Could the "Big Four" have surivived on their own until today?

[simonw]

Yes, but local gasworks with no long distance pipelines that had to be fed with large quantities of coal delivered by rail.

You questioned whether has would have been nationalised, I was pointing out it was already in public hands. As it was loss making, there was a,great incentive to replace towns gas with much cheaper natural gas once the southern North sea gas fields were discovered. In fact before that natural gas was being imported which needed a pipeline system to distribute it.

 

[Taunton]

Not all of them. Switzerland still has a bunch of private operators.

They are not that private. Look at the ownership behind them and you find various public local authorities of the Cantons, partial SBB ownership, etc. They are not being bought and sold on the Zurich stock exchange.

 

[Magdalia]

You questioned whether has would have been nationalised, I was pointing out it was already in public hands.

There's a distinction between "in public hands" and Nationalisation that is important in this context. With gasworks "in public hands", but only locally owned, it is much more difficult to deliver a comprehensive long distance pipeline network. That's much easier with Nationalisation. And if we are considering what would have happened if the Big 4 had not been Nationalised, then that can't be in isolation, other Nationalisations probably would not have happened either.

In fact before that natural gas was being imported which needed a pipeline system to distribute it.

Yes I think there was a limited pipeline network for imported gas arriving at Canvey Island? But did it supply anywhere other than London?

 

[simonw]

There's a distinction between "in public hands" and Nationalisation that is important in this context. With gasworks "in public hands", but only locally owned, it is much more difficult to deliver a comprehensive long distance pipeline network. That's much easier with Nationalisation. And if we are considering what would have happened if the Big 4 had not been Nationalised, then that can't be in isolation, other Nationalisations probably would not have happened either.

Yes I think there was a limited pipeline network for imported gas arriving at Canvey Island? But did it supply anywhere other than London?

There was a pipeline constructed from canvey to Leeds serving various locations enroute

 

[Magdalia]

There was a pipeline constructed from canvey to Leeds serving various locations enroute

Thanks for this. With your help I have now been able to find some of what I have been looking for on the history of gas distribution.

1959 first experimental import of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) at Canvey Island converted to Town Gas at Romford
1964 regular imports from Algeria start. LNG is converted to town gas and piped to Romford, Beckton and Bromley (presumably last of these is Bromley By Bow not Bromley Kent?), plus the pipeline to Leeds that you mention, is there anything on the route it took?
1967? Canvey Island first place in UK to be converted to Natural Gas

This fits in with the end of the huge amount of coal traffic by rail between the coalfields and East London via Whitemoor in 1966.

 

[eldomtom2]

And if we are considering what would have happened if the Big 4 had not been Nationalised, then that can't be in isolation, other Nationalisations probably would not have happened either.

Yes, it would depend a lot on why they weren't nationalised. If it was for ideological reasons, then having to bail the railways out would not be seen as a reason to nationalise them.

 

[Titfield]

@coppercapped states

• the ‘Common Carrier’ obligation for freight traffic would have to have been abandoned. (Very simply, the ‘Common Carrier’ obligation meant that charges for each type of traffic were fixed and published and that the railway company had to carry the goods offered. It was easy for the new lorry owners to undercut the railways as they knew what the railways charged).
• the Traffic Commissioners' control on rates and charges would have been abandoned. (The railways and canal companies could not set their own rates and charges - this was done by the TCs and always involved a delay).

These obligations were frequently cited by British Railways and some subsequent commentators as a significant part of the factors which acted to the detriment of British Railways but that arguably these were (and continue to be) a convenient excuse for British Railway's poor financial performance.

Firstly it is argued that the common carrier obligation prevented British Railways charging more for the freight traffic they carried. That is true however British Railways had no concept of the elasticity of demand. They seemed to think that if they could put the freight rates / passenger fares up by 6.5% then they would get 6.5% more revenue. That is patently not a universal truth. Some types of traffic would bear higher fares - because road hauliers could not compete - and some wouldnt. BR had hundreds of exceptional rates lower than the published rate which they could charge if they wished or thought desirable. The problem was they became the de facto rates they nearly always charged. BRs commercial department was simply too weak and gave way far too easily. They didnt posess either the skills or the knowledge (of the costs) to negotiate successfully.

