Happy Beeching Anniversary

[Gwenllian2001]

Should we have retained all of the phone boxes closed down over the last twenty years (so that they could be replugged in, if mobile phone useage dropped and people started using pay phones again)?

Should Libraries have kept all of their VHS videos in case people stopped using DVDs and went back to technology that appeared outdated a decade ago?

Should the army have kept all of its horse equipment a hundred years ago, when they were replacing horses with tanks?

Where do you draw the line? Are West Ham fans going to demand that their football club retain the current stadium when the team move to the Olympic Stadium in a few years time?

Ah, this will be your famous 'straw men' argument then.

 

[317666]

I can't help wondering that if Pacers or other Railbuses had been built 20-30 years earlier, how many more branches would have survived to the present day?

 

[Gwenllian2001]

Much has been said and written about Beeching and he is not without his apologists: Liner Trains etc. The bald truth is that he failed to do what he set out to do and that was to make the railways profitable. That was, after all, the justification for the closure programme. It didn't work and the deficit continued to increase after cutting out the 'dead wood' which was supposed enable what was left to thrive. It was a total failure.

 

[yorksrob]

Should we have retained all of the phone boxes closed down over the last twenty years (so that they could be replugged in, if mobile phone useage dropped and people started using pay phones again)?

Should Libraries have kept all of their VHS videos in case people stopped using DVDs and went back to technology that appeared outdated a decade ago?

Should the army have kept all of its horse equipment a hundred years ago, when they were replacing horses with tanks?

Where do you draw the line? Are West Ham fans going to demand that their football club retain the current stadium when the team move to the Olympic Stadium in a few years time?

Now that we know that rail use has grown over the past thirty years, its easy to see this as having been inevitable, but it certainly wasn't in the '60s.

If all the lines listed by Beeching had been the sort with one empty carriage shuttling up and down three times a day without any passengers, that might have been a point.

However, a lot of the lines closed were busy enough bot were closed because they were not in themselves "remunerative", or because of spurious arguments that buses could provide an equivalent service (set aside feeder route and wider network viability arguments for the time being).

Just because the establishment (including Marples and Beeching) felt that the railways were outmoded, that didn't mean that everyone else did.

 

[Buttsy]

The closures of the 50s had seen the most lightly used routes being closed and this would no doubt have been carried on without Beeching's report.

One has to wonder about the methodology used bearing in mind that not all lines suggested for closure by Beeching were acutally making an operating loss. An example of this was York - Hull via Beverley. Made an operating profit, but was closed mainly down to the savings that would be made in terminal costs, although these terminii weren't going to close... The line had been earmarked for cost saving ideas like singling, destaffing and automatic level crossings as well as closing a number of intermediate stations (basically Market Weighton, Pocklington and possibly Stamford Bridge were the only ones likely to have remained open).

Beeching had a reasonable idea in trying to nail down how much things cost, but the way it was carried out was dubious. For an example of how railmen were taken in by the close, close, close attitude, have a read of Scottish Region: A History 1948-1973 which shows that Beeching's ideas certainly held sway in Scotland in the late 60s.

 

[mrcheek]

The real vandalism was allowing closed lines to be built over, the lines should clearly have been kept for future use.

Using this argument, the railways should NEVER had been allowed to be built in the first place, crossing over valuable stage coach routes and horse tracks!

 

[yorksrob]

Using this argument, the railways should NEVER had been allowed to be built in the first place, crossing over valuable stage coach routes and horse tracks!

In truth railways were very rarely allowed to sever the Queens/Kings highway. The railway companies had to ensure that the stage coach routes and horse tracks were maintained through the provision of bridges and level crossings.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

BR sowed the seeds of Beeching's axe by failing to change in the 1950s in the face of rapidly falling traffic (especially regional/local) and social change.
On top of which much of the Modernisation Plan money was mis-spent or failed to deliver the promised improvements in time.
The Government ran out of patience, and the railway has never been in charge of its finances since.
"To break even, taking one year with another" was the only brief they had.

 

[ryan125hst]

Here are a few questions from me:

• Which lines were closed that have since reopened?
• Which lines were closed that there is now a campaign to reopen?
• Which lines were right to be closed?

