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Gloster

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What was the first line to be closed to passengers by British Railways? (I will accept answers that are geographically approximate if you can’t remember the exact locations involved.)
 
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Calthrop

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Gloster said:
What was the first line to be closed to passengers by British Railways? (I will accept answers that are geographically approximate if you can’t remember the exact locations involved.)
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I seem to have, somewhere, come across the following info re the above: BR's first passenger service withdrawal, was the vestigial service linking the Great Central main line, with the S & MJ, via the Woodford Halse north-to-west curve, Woodford Halse to Byfield (service where-to-where, I don't know -- one terminal, Fenny Compton? Stratford?). The only line as such to lose service, was this actual curve. Date: 31/5/1948.
 
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Snow1964

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Was it one of the lines that had closed during the war, but never really reopened, and already out of use, so more administrative on closure date,

I'm thinking the Folkestone - Canterbury (Elham valley) line
 
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Gloster

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Snow1964 said:
Was it one of the lines that had closed during the war, but never really reopened, and already out of use, so more administrative on closure date,

I'm thinking the Folkestone - Canterbury (Elham valley) line
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D6130 said:
Belmont to Stanmore?
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Sorry, no.

Calthrop said:
I seem to have, somewhere, come across the following info re the above: BR's first passenger service withdrawal, was the vestigial service linking the Great Central main line, with the S & MJ, via the Woodford Halse north-to-west curve, Woodford Halse to Byfield (service where-to-where, I don't know -- one terminal, Fenny Compton? Stratford?). The only line as such to lose service, was this actual curve. Date: 31/5/1948.
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Exactly that. (Woodford & Hinton-)Woodford North Junction-Woodford West Junction(-Byfield) closed on 31 May 1948, the only BR closure in that year.

To you to put up the next notice.
 
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Calthrop

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Gloster said:
Exactly that. (Woodford & Hinton-)Woodford North Junction-Woodford West Junction(-Byfield) closed on 31 May 1948, the only BR closure in that year.

To you to put up the next notice.
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Thank you.

(My bolding) -- at the risk of being annoying -- wasn't there also passenger withdrawal w.e.f. 1/11/1948, on Shepherds Well -- Eastry -- Wingham [Canterbury Road] (had been independent East Kent Light Railway until 1/1/48)?
 
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Calthrop

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Next question, with thanks: which continental European country had, at the time of "rail peak", a greater kilometrage of independent local railways -- local-government-owned-and-operated, or privately owned -- than the total kilometrage of its State railway undertaking?
 
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Calthrop

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xotGD said:
Belgium
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RDP said:
Switzerland?
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Again -- neither, the country I was thinking of. Belgium had "at peak" an enormous kilometrage of "real railways", exceeding, I'm certain, that of the Vicinaux light-rail network; and Switzerland didn't have the "answer country" 's situation of having State system outstripped distance-wise, by independent local lines.
 
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