Secondly BR didnt know what it actually cost to carry anything and thus they werent able to go to the Tribunal and put forward a well reasoned case with the evidence to back it up to get the rates increased. Likewise as they didnt know the true costs they couldnt negotiate (see above).

Thirdly knowing how long it took to get rate increases agreed they should have factored this in to their calculations when going to the Tribunal. They failed to do this.

Finally it is always postulated that the hauliers undercut the railways as they knew what the railway would charge. This seems to me to be very simplistic because the hauliers may have charged less simply because they had much lower costs and (were far more efficient) and could do so irrespective of what BR may or may not have done. Many customers may have preferred road haulage simply because door to door it was quicker than BR.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

Once road motor transport became a viable option, the local rail pick-up freight was inevitably doomed, and arguments about the common carrier obligation increasingly irrelevant. Customers simply preferred the flexibiliity, convenience and security of road transport - plus traceability, for 'lost on the railway' was a common excuse for late-delivery whether true or not. The GWR recognised this and removed freight services from many small stations, using instead its own road motor fleet to large depots (such as Taunton and Goodrington (Paignton) built in the '30s). The trunk haul was by rail, but even this wouldn't have (and didn't) survive the motorway age.

In the late '30s the LMS conducted the first modern style audit of its operation in the Highland Division (i.e. everything north of Perth). Even allowing for a generous estimate of contributory revenue to the rest of the system, the sea of red ink was such that serious consideration was given to shutting the lot. WW2 intervened, but it does show the pressure the Big Four would have been under in the '50s had nationalisation not occurred. Unless there was government intervention of some sort, there would have been a rapid contraction in the network, even down to the gloomiest maps of the Serpell report, lack of investment for dieselisation / electrification and disintegrating infrastructure. In a desperate attempt to stay afloat, as happened in the US, there would probably have been a flogging-off of prime city-centre station sites for property development - Madison Square Garden at Paddington perhaps?

 

[eldomtom2]

Unless there was government intervention of some sort, there would have been a rapid contraction in the network, even down to the gloomiest maps of the Serpell report, lack of investment for dieselisation / electrification and disintegrating infrastructure. In a desperate attempt to stay afloat, as happened in the US, there would probably have been a flogging-off of prime city-centre station sites for property development - Madison Square Garden at Paddington perhaps?

Of course, what the situation in the US also shows is that with a sympathetic goverment the railways could have got a lot by saying "do this or we'll have to close".

 

[Meerkat]

I thought the worst bit of the Common Carrier obligation was that the railway had to offer a service? Road transport could undercut the worthwhile stuff and the railway was left with the awkward and unprofitable stuff.
The pickup freight was doomed, but Common Carrier should have been binned off straight after the war when trucks and drivers were in plentiful supply.

 

[coppercapped]

@coppercapped states

• the ‘Common Carrier’ obligation for freight traffic would have to have been abandoned. (Very simply, the ‘Common Carrier’ obligation meant that charges for each type of traffic were fixed and published and that the railway company had to carry the goods offered. It was easy for the new lorry owners to undercut the railways as they knew what the railways charged).
• the Traffic Commissioners' control on rates and charges would have been abandoned. (The railways and canal companies could not set their own rates and charges - this was done by the TCs and always involved a delay).

These obligations were frequently cited by British Railways and some subsequent commentators as a significant part of the factors which acted to the detriment of British Railways but that arguably these were (and continue to be) a convenient excuse for British Railway's poor financial performance.

Firstly it is argued that the common carrier obligation prevented British Railways charging more for the freight traffic they carried. That is true however British Railways had no concept of the elasticity of demand. They seemed to think that if they could put the freight rates / passenger fares up by 6.5% then they would get 6.5% more revenue. That is patently not a universal truth. Some types of traffic would bear higher fares - because road hauliers could not compete - and some wouldnt. BR had hundreds of exceptional rates lower than the published rate which they could charge if they wished or thought desirable. The problem was they became the de facto rates they nearly always charged. BRs commercial department was simply too weak and gave way far too easily. They didnt posess either the skills or the knowledge (of the costs) to negotiate successfully.

