refused to do:
200 Rent p.a. from the coal traders and 100 Rent of space in the goods yard = 200 loss.
Nominal income from day / Evening / Period return excursions? 200? (Management did agree they made a little money but would not include this income).

The site would still be available for rental, or sale for redevelopment. Potentially more lucrative than the 10 coal merchants.
Some of the excursion passengers may have simply switched to using Rishton or Accrington, so not a total loss.

 

[Andy873]

I don’t see what you mean by ‘non-existent PW staff’. If the jobs were vacant, then that might be acceptable on a short-term basis (it reduces redundancy payments) if closure is expected

PW Gang No. 10 based at Harwood should have had a compliment of five. 1 Ganger, 1 Sub-Ganger, and 3 Lengthmen, the reality was 1 Ganger & 1 Lengthman, BR included the wages of all five instead of just the two which caused an argument at the staff consultation meeting regarding the proposed closure of the section of line.

Who employed the coal traders? Was it really BR?

The traders were a mixture of sole traders, partnerships, and private companies.

You would probably need both porters. When you are dealing with the goods train you would need one porter/signalman in the signal box and the other assisting with the shunting.

You\re probably correct but over at Simonstone station to oversee the deliveries there (which were a third of what Harwood received) was done by a sole porter / signalman part time who was based at nearby Padiham station. Other than that, the station was completely unstaffed.

The passenger service might have been saved by singling the line, de-staffing the stations and making it a basic railway with little or no signalling.

What would have happened to the figures if the coal tarffic had just been stopped but the line retained for passenger service? As in what were tbe passenger accounts (receipts v outgoings) like.

Apart from the bank holiday day excursions and period return holiday trips there was simply no regular passenger services in 1964, they stopped at the end of 1967. The problem was Gt. Harwood's close proximity to Blackburn, only around four miles away. I asked my father once if he ever went by train? He just laughed and said No! It was cheaper by bus. The bottom line was if the freight services went, then so too would the line.

Can you explain what you mean by the highlighted section?

The explanation given to staff at the consultation meeting was the loss was due to 1/3 of the coal which was delivered. I have a list of the ten coal traders with the amount they had taken, presumably April 62 to March 63 and five of the traders are taking less than 1,000 Tons p.a. When I add up the amounts from these five, it does indeed come to around 1/3 of the total coal received. That's as much as I can say on this.

The site would still be available for rental, or sale for redevelopment. Potentially more lucrative than the 10 coal merchants.
Some of the excursion passengers may have simply switched to using Rishton or Accrington, so not a total loss.

The goods yard after closure was indeed rented / leased to one of the ten coal traders (a partnership), and it was known for some time afterwards as Nuttall & Whitehead's coal yard. Strangely, one of the two surviving porters was called Whitehead, maybe there was a family connection?

Going back to my opening post - Some would say it's a pointless exercise but for me it's a curious one, just to see if it might have been possible one way or another to at least reduce down or overturn the supposed 3,600 loss?

And Divisional/admin offices came under the microscope too, I can assure you.

I'm sure they did. Not all managers just kept their heads down though, in Ian Hislop's Going off the rails video, one person tells a short story of the Divisional Manager, Plymouth. He writes to his General Manager, London and says about one of the Exeter lines that he's found a way to save it / make it pay... The reply was it's not your job to save lines, it's your job to close them down!... I can believe this story, Divisional Managers kept the necessary figures / receipt details of stations. For example, I've learned that in the case of the Gt. Harwood loop line, although it's the Line Manager, Manchester who submits the proposal for closure, it's the DM, Preston who supplies the tonnage / receipts details to him to be included in the proposal.

I'm reminded of the phrase, the Devil is in the detail - Perhaps this is why management kept the figures vague?

 

[Gloster]

PW Gang No. 10 based at Harwood should have had a compliment of five. 1 Ganger, 1 Sub-Ganger, and 3 Lengthmen, the reality was 1 Ganger & 1 Lengthman, BR included the wages of all five instead of just the two which caused an argument at the staff consultation meeting regarding the proposed closure of the section of line.

This situation could be accepted for a while if the line is likely to close. However, if the line was to be retained the vacancies would have to be filled and you would then have three more staff on the paybills.

You\re probably correct but over at Simonstone station to oversee the deliveries there (which were a third of what Harwood received) was done by a sole porter / signalman part time who was based at nearby Padiham station. Other than that, the station was completely unstaffed.

But Simonstone was a small station with, probably, limited goods traffic and a simple track layout, so quite simple to shunt: little need to search around and sort out which wagons were ready to go and which weren’t (but were probably in the way), nor to have to work out which wagons had to go on which siding. With only two sidings there isn’t much choice.

Great Harwood and Padiham had much larger yards and there would be an awful lot of toing and froing, which would be extremely time consuming if the same porter has to run about the yard and then in and out of the signal box to carry out each movement. I know: I was a signalman.

 

[Dr Hoo]

We seem to have reached the point where BR managed to keep most if not all of the coal revenue via a nearby Coal Concentration Depot, kept the rent/lease revenue at Great Harwood and probably avoided paying redundancy to the handful of staff affected (by the policy of retaining vacancies nearby in the short term). The trade unions supported this. Also avoided recruitment and most training costs.

The excursion traffic was irrelevant because of the national realisation that the vast ‘reserve’/seasonal fleet of coaching stock was a complete liability, not even covering its own maintenance costs.

 

[RT4038]

That I can well believe. It's more of a general observation that in most organisations, however much rationalising and cost saving is made at operating and supervisory levels, the same enthusiasm to trim overheads seldom extends to such matters as senior management remuneration and benefits!

Their renumeration and benefits may well not have had any enthusiasm for trimming (and why would it?) but certainly the number of senior management was always under scrutiny, as can be seen by the number of reorganisations eventually leading to Divisions and Areas being merged etc.