I'm surprised that Bedford - Leicester doesn't show up on the maps. Didn't Beeching want to close St Pancras? AFAICR pre electrification work was carried out on the Northampton - Market Harborough line (raising bridges etc) before it was decided to keep St Pancras open, whereupon Northampton - Market Harborough was condemned to closure. John Betjeman was one of those who campaigned for St Pancras to be retained, which is why his statue s now on the upper concourse.
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Lines that survived Beeching
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The version I heard was that they wanted to divert into King's Cross via Bedford and Hitchin, but running via Northampton actually makes more sense if cutting ever made any sense at all. Oddly, Serpall wanted to keep St Pancras, since the MML was in profit at the time.
I'm now trying to remember if Basingstoke-Exeter [edited] was on the list as well. I'm certain that Newcastle-Edinburgh was. During an interview he said this,
"I believe we could have closed the line between Newcastle and Edinburgh, while only affecting people in Berwick-upon-Tweed."
Obviously ignoring the people in Edinburgh who want to go to Newcastle or York and the people in Newcastle or York who want to go to Edinburgh. Beeching and Serpall are probably the worst examples of London-centric railway planning. They both seemed to consider railways as routes to London rather than connections between cities. We have suffered ever since.
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Yes, I think it was, or at least the Salisbury - Exeter section was. The way they seemed to work things was to close one part of a line and then find that the part that they left open became uneconomical, so they then set about closing that as well. Closing the Exeter - Plymouth line and branch lines west of Okehampton, and then closing Crediton - Okehampton was a prime example, as was Cambridge - Sudbury, and then the Marks Tey - Sudbury section a few years later, although of course in the end it managed to survive. I also remember talk of Farnham - Alton closing after the Alton - Winchester line shut. Not that these additional closures could be blamed on Beeching as he had gone by then
Proud Salopian
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The Heart of Wales Line has to be one of the greatest survivors, of numerous proposed closures in the 20th century!
Certainly the plan was to divert the expresses away from St Pancras via Harborough & Northampton.
Don't forget the Great Central was meant to survive under Beeching as a secondary mainline - which would have also provided a fast link to Leicester & the East Midlands. The GCR was a BR closure not a Beeching one.
Whether Harborough - Bedford would have closed is less clear, given that pre-electrification some of the 'suburban' DMU services worked out to Kettering.
What I suspect would have happened is expresses from Leicester and beyond would have been sent to Euston via Northampton. There would have then been a suburban service running from Harborough or Kettering through to Moorgate (or possibly diverted into KX). And when electrification arrived it would probably not have been truncated at Bedford.
I have to wonder whether the London Midland Region simply could not bring itself to close the Midland Line. They certainly 'Midlandised' the GCR in the fifties, with Scots and Black 5s replacing V2s and B1s. I can see the GCR being used, only diverted into Leicester Midland, although it might regain the GCR alignment at Loughborough, along with a lot of other traffic as well. Sheffield would somehow consolidate down into one station. They got it somewhat wrong, I think.
merlodlliw
Established Member
I was never aware the HOWL was down for closure, as it is the only public transport in much of the line and area it serves
Proud Salopian
Member
As Wikipedia puts it:
"...the Heart of Wales Line survived the Beeching axe since it carried extensive freight traffic and served the steelworks at Bynea and industrial areas such as Ammanford and Pontarddulais, linking them with the docks at Llanelli. It also passes through six marginal constituencies, which was the main reason why Harold Wilson saved the line from closure. During engineering work the line is still occasionally used as a diversionary freight route."
It was however up for closure in the Beeching report and of course again in that crazy report in the 1980s (?) which would have seen almost all railway lines closed!
And I seem to remember only a few years ago it was in an article somewhere about the lines which have the most subsidy/rural lines which could be closed.
"...the Heart of Wales Line survived the Beeching axe since it carried extensive freight traffic and served the steelworks at Bynea and industrial areas such as Ammanford and Pontarddulais, linking them with the docks at Llanelli. It also passes through six marginal constituencies, which was the main reason why Harold Wilson saved the line from closure. During engineering work the line is still occasionally used as a diversionary freight route."
It was however up for closure in the Beeching report and of course again in that crazy report in the 1980s (?) which would have seen almost all railway lines closed!
And I seem to remember only a few years ago it was in an article somewhere about the lines which have the most subsidy/rural lines which could be closed.
Llanelli's docks were shut in 1951, after which time the town officially became a 'closed port'. The largest dock could not handle ships over about 1,000 tons, and were far too small after World War II, and there was a also a problem with sand banks and silting.