Secondly BR didnt know what it actually cost to carry anything and thus they werent able to go to the Tribunal and put forward a well reasoned case with the evidence to back it up to get the rates increased. Likewise as they didnt know the true costs they couldnt negotiate (see above).

Thirdly knowing how long it took to get rate increases agreed they should have factored this in to their calculations when going to the Tribunal. They failed to do this.

Finally it is always postulated that the hauliers undercut the railways as they knew what the railway would charge. This seems to me to be very simplistic because the hauliers may have charged less simply because they had much lower costs and (were far more efficient) and could do so irrespective of what BR may or may not have done. Many customers may have preferred road haulage simply because door to door it was quicker than BR.

This thread is about the 'Big 4' and whether they could have survived as independent organisations after the Second World War if they were not nationalised. I partly agree with your position concerning the effects that the Transport Tribunal (I incorrectly referred to this body as the Traffic Commissioners) had on BR's finances, especially where you write

They didnt posess either the skills or the knowledge (of the costs) to negotiate successfully.

and the reason they didn't lays in the fact that under the terms of the Railway and Canal Traffic Acts 1854 and subsequent legislation they had no reason for developing any detailed management accounting. Even if the railway management knew what a particular freight movement would cost, the railway would have had to have carried it anyway even if the cost exceeded the published rate.

That is the crucial point. The railways had an income stream from freight. It was a revenue stream of a known size. Using it to subsidise other services only works if the donor revenue stream is greater than the costs incurred in generating it, as otherwise all one is doing is making one loss making service yet more loss making to reduce the losses on another loss making service. One can only cross-subsidise if one's total outgoings are less than the total revenue, and the issue is then just cost allocation. If you're losing money overall, then cross-subsidy merely complicates the management accounts and conceals the true source of the losses. The Common Carrier Obligation really was the nail in the railways' coffin as soon as the internal combustion engine made competition possible.

So I am arguing that the financial weakness of the railways dates back a long time and even now has never been properly resolved. Gouvish (British Railways 1948-73) shows that the 'operating ratio' - working costs expressed as a percentage of revenue - rose from 51 in 1870-4 to 57 in 1895-9 and 62 in 1900-4 where it remained until war broke out in 1914.

The Railways Act of 1921 rejected outright nationalisation in favour of regulated regional monopolies. In this context it is significant that there was no separate railway company for Scotland as it was already clear that a purely Scottish company would not be viable so the Scottish lines were to be maintained by cross subsidy from the English routes. Regulation of charges was by the Railway Rates Tribunal, the predecessor to the Transport Tribunal (set up by the 1947 Act) which regulated BR's charges.

So far so good, but the concept of railways being a monopoly to be regulated was already unrealistic at the time Grouping took place in 1923 because of the changed circumstances of the 1920s and 30s. In 1928 a new structure of freight rates was adopted to try to reduce the number of 'exceptional' rates but this proved to be as inflexible as the old system. These failures, along with the continued obligation to accept traffic, publish charges, provide a reasonable level of service, avoid 'undue preference' in the treatment of customers and be bound by government regulation of wages and conditions, left the railways vulnerable to their more flexible competitors.

By 1938 the railways started their 'Square Deal' campaign; in the same year their net revenue fell by a quarter. War was around the corner and it was all too late.

 

[Magdalia]

The Railways Act of 1921 rejected outright nationalisation in favour of regulated regional monopolies.

The Big 4 were not regional monopolies they could and did compete against each other. The LMS and LNER were in competition for freight traffic, especially coal, between Yorkshire/Nottinghamshire and London. The LNER and GWR moved a lot of freight via Woodford Halse to cut out the LMS.

Regional monopolies would have been more effectively achieved by putting the Midland in the LNER and the GCR in the LMS.

 

[Rescars]

This thread is about the 'Big 4' and whether they could have survived as independent organisations after the Second World War if they were not nationalised. I partly agree with your position concerning the effects that the Transport Tribunal (I incorrectly referred to this body as the Traffic Commissioners) had on BR's finances, especially where you write



and the reason they didn't lays in the fact that under the terms of the Railway and Canal Traffic Acts 1854 and subsequent legislation they had no reason for developing any detailed management accounting. Even if the railway management knew what a particular freight movement would cost, the railway would have had to have carried it anyway even if the cost exceeded the published rate.