Also, is the Beeching report to blame for the number of stations that are currently unstaffed or staffed for very short periods? I've notice that over 50 years ago, even small stations had a ticket office, toilets, a waiting room etc. When was Gainsborough Lea Road station buildings shut for example (I mean the ticket office ect, not the garden centre for those familiar with the building)?

 

[jnjkerbin]

On the subject of Beeching, there is a documentary from a few years ago about the cuts, presented by Ian Hislop available on YouTube. Has some interesting bits (as well as some Betjeman-esque nostalgia)

 

[tbtc]

If all the lines listed by Beeching had been the sort with one empty carriage shuttling up and down three times a day without any passengers, that might have been a point.

However, a lot of the lines closed were busy enough bot were closed because they were not in themselves "remunerative", or because of spurious arguments that buses could provide an equivalent service (set aside feeder route and wider network viability arguments for the time being).

Just because the establishment (including Marples and Beeching) felt that the railways were outmoded, that didn't mean that everyone else did.

According to Dr Beeching:

On one half of the whole route mileage of British Railways, there is only one 20th of the traffic

Then again, I'm sure you could argue something broadly similar today, when you consider how intensively used lines around London are when compared to many with just a handful of services elsewhere.

 

[Gareth Marston]

BR sowed the seeds of Beeching's axe by failing to change in the 1950s in the face of rapidly falling traffic (especially regional/local) and social change.
On top of which much of the Modernisation Plan money was mis-spent or failed to deliver the promised improvements in time.
The Government ran out of patience, and the railway has never been in charge of its finances since.
"To break even, taking one year with another" was the only brief they had.

The Modernization plan was drawn up to deliver what Government wanted of the railway in 1955- a railway still governed by Victorian common carrier legislation which forced the railway to carry everything brought to it at fixed rates. The Big 4 campaigned to be shot of this pre WW2 - they realized the cost of providing it was too great against growing road competition which eroded traffic, the railway was carrying 78% of the sundries in 1961 that it did in 1948. Marshalling Yards and pick up goods diesel locos were the products of Government legislation - the law lets not forget this. Railway Managers didn't wake up one morning and say I fancy spending lot on a Type 1 diesel pick up goods train instead of Liner trains or DMU's. They had to by law plan for a railway that carried everything from everywhere because the Government told them that was there function being nationalized certainly didn't help as the default mode on the railway is one of central command. BR got on with it as the Govt had given them the green light and money to do so - then Marples came along with his different agenda just 3 years later.

The report in many ways failed to understand railway finances or the way people travel. If you look at the report it lists a number of passenger services to close and the claimed savings from them - the underlying assumption was that c85% of the contributory revenue would stay on the railway which we all know it practice didn't happen. A large number of the closures actually ended up losing the railway more money. The report claimed the closures would save £40 million the best guess is that they only managed £7 million.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

According to Dr Beeching:



Then again, I'm sure you could argue something broadly similar today, when you consider how intensively used lines around London are when compared to many with just a handful of services elsewhere.

You could apply the same thinking to roads...

 

[Hellfire]

What is often forgotten is that both of the "big" railway reports, Beeching in 1963 and Serpell in 1982 were based on the circumstances that prevailed at the time. In addition both reports were at the behest of Government who laid down the criteria for each report in advance. In no way were either reports a question of giving a committee a free hand to make recommendations. In both cases government manipulated the result before the investigation began.

Serpell, for instance, was told to look at railway finances and then come up with a number of alternatives to get the railways to run either at less of a loss than they were in 1982 or, in the most famous alternative, to actually make a profit. In 1982 this was against a background of the lowest number of passenger journeys since 1948 and the lowest passenger revenue since 1968. All but one of the options given to Serpell was designed to reduce the cost of the railways by an amount laid down by the government.

The most infamous option, known as Option A was designed to get the railways to run at a profit. The only way Serpell could do this in the climate of the time was to reduce the route mileage by 84%. That wasn't Serpell's idea, he was working to a brief as any good civil servant should.

I knew Sir David Serpell well and I once asked him about the Option A. His response was typical. The politicians asked a bloody stupid question and they got a bloody stupid answer.

Just as Marples set the agenda for Beeching so the Thatcher government set the agenda for Serpell. The difference was that the government in the 1960s accepted most of Beeching while the Thatcher government implemented none of the Serpell recommendations.

