Was this a common British Railways strategy?

[Bevan Price]

The closure debate has over focused on the branch line/lost lines aspect fundamentally the problem was really about archaic Victorian legislation that forced the railways to be unprofitable.

Plus the unrestrained free market that led to the construction of "unnecessary" competing railways for "tactical" reasons. e.g. "Company X" built a line to serve a couple of small towns, either to discourage "Company Y" from invading its (claimed territory) , or to try to get its share of a traffic flow in that area.

Hence, for example there were some Welsh Valleys that got 2 or even 3 railways using the same valley. And (before the S&C was built), the Midland Railway used a line from Clapham (Yorks) to Ingleton & Low Gill, to try and abstract some Anglo-Scottish traffic from the LNWR's West Coast Main Line.

Given sensible, logical, planning, rather than a market "free for all", many such lines would never have been built - some probably never made even a tiny profit, and closures started before Marples-Beeching. The process was accelerated in the 1960s, but went too far, closing a lot of lines that ought to have been retained.

And the object of the closures- reducing BR's deficit - actually failed. Despite numerous line closures, coupled with sizeable fare increases, BR's annual losses failed to decline. Beeching (or his advisers) mistakenly thought that when a line closed, the passengers would either use rail replacement buses, or drive to a railhead on a main line. Well - some of them did drive - but mostly for the whole journey, rather than to a railhead. And most of the rail replacement buses were failures - they were generally much slower than the trains they replaced, and even more people were tempted to use cars.

In my opinion, the only good thing to emerge from the Beeching era was the concept of block & liner freight trains.

 

[Buttsy]

And the object of the closures- reducing BR's deficit - actually failed. Despite numerous line closures, coupled with sizeable fare increases, BR's annual losses failed to decline. Beeching (or his advisers) mistakenly thought that when a line closed, the passengers would either use rail replacement buses, or drive to a railhead on a main line. Well - some of them did drive - but mostly for the whole journey, rather than to a railhead. And most of the rail replacement buses were failures - they were generally much slower than the trains they replaced, and even more people were tempted to use cars.

The other problem with the replacement buses is that they served the old station which was often far from the centre, when in a lot of cases more traffic would have been retained by running into the middle of the town or village.

 

[RichmondCommu]

The other problem with the replacement buses is that they served the old station which was often far from the centre, when in a lot of cases more traffic would have been retained by running into the middle of the town or village.

Very true but then you have to ask what were the Victorians thinking of? Kirby Stephen springs to mind! Not only that but why have a replacement bus when you might as well have a brand bus service?

 

[si404]

Post-Beeching they did it with the GWR's route between Birmingham and Wolverhampton. Yes there was duplication, but Beeching himself wanted both lines upgraded. Instead the ex-Midland Region BR people in charge of the area ran it down. In the end the councils had to build that slow, stopping-far-too-often tram to make some legit use of the corridor.

 

[HSTEd]

The question of common carrier status does tend to generate questions in my mind as to what would have happened in full containerisation had occured far earlier or road type competition ahd been delayed for some reason.

I imagine dropping off containers at random halts would be a lot less loss making then all the shunt moves required otherwise (you would ofcourse need a container forklift at every halt, but your need for shunters drops considerably).

 

[RichmondCommu]

I imagine dropping off containers at random halts would be a lot less loss making then all the shunt moves required otherwise (you would ofcourse need a container forklift at every halt, but your need for shunters drops considerably).

And of course a reduction in track maintenance for associated sidings and signalling. I raised the point a few months ago regarding the possibility of freight trains beiing loaded / unloaded on running lines to save costs.

 

[dk1]

In relation to the Yarmouth (Southtown) to Lowestoft line, remember that this line lasted, albeit as a long siding, until 1970. It was well planned even then for a relief for Southtown Road to Gorleston & a second river crossing. Practically all this route as far as Gorleston Station & the M&GN route to Yarmouth Beach across Breydon Water where used for this purpose in the 1980s.

 

[Tiny Tim]

The question of common carrier status does tend to generate questions in my mind as to what would have happened in full containerisation had occured far earlier or road type competition ahd been delayed for some reason.

I imagine dropping off containers at random halts would be a lot less loss making then all the shunt moves required otherwise (you would ofcourse need a container forklift at every halt, but your need for shunters drops considerably).

There was a prototype system on 'Tomorrow's World' (obviously, a long time ago!) that could automatically unload containers from trains at unmanned stations. I don't think it got any further.

 

[HSTEd]

There was a prototype system on 'Tomorrow's World' (obviously, a long time ago!) that could automatically unload containers from trains at unmanned stations. I don't think it got any further.

Pity, because the shortest possible (10ft) ISO container would have allowed far smaller consignments to be practically rail hauled in container form.

Combined with multiple units for relatively rapid acceleration and "wagonload" freight seems far less of a money hole.

 

[leytongabriel]

Lovely clip. Thank you!