That is the crucial point. The railways had an income stream from freight. It was a revenue stream of a known size. Using it to subsidise other services only works if the donor revenue stream is greater than the costs incurred in generating it, as otherwise all one is doing is making one loss making service yet more loss making to reduce the losses on another loss making service. One can only cross-subsidise if one's total outgoings are less than the total revenue, and the issue is then just cost allocation. If you're losing money overall, then cross-subsidy merely complicates the management accounts and conceals the true source of the losses. The Common Carrier Obligation really was the nail in the railways' coffin as soon as the internal combustion engine made competition possible.

So I am arguing that the financial weakness of the railways dates back a long time and even now has never been properly resolved. Gouvish (British Railways 1948-73) shows that the 'operating ratio' - working costs expressed as a percentage of revenue - rose from 51 in 1870-4 to 57 in 1895-9 and 62 in 1900-4 where it remained until war broke out in 1914.

The Railways Act of 1921 rejected outright nationalisation in favour of regulated regional monopolies. In this context it is significant that there was no separate railway company for Scotland as it was already clear that a purely Scottish company would not be viable so the Scottish lines were to be maintained by cross subsidy from the English routes. Regulation of charges was by the Railway Rates Tribunal, the predecessor to the Transport Tribunal (set up by the 1947 Act) which regulated BR's charges.

So far so good, but the concept of railways being a monopoly to be regulated was already unrealistic at the time Grouping took place in 1923 because of the changed circumstances of the 1920s and 30s. In 1928 a new structure of freight rates was adopted to try to reduce the number of 'exceptional' rates but this proved to be as inflexible as the old system. These failures, along with the continued obligation to accept traffic, publish charges, provide a reasonable level of service, avoid 'undue preference' in the treatment of customers and be bound by government regulation of wages and conditions, left the railways vulnerable to their more flexible competitors.

By 1938 the railways started their 'Square Deal' campaign; in the same year their net revenue fell by a quarter. War was around the corner and it was all too late.

In this context, I wonder how might things have worked out had the Railways Act of 1921 rejected regulated regional monopolies in favour of outright nationalisation. Politically impossible in the Roaring Twenties, perhaps?

 

[coppercapped]

The Big 4 were not regional monopolies they could and did compete against each other. The LMS and LNER were in competition for freight traffic, especially coal, between Yorkshire/Nottinghamshire and London. The LNER and GWR moved a lot of freight via Woodford Halse to cut out the LMS.

Regional monopolies would have been more effectively achieved by putting the Midland in the LNER and the GCR in the LMS.

I stand by what I wrote.

When the discussions and debates were occurring after the First World War concerning the future structure of the railways, the railways were a monopoly. If one wanted to ship goods, agricultural products say, from Great Mulching in the Mire to Candleford, the railway was the only choice if one wanted a reasonably short transit time. The alternatives were horse and cart all the way, canal (if there was one nearby which wasn't derelict) or, if Great Mulching in the Mire was close to the sea, then coastal shipping.

This why governments regulated railways in the 19th century as monopolies.

So the 1921 Act assumed that the railways would still have a monopoly on inland transport. That there was some choice for consignees where the boundaries of the regional companies touched gave the impression of competition. For example there were two sensible ways to travel between London and Birmingham and London and parts of central Scotland - but these were at the margins as was the coal traffic you mention. Great swathes of East Anglia, Lincolnshire and the Tyne and Tees area were only served by the LNER. Most of the North West around Liverpool and Manchester was only served by the LMS, everywhere from Bournemouth to Dover was served by the same company.

The Big Four were regional monopolies - until the char à banc, Austin Seven and the motor lorry pulled the carpet from under the assumptions.

In this context, I wonder how might things have worked out had the Railways Act of 1921 rejected regulated regional monopolies in favour of outright nationalisation. Politically impossible in the Roaring Twenties, perhaps?

There had been discussion of nationalisation since the early days of railways. Gladstone's Railway Regulation Act of 1844 gave the Government the option of purchasing the shares of post-1845 companies after 25 years, that is after 1865 so the profits accrued to the State. The slump in earnings after the Mania removed the reason for this clause.