 

[OuterDistant]

Three pages in and no-one's linked to "Reshaping British Railways" on YouTube, yet?

 

[yorksrob]

I think there's a difference between Serpell, who afterall was an independent civil servant whose findings could be taken or ignored by Government more or less at will, and Beeching, who was charged with leading the railway and was effectively responsible for the management ethos of the railway for many years.

 

[yorksrob]

I think there's a difference between Serpell, who afterall, was an independent civil servant whose findings could be taken or ignored by Government more or less at will, and Beeching, who was charged with leading the railway and was effectively responsible for the management ethos of the railway for many years.

 

[Manchester77]

Here are a few questions from me:

• Which lines were closed that have since reopened?
• Which lines were closed that there is now a campaign to reopen?

- I know one defiantly; the line from Manchester Central through East Didsbury to the Great Central was/is in the process of being converted to metrolink up to East Didsbury. I also think NSE reopened a line in something like 1989 kid what it's called anyone expand?

- The Great Central Main Line is proposed to be reopened by Chiltern too.

- The Waverly Line is also in the process of being part reopened.

- There has been a strong campeign to reopen the Waverly Line to rejoin at Carlisle with the Settle to Carlisle Line. Pretty much most lines have/did!

 

[TheJRB]

My nearest line, the Ashford to Hastings route, was one of those which evaded closure despite recommendation by Beeching. The locals kicked up enough of a fuss that they were actually listened to! The real blow for this line was the singling (between Appledore and Ore with a passing loop retained at Rye) in the 70s which I'm sure has caused headaches on many occasions especially since the through service to Brighton commenced. I consider redoubling inevitable even if it isn't for another twenty or more years.

I must say that the more I read, the more I do tend to think that the actions were suited to their era. In some cases where closure has since been deemed wrong, reopening has either occurred, is planned or will no doubt be considered. The Bicester to Bletchley line (I don't know if this was a Beeching recommended cut) which thankfully remained largely intact (unlike much of the Bedford to Cambridge part) is a good example of this.

I think too much emphasis is placed on Beeching. Some of what was cut was wrong but we can't go back in time and change what happened; we have to concentrate on the future not dwell on the past.

 

[corfield]

I really don't get the devotion to the GC shown by some.

The London - Manchester/Sheffield traffic could be quite easily fitted onto the WCML/MML respectively (and indeed was and has been), with investment in the infrastructure and rolling stock then better focussed on two rather than three lines (even then the MML has been left as something of a Cindarella).

The GC didn't really serve anything in-between, and at the London end had only joint lines to get it to it's terminus. Joint lines which have been reasonably busy doing more local stuff anyway (Met and what is now Chiltern). The GC could never have substituted for one of the others and so it seems blindingly obvious to me that it should have gone.

The fact that (as someone else pointed out somewhere) we only now now foresee a demand for another route to the Midlands & North only illustrates how wasteful it would have been to have kept it open. Not to mention that new route is going via Birmingham and the West Midlands (Britain's second city and a hugely populous and industrial region), which the GC did not, and will only be after several decades of "rampant" growth and in a national population going on for 50% greater than that of the GCs heyday, compared to an ever declining ridership in Beeching's time (and after for at least a decade).



As for not building over the trackbeds to save them for potential future usage, well that sounds a great idea until I thought about it more. After all, if you decide something isn't needed or wanted, then why not reuse some of it if there is a benefit in that ? Why keep it "just in case" when you've already decided the strength of that "just in case" is so weak you won't even consider keeping it in any form now.

I understand there are degrees of usefulness, and perhaps there should have been a methodology of assessing whether routes might be useful in future and thus worth protecting. Even then, I suspect many still wouldn't have been, and the use of them for road bypasses/housing has probably benefited more people anyway. My childhood abandoned line (the S&D in East Dorset) has since become a road and a busy one at that - benefiting many more (local) people in the process.



With regard to current/potential re-openings (e.g. Waverley just as one example), are they expected to cover their costs or are they only viable with subsidy?

If you removed subsidy from the railways, which in some kind of economic meltdown you might be forced to anyway - what actually runs at a profit?

 

[Manchester77]

Well the new metrolink line most probably will as TfGM have to repay the cost of the extensions as the £1.5 billion is a loan

 

[james60059]

Here are a few questions from me:

• Which lines were closed that have since reopened?
  

