The Serpell Report

[backontrack]

I was researching the Highland Railway (was there ever a station at Dalnaraoch?) and I found out about something called the Serpell Report.

Apparently, 1982 is meant to be the nadir of the UK railway network. That year saw (from Wikipedia):

...the lowest number of passenger journeys of the second half of the 20th century, the lowest level of passenger-miles, and the lowest (real) level of passenger revenue since 1968.

This was mostly because of strikes and rostering issues.

Here's more from Wikipedia:

For reference, in 1982, journeys totalling 18,300 million passenger-miles were made; the network comprised 10,370 route miles; and BR's passenger deficit was £933 million. The various options for the network considered in Part 2 were as follows:

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.

So Sheffield, Plymouth, Leicester, Derby, Nottingham, Aberdeen, Dundee, Inverness, Swansea, Hull, Sunderland, Middlesbrough, Exeter, Cambridge, Oxford, Bradford, Huddersfield, Halifax, Barnsley, Scarborough, Blackpool, Stirling, Kilmarnock, Perth, Chester, Llandudno, Bangor, Shrewsbury, Cheltenham, Gloucester, Hereford, Worcester, Macclesfield, Walsall, Cannock, Hinckley, Bedford, Luton, Banbury, Leamington, Stratford-upon-Avon, Morecambe, Hartlepool, Lincoln, Grimsby, Rotherham, Ely, Dewsbury, Harrogate, Shipley, Keighley, Skipton, Chesterfield, Taunton, Penzance, Truro, etc...

...would all be without rail services. There would only be one line into both Scotland and Wales. (There'd still be lines to Norwich, Harwich, Portsmouth, Southampton, Brighton, Folkestone, Eastbourne and Southend retaining their services.) It's also interesting to note that the lines are always seen as being 'from' London. Westminster needed (and still needs) to learn that London is not the centre of the universe, thus not everyone wanted/wants to go there. The Transpennine Line would have been a goner, as well as the line between York and Birmingham via Derby. The Midlands Mainline would also be a major casualty.

This is what the network would like like:

So we move on to Option B.

Option B was similar to Option A, with allowances for the cost of congestion caused by removing rail links. If the removal of a line in Option A would cause a greater cost to the country in terms of increased road congestion than would be saved in removing the line, then the line was retained under Option B. This scenario would have seen the route mileage reduced by 78%, and annual passenger-miles reduced by 45%. The network would have been as per Option A, but with the addition of most of the London commuter lines, plus the London-Westbury section of the Great Western Main Line.

Of course it had this. Also, what's to be gained by only running to Westbury? Would it act as a parkway station for the rest of Wiltshire and Somerset?

Also, still no Sheffield. Maggie Thatcher hated Sheffield with a vengeance, having already done for the Woodhead line the previous year.

Now onto Option C:

Option C was actually a set of three options, each designed to reduce the railways annual deficit according to a given target:
Option C1 would have kept the existing network more or less entirely, only removing the most loss making services. While the network would have been virtually unchanged (at 99% of existing length), many smaller stations would have closed. One lengthy removal would have been the Westbury-Weymouth line. Passenger-miles would have been reduced by about 4%.
Option C2 was designed to reduce the annual deficit to £700 million. Loss making services would have been cut (using a harsher test than Option C1). There would have been some more network cuts, such as the Trowbridge-Melksham-Chippenham line, the branches north of Norwich, the north Devon line from Exeter towards Barnstaple, the line between Swansea and Stokesay, and the mid-Wales branch west of Shrewsbury. However, most of the savings would have come from service cuts and station closures. This scenario would have seen the route mileage reduced by 17%, and annual passenger-miles reduced by 9%.
Option C3 was designed to reduce the annual deficit to £500 million. Major cuts would have included all lines in Wales apart from the valley lines north of Cardiff; all lines in Devon and Cornwall other than the main line link to Exeter; the Salisbury-Exeter line; all lines in East Anglia other than the line to Norwich; all rural lines in Scotland; the trans-Pennine line; and most local lines east of the East Coast Main Line. This scenario would have seen the route mileage reduced by 39%, and annual passenger-miles reduced by 15%.