The creation of the Railway Nationalisation League in 1895 and the Railway Nationalisation Society in 1908 reopened the debate. When electioneering in Scotland in December 1918 Winston Churchill erroneously said that the Government had decided to nationalise the railways... Nevertheless there were moves to fuller state control of all forms of transport and the Ministry of Transport was formed in 1921 to pursue these aims. Pressure from all sorts of groups stymied these moves and subsequently each form of transport was dealt with separately.

So, yes, nationalisation was very much on the cards in 1921.

 

[chorleyjeff]

Perhaps imagining the government in the late 40s instead of nationalising had decided to give the "Big Four" an economic aid package instead. Could the "Big Four" have survived into our time? Would we have seen an even more streamlined network in that case? Would they have ended up merging into one or two mega companies instead eventually? Or would they eventually have ended up having to be nationalised anyway?

Only with large continuing subsidies so nationalisation was inevitable.

 

[eldomtom2]

So, yes, nationalisation was very much on the cards in 1921.

Not with Eric Geddes as Transport Minister, it wasn't.

Only with large continuing subsidies so nationalisation was inevitable.

Again, that depends on the ideology of the people making the decision.

 

[Magdalia]

Great swathes of East Anglia, Lincolnshire and the Tyne and Tees area were only served by the LNER. Most of the North West around Liverpool and Manchester was only served by the LMS, everywhere from Bournemouth to Dover was served by the same company.

I agree that in large parts of the country, especially most of the rural extremities, the Big 4 were monopolies.

That there was some choice for consignees where the boundaries of the regional companies touched gave the impression of competition. For example there were two sensible ways to travel between London and Birmingham and London and parts of central Scotland - but these were at the margins as was the coal traffic you mention.

But they were not monopolies in large areas of the industrial Midlands and North, which is what mattered economically. Between the LMS and the LNER there was no geographical boundary, their lines intertwined.

And I think it is the first time that I have heard Yorkshire/Nottinghamshire coalfield to London coal traffic in the early 20th century described as marginal: it was fundamental to the functioning of the economy.

With regard to passenger traffic to/from London, every major industrial city in the Midlands and North of England, apart from Liverpool and Newcastle, had competition.

 

[Titfield]

So I am arguing that the financial weakness of the railways dates back a long time and even now has never been properly resolved. Gouvish (British Railways 1948-73) shows that the 'operating ratio' - working costs expressed as a percentage of revenue - rose from 51 in 1870-4 to 57 in 1895-9 and 62 in 1900-4 where it remained until war broke out in 1914.

Stewart Joy in The Train That Ran Away (1968?) is very forthright in his view of railway finances and certainly suggests that the situation was deteriorating from the later decades of the 19th Century (as indeed does Gourvish) and that by WW1 was becoming very challenging indeed. He is also very critical that the Big Four didnt take much stronger action in the 1920s and 1930s to close lines which either were generating very little revenue or were providing "unnecessary" duplicate facilities.

Joy takes a very blunt view of the finances of BR* and argues quite convincingly that BR was a destroyer of capital, that BR and the governments were almost complicit in failing to tackle the situation with vigour.

* He makes the point that the value of the Big Four was considerably overstated at the time of nationalisation and thus the shareholders (of the Big 4) were over compensated. He bases this judgement on the net earning capacity of the railway and given what transpired within a matter of years he certainly has a point.

 

[Ashley Hill]

Did the Big Four suffer the political interference that today’s privatised railways endure?

 

[coppercapped]

I agree that in large parts of the country, especially most of the rural extremities, the Big 4 were monopolies.




But they were not monopolies in large areas of the industrial Midlands and North, which is what mattered economically. Between the LMS and the LNER there was no geographical boundary, their lines intertwined.

And I think it is the first time that I have heard Yorkshire/Nottinghamshire coalfield to London coal traffic in the early 20th century described as marginal: it was fundamental to the functioning of the economy.

With regard to passenger traffic to/from London, every major industrial city in the Midlands and North of England, apart from Liverpool and Newcastle, had competition.

Returning to this thread after a few days away.

I take your point about the alternatives available to freight customers and passengers in certain areas of the country which I accept entirely.