Secondly, the long distance freight services were diverted away from the line when it was downgraded post 1964 to a light railway to save money. Local freights ran until the early 1980's IIRC, but did not run the whole length of the line from Pantyffynon to Craven Arms.
I'd say that the southern end of the line was pretty safe in the 1960's as it did serve a lot of industry around Pantyffynon, Gorseinon and Pontardulais. I'll probably have to look at my books again to be certain...
TheBigD
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merlodlliw
Established Member
Many thanks, nice to get the usual pleasant and descriptive response from the three of you as always.
M
Proud Salopian
Member
Option A of the Serpell Report...
"Option A was a "commercial" network, in which the railways as a whole would make a profit. This scenario would have seen the route mileage reduced by 84%, and annual passenger-miles reduced by 56%. The only main lines left would have been London-Bristol/Cardiff, London-Birmingham-Liverpool/Manchester-Glasgow/Edinburgh, and London-Leeds/Newcastle. Some major commuter lines in the southeast would have been retained; all other lines would have disappeared completely. The passenger sector would still make a small loss, but this would be offset by profits from the freight sector."
Map on page 72 of the PDF:
http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/DoT_Serpell001.pdf
Moronic!!
"Option A was a "commercial" network, in which the railways as a whole would make a profit. This scenario would have seen the route mileage reduced by 84%, and annual passenger-miles reduced by 56%. The only main lines left would have been London-Bristol/Cardiff, London-Birmingham-Liverpool/Manchester-Glasgow/Edinburgh, and London-Leeds/Newcastle. Some major commuter lines in the southeast would have been retained; all other lines would have disappeared completely. The passenger sector would still make a small loss, but this would be offset by profits from the freight sector."
Map on page 72 of the PDF:
http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/DoT_Serpell001.pdf
Moronic!!
I quite agree! Cutting back services to such an extent leaves absolutely no room for growth and leaves no chance of ever rebuilding what is lost.
However, if we ever have a series of high-speed lines in this country, a map will look almost exactly like Serpall's skeleton network. It's bizarre, but it makes a fairly good starting point for planning.
Proud Salopian
Member
And the whole point of having a railway network is lost - people travel from smaller stations and lines into the larger stations and lines and then travel long-distance before often then heading out onto the local network again. You can't just have a network of long-distance lines, there has to be feeder/local lines for passengers to get to and from where they need to be/where they live. Like if I'm heading to Glossop from Welshpool, I'd take the train to Shrewsbury, then the main part of my journey up to Manchester, before changing onto a local train to Glossop. If there was only the Shrewsbury-Manchester line the journey would not be possible.
I've posted something similar under the thread if you could say 5 words to Beeching... Part of a process. The seeds were sown during the last war, when the railways were effectively nationalised, part of their profits went to the war effort.
Nationalisation resulted in new standard steam locomotives which had a short life, some lasting less than a decade. then there was the 1955 Modernisation plan which meant these almost new steam engines being replaced by new but often unreliable diesels - there were 2 in the Barry scrap line, even one in British Rail blue.
when the Treasury worked out what all this would cost the taxpayer it hit the panic button and asked for economies. Enter Beeching an accountant with ICI, the Daily Mirror never let him forget that he asked BR to match his salary.
So he organised a head count and drew a line. Anything under it was deemed uneconomic and earmarked for closure. It was the infamous appendix 2 that everyone rushed to read, the list of lines and stations read like a telephone directory. The rail network had already shrunk - such as the Lynton & Barnstaple in 1935 - and would continue post Beeching - but at a much reduced rate.
Salisbury to Exeter was indeed earmarked for closure, but was saved and its interesting to note that after doldrums in the 70's there has been some revival in reopening some stations and now an hourly service. Visited Yeovil yesterday and found the station well patronised and noted 2 well filled six car trains
Okehampton now sees summer Sunday workings, also the stub from Plymouth - Bere Alston - Gunnislake saved due to narrow roads despite 2 large viaducts to maintain
Attitudes in the 60's were different - railways were outmoded, everyone would have a car and to be green was to be a simpleton
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ps interesting to note that while Beeching was a Tory and the plan received Tory support, by the time the closures were taking effect, the government was Labour under Wilson which did nothing to stop it.
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another issue of lack of foresight in the 60's were the class 14 diesels nicknamed Teddy Bears which were introduced in 1964 for erm... pick up freight. Five years later, the entire class withdrawn spending more time in industrial use such as the NCB than BR
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