So basically a lesser Beeching, although C3 has a lot more high-profile closures, such as the Transpennine line and the line to Plymouth.

There were two more options:

Option D was the only option not designed to meet a financial criterion. Instead, connections would have been made to retain services to communities with population greater than 25,000. This came out very similar to Option C2, with only 11 extra communities served.
The report also briefly considered an Option H – a "high investment" option. This looked at the effects of new rolling stock on maintenance costs, and concluded that the return would be far too small.

Otherwise, the report did not seriously examine the effects of improving rail services.[3]

Of course it didn't. Probably too much effort for it to think about improving services, and it was easier to close the lines.

Luckily, usage grew and the plan was forgotten. But it's scary to think how close the network came to being massively shrunk.

 

[ainsworth74]

This was obviously during Margaret Thatcher's reign of terror. So it's obviously a close call for the railway, as she was rather trigger-happy when it came to railways.

I would question that assertion.

 

[Greenback]

It can be argued that the Serpell Report was actually good for the railways, although I doubt that was intentional.

I remember when news of the report came into the public domain. There was a negative reaction from most people, particularly with regard to option A, with many references to Dr Beeching, who Mr Serpell had actually worked with. At this time, there was a feeling that the cuts of the 1960's had been too deep, and such a severe reduction in the network as that proposed in the report actually had the effect of galvanising opposition to any further large scale closures at all, and even those who were not railway users, enthusiasts or supporters felt compelled to speak out against the proposals.

I had a distinct impression at the time, and I still feel the same way, that the government wisely decided that Serpell's recommendations, in any form whatsoever, would be opposed by the majority of the electorate and were simply not worth pursuing. Instead, the government decided to squeeze BR financially, so as to increase efficiency ready for the ultimate goal of privatisation.

 

[sprinterguy]

This was obviously during Margaret Thatcher's reign of terror. So it's obviously a close call for the railway, as she was rather trigger-happy when it came to railways.

I thought that it was commonly held that Margaret Thatcher was about as "hands off" with the railways as it was possible to be.

The Serpell report was hoped by Sir Peter Parker, the chairman of British Rail, to occupy a neutral position in presenting the case for the railways' to Transport Minister David Howell. However, David Serpell's committee was appointed for him with little or no consultation and involved individuals with vested interests in road transport, so there are some serious political machinations in evidence there. The timescale was also limited to prevent more than a superficial analysis. As with the Beeching report there were quite serious discrepancies in the committee's reasoning behind retaining some lines and removing others.

But it's scary to think how close the network came to being massively shrunk.

It didn't, really: The report was supposed to be primarily advisory to allow for subsequent detailed investigation, and I don't think there was any real risk of Options A or B being adopted in practice.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I had a distinct impression at the time, and I still feel the same way, that the government wisely decided that Serpell's recommendations, in any form whatsoever, would be opposed by the majority of the electorate and were simply not worth pursuing. Instead, the government decided to squeeze BR financially, so as to increase efficiency ready for the ultimate goal of privatisation.

Indeed: The report was published with the 1983 General Election approaching, and it was quite quickly swept under the carpet by Government to avoid embarrassment in the face of the electrorate. The financial squeeze and clearer accountability (Sectorisation was not far away) was the chosen solution as you rightly say.

 

[181]

The report is available at http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/docsummary.php?docID=29, although I can't claim to have read much of it

The map of option C2 confirms what I remember hearing at the time, that there was a proposal to truncate the West Highland Lines at Crianlarich (population about 200). The most likely explanation seems to me to be that the maps were based on a very superficial look at the figures -- presumably there were (and are) about twice as many pasengers south of Crianlarich because the line carried both Oban and Fort William passengers, and it didn't occur to the committee that many would presumably mostly have gone by car or bus if the railway had stopped halfway.

More puzzling are the oddities of option C3, with what appear to be Carnforth-Settle Junction and Calvert-Princes Risborough left as dead-end branches.