Where I am having difficulty is understanding how 'competition' works in a world where the freight charges levied and passenger fares charged were centrally set by an independent body. There could be no competition by price, the only possibility that the companies could differentiate themselves was by the timetable. And by all reports they often didn't change significantly for years.

So, how did competition work in those days?

 

[Magdalia]

Returning to this thread after a few days away.

I take your point about the alternatives available to freight customers and passengers in certain areas of the country which I accept entirely.

Where I am having difficulty is understanding how 'competition' works in a world where the freight charges levied and passenger fares charged were centrally set by an independent body. There could be no competition by price, the only possibility that the companies could differentiate themselves was by the timetable. And by all reports they often didn't change significantly for years.

So, how did competition work in those days?

And I take your point too. For big regular freight consignments the cost of switching would have been high.

But for smaller irregular consignments there would have been some competition on customer/supplier relationships, and, perhaps most importantly, not losing stuff.

 

[Titfield]

And I take your point too. For big regular freight consignments the cost of switching would have been high.

But for smaller irregular consignments there would have been some competition on customer/supplier relationships, and, perhaps most importantly, not losing stuff.

Quality of service or perhaps the customer perception of quality of service.

Understanding how the market worked nearly a century ago is quite a challenge. We live in a world where choice is all around us and I suspect that many reading this post will themselves shop around whether consciously or not all the time. I dont just mean using a comparison tool to check for example car insurance prices but how many of us buy groceries from many different supermarket chains.

As far as I can ascertain my grandparents always used the same shops. The butcher, the baker, the grocer, the green grocer, bought petrol from the same garage (unless undertaking a long journey), arranged the car insurance through the same broker year in year out etc etc.

Given the lack of obvious competition it is hardly surprising if industry whether large or small used the same suppliers for raw materials, transport etc etc. But gradually road transport for all but very large bulk items (eg coal, coke, minerals) came to the fore. I wonder whether this change was brought about by aggressive sales techniques of road hauliers or simply that over time the superiority of road transport became evident and thus was adopted. Did road hauliers employ sales reps or was it just a case of advertising in the local newspaper "Daily Road Service between Manchester and London. Best Rates Guaranteed Smith and Jones Haulage. Call Salford 2845".

 

[coppercapped]

Quality of service or perhaps the customer perception of quality of service.

Understanding how the market worked nearly a century ago is quite a challenge. We live in a world where choice is all around us and I suspect that many reading this post will themselves shop around whether consciously or not all the time. I dont just mean using a comparison tool to check for example car insurance prices but how many of us buy groceries from many different supermarket chains.

As far as I can ascertain my grandparents always used the same shops. The butcher, the baker, the grocer, the green grocer, bought petrol from the same garage (unless undertaking a long journey), arranged the car insurance through the same broker year in year out etc etc.

Yes, completely agree. When I was a child in the 1950s there was a row of shops on the main road a hundred yards away at the corner of our road. There was a real dairy, a baker, a grocer, a greengrocer, a sweet shop, a tobacconist and newspaper shop, a butcher, a haberdashers, an ironmonger and a dry cleaning/shoe repair shop. Milk was delivered by the milk float daily except Sundays.

My mother bought all her day to day requirements from these shops - an early version of on-line ordering was that she wrote her grocery list in a note book which I took to the shop and the shop delivered a cardboard box with the butter, bacon, porridge oats and eggs and returned the note book. There was no great choice within any product category - there was one type of rice for puddings and long grain rice was unknown. Sugar came in blue paper bags having been weighed out from a large sack at the shop. The greengrocer had, in season, large oranges at 6d and small oranges at 4 1/2d, in season one could have new potatoes otherwise King Edwards or generic white potatoes. Fruits and vegetables varied with the season.

For anything special a journey to the more specialised butchers or greengrocers in Reading town centre was made. Clothing, shoes and furniture of course were only available from shops in the town.

A combination of the growth of the University nearby and out-of-town centre shopping has meant that the local shops have become useless for the local permanent residents; there are now two letting agencies, two convenience stores sell packaged products and all the rest have become take-aways or forms of dine in restaurants or burger bars as the students don't, or can't, cook.