My local line; Coventry to Nuneaton was reopened in 1987 with Bedworth Station reopening in 1988, there are also plans to build 2 new stations on the line at Ricoh Arena and Bermuda Park. I believe also if Kenilworth EVER reopens the Nuneaton - Coventry service will be extended to Leamington again too .

 

[yorksrob]

R.e. Corfield:

The Great Central, certainly between the North and Banbury would have been a very useful cross country route had it remained. Leicster, Loughborough and Nottingham are rather left out for long distance cross country services even now and the GC would have solved this as well as providing a strategic alternative to the congested Birmingham hub.

As for the S&D, it should have been rationalised for local services in the same way as the East Suffolk line. This would have been far more useful to local transport than various piecemeal road developments.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

My local line; Coventry to Nuneaton was reopened in 1987 with Bedworth Station reopening in 1988, there are also plans to build 2 new stations on the line at Ricoh Arena and Bermuda Park. I believe also if Kenilworth EVER reopens the Nuneaton - Coventry service will be extended to Leamington again too .

I cannot see how a passenger service can cross Coventry on the flat (with reliability and regularity) until post 2026 or so. Not the most valuable flow I am afraid with WCML up and down and freight crossing moves .....
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
In terms of the Grand Central - like so many other lines a case of "last in - first out" - freight from Woodford to Colwich etc on an hourly basis (and much of that coal or empties) - it hardly lived up to it's promise , no matter how good the engineering was.

First train out of Marylebone in 1899 had about 20 passengers - and a worried young priest who asked his Bishop where to go for quiet meditation was told to go to Marylebone station as he would not be disturbed there.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Here are a few questions from me:

• Which lines were closed that have since reopened?
• Which lines were closed that there is now a campaign to reopen?
• Which lines were right to be closed?

Most reopenings were of lines that fortuitously stayed open for freight (eg the Ebbw Vale line, the Robin Hood line, Altrincham-Stockport etc).
They would not have stood a chance if the route had not been retained.

It may have been apocryphal, but a train on the Potteries Loop (Stoke to Kidsgrove via Hanley, Burslem and Tunstall) was found only to be carrying railwaymen travelling to work...
This was probably one that should have closed.
Many of the true branches were no-hopers also, but some of the inter-urban lines would probably be worth having today.
Closures on the L&Y system, for instance, were very savage.

Meanwhile, I can't think why some of the survivors made it over some that didn't.
Wrexham-Bidston, for instance, or Bletchley-Bedford local stations (which will still be impeding "electric spine" fast trains in the 2020s).
Another crass decision was the closure of both the Rugby-Leicester routes (Midland and GC) - if the Midland route had been retained it could have been a strategic part of the network today.

 

[corfield]

“very useful cross country route”

But would it ? very useful is a very easy label to type - but when thinking of the billions and billions to keep these routes going, to buy the rolling stock and keep upgrading/maintaining them - it doesn't seem remotely worth it.

Even today, with greater population, a massive (relative to 60s trends) upswing in usage leading to WCML/Birmingham congestion, there has been no indication that Cross Country services are limited by the lack of a direct Banbury-EM link. Even with EWRL there have been no formal plans (despite lots of talk on this forum) about XC services actually using it.
Indeed, my understanding is that XCs obsession about "via Birmingham" relates to the need to fill it's trains with that interchange/market - after all as discussed elsewhere, XC despite "full" trains is in poor financial state - so drawing other lines on maps to create alternative services isn't really very helpful.
[accepting that the fullness is in fact only because the trains are relatively short and poor in seating capacity - not necessarily because the routes are as terrifically popular as the fullness initially might indicate].

Leicester, Loughborough and Nottingham seem very well served to be honest. I really can’t understand how keeping a fully functioning mainline would have been remotely worth it for just a couple of routes that are in truth, already provided anyway.

 

[MidlandMainlie]

R.e. Corfield:

The Great Central, certainly between the North and Banbury would have been a very useful cross country route had it remained. Leicster, Loughborough and Nottingham are rather left out for long distance cross country services even now and the GC would have solved this as well as providing a strategic alternative to the congested Birmingham hub.