So circumstances have forced us to use the car for food shopping so we could easily - in theory - comparison shop. But, interestingly, I don't think we do so for our household staples - or at the most indirectly. The supermarkets are not next to each other but while I know that Lidl and Aldi will probably be cheaper (in total) than Morrisons, Sainsburys or Waitrose I am not going to buy the sugar at Aldi because it is 2p cheaper than at Morrisons if I want to buy wet fish at Morrisons - I'll do all the shopping in one place to save driving between them and queueing twice.

Given the lack of obvious competition it is hardly surprising if industry whether large or small used the same suppliers for raw materials, transport etc etc. But gradually road transport for all but very large bulk items (eg coal, coke, minerals) came to the fore. I wonder whether this change was brought about by aggressive sales techniques of road hauliers or simply that over time the superiority of road transport became evident and thus was adopted. Did road hauliers employ sales reps or was it just a case of advertising in the local newspaper "Daily Road Service between Manchester and London. Best Rates Guaranteed Smith and Jones Haulage. Call Salford 2845".

 

[contrex]

Didn't I read somewhere that slightly before World War 2 broke out, in the late 1930s, the LNER approached the government with a plea that they nationalise the track and running infrastructure and charge the railway for its use? Not sure if that was just for the LNER's network. I seem to remember thinking in the runup to privatisation in the 1990s it was ironical that Tory MP Willie Whitelaw's grandfather (also a William, who brought him up) was chairman of the LNER at the time.

 

[Magdalia]

Didn't I read somewhere that slightly before World War 2 broke out, in the late 1930s, the LNER approached the government with a plea that they nationalise the track and running infrastructure and charge the railway for its use? Not sure if that was just for the LNER's network.

Bonavia's LNER history covers this. It was after the War, not before. The LNER tried unsuccessfully to get the support of the other three.

 

[fandroid]

Not all of them. Switzerland still has a bunch of private operators.

It's a myth about Swiss railways. Many of those which aren't the national confederation owned SBB are majority owned by the local Canton and SBB in co-ownership. Prime examples are BLS and RHB

 

[A0]

Another interesting "what if" is what if Ernest Marples had fallen under a bus in 1959!

You'd have still had something very similar to the Beeching report.

The railways were haemorrhaging money and had gone through an expensive and unsuccessful "modernisation plan" - which was entirely driven by the railway industry, yet the losses were still mounting.

Short of a communist government, there is no way a British government of any political persuasion would have continued to pay a bigger and bigger bill to the railway network. You can see that by the fact that when Labour were elected in 1964, including a policy to "stop Beeching", they did the exact opposite and continued the closures right up to their leaving office in 1970.

 

[eldomtom2]

You'd have still had something very similar to the Beeching report.

The railways were haemorrhaging money and had gone through an expensive and unsuccessful "modernisation plan" - which was entirely driven by the railway industry, yet the losses were still mounting.

Short of a communist government, there is no way a British government of any political persuasion would have continued to pay a bigger and bigger bill to the railway network. You can see that by the fact that when Labour were elected in 1964, including a policy to "stop Beeching", they did the exact opposite and continued the closures right up to their leaving office in 1970.

Need I remind you that the closures envisioned by Beeching in his first report were not all carry out, and that his second report was completely ignored?

 

[A0]

Need I remind you that the closures envisioned by Beeching in his first report were not all carry out, and that his second report was completely ignored?

And a number of closures NOT recommended by Beeching were progressed by British Rail e.g. passenger services on Woodhead, Matlock - Buxton and others mentioned on this thread

TRIVIA - lines which Beeching did NOT recommend for closure but which closed anyway

How many of these were there? Two I know of are: Birmingham Snow Hill to Wolverhampton Low Level King's Lynn to Hunstanton

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[eldomtom2]

And a number of closures NOT recommended by Beeching were progressed by British Rail e.g. passenger services on Woodhead, Matlock - Buxton and others mentioned on this thread

TRIVIA - lines which Beeching did NOT recommend for closure but which closed anyway

How many of these were there? Two I know of are: Birmingham Snow Hill to Wolverhampton Low Level King's Lynn to Hunstanton

www.railforums.co.uk

Yes, a few post-Beeching closures and some cases where Beeching wanted to close one of two lines but for one reason or another they ended up closing the other line. Nothing like the sweeping cuts Beeching envisioned.