I agree a few useful cross country routes were lost that would be useful as freight & divisionary routes today from the congested main lines. The Great Central Rugby-Leicester (at least), Matlock-Buxton and Woodhead routes would be useful alternatives for extra freight/passenger services today.

 

[Cletus]

On the subject of Beeching, there is a documentary from a few years ago about the cuts, presented by Ian Hislop available on YouTube. Has some interesting bits (as well as some Betjeman-esque nostalgia)

It's being shown again at 9.00pm on BBC4 tomorrow (28th).

 

[Gwenllian2001]

The Modernization plan was drawn up to deliver what Government wanted of the railway in 1955- a railway still governed by Victorian common carrier legislation which forced the railway to carry everything brought to it at fixed rates. The Big 4 campaigned to be shot of this pre WW2 - they realized the cost of providing it was too great against growing road competition which eroded traffic, the railway was carrying 78% of the sundries in 1961 that it did in 1948. Marshalling Yards and pick up goods diesel locos were the products of Government legislation - the law lets not forget this. Railway Managers didn't wake up one morning and say I fancy spending lot on a Type 1 diesel pick up goods train instead of Liner trains or DMU's. They had to by law plan for a railway that carried everything from everywhere because the Government told them that was there function being nationalized certainly didn't help as the default mode on the railway is one of central command. BR got on with it as the Govt had given them the green light and money to do so - then Marples came along with his different agenda just 3 years later.

The report in many ways failed to understand railway finances or the way people travel. If you look at the report it lists a number of passenger services to close and the claimed savings from them - the underlying assumption was that c85% of the contributory revenue would stay on the railway which we all know it practice didn't happen. A large number of the closures actually ended up losing the railway more money. The report claimed the closures would save £40 million the best guess is that they only managed £7 million.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


You could apply the same thinking to roads...

Some very good points there Gareth, particularly in relation to the Common Carriers legislation. Back in the Fifties and Sixties a factory producing lingerie generated several van loads of parcels a week at my local station. On the face of things, it looked like good business. It wasn't until you examined the delivery addresses that the truth dawned. All this traffic was going to places like the Highlands and Islands of Scotland; Northern Ireland and the Republic. This was the traffic that the road companies refused, as they were perfectly entitled to do. We couldn't, by law, and it wasn't worth a light.

No doubt there would have been further closures but most of the lost causes had already been weeded out. The loss of industry, like coalmining had already resulted in depopulation in some areas served by branch lines which were not designed with passengers in mind and went nowhere important without a couple of changes of train. Such lines were dying of natural causes.

What nobody expected was that thriving urban areas would be left without services because they fitted a pattern invented by someone who had no knowledge of geography or railways. Lines which were casually regarded as surplus to requirements were discarded. Just how 'surplus to requirements' were they? Was car ownership higher in Aberdare or Ebbw Vale in the sixties? Were people in those areas anti railway in the Sixties? I think not. Did the citizens of the Cynon and Western Valleys use their trains by the thousand in the Sixties? Yes, they did and the continuing success of those reopened lines simply underlines that the demand was always there.

The Marples / Beeching era was characterised by deceit, half truths and downright lies. The whole sorry episode was engineered by a Minister of Transport who had a large personal stake in road building. The man was a criminal and died, in exile and disgrace, owing huge sums of money in taxes.

Despite the slick publicity surrounding 'Liner Trains', this was merely a development of 'Condor' which was BR's first manifestation of the same priniciple. Oh yes, and the Inter City brand was already in use before Beeching.

 

[ivanhoe]

A 'Beeching' of some sort was needed in spite of some of the rum characters around at the time. The railways were heading into oblivion and did not touch the lives or the hearts of the majority of the population. Fast forward 10 years later and there was plenty of evidence of a modern railway. I would argue that the Beeching era actually laid the foundations for a slimmer , sustainable railway though I am pretty certain that it was more by luck than planning.

 

[6Gman]

A 'Beeching' of some sort was needed in spite of some of the rum characters around at the time. The railways were heading into oblivion and did not touch the lives or the hearts of the majority of the population. Fast forward 10 years later and there was plenty of evidence of a modern railway. I would argue that the Beeching era actually laid the foundations for a slimmer , sustainable railway though I am pretty certain that it was more by luck than planning.

Correct. He was landed with a huge piece of work, so it's hardly surprising that he made some mistakes. But the basic messages of the Report were correct.