What was the most important line to be closed?

[30907]

The first of those is certainly true.

 

[FQ]

Daventry is probably the biggest town with no railway station so I will go for the Leamington to Daventry line.

 

[yorksrob]

To move up to East Anglia, the Lowestoft to Yarmouth line was closed post-Beeching; I remember it running in the late 1960s. A problem with it was that it didn't connect at Yarmouth with the line from Norwich; it went to South Town, which had declined sadly after the direct line from Beccles was closed. The three terminal stations at Yarmouth were quite separate with only a very indirect connection between two of them, South Town and Beach, and the latter had closed by the 1960s.

Yeah, that's an interesting point.

It still seems surprising though, considering Great Yarmouth is quite a large town and many large towns happily support two stations, albeit perhaps with one of them stripped down a bit (think St Albans).

I think the date of closure has a lot to do with it. 1969 - 70 seems to have been a particularly bad time for closures when the railway really lost the plot. Think of all the most pointless, counter-productive closures took place in this period, many of them sorely missed. Not just Lowestoft - Yarmouth but Alton - Winchester, Skipton - Colne, Uckfield - Lewes, Wareham - Swanage, Penrith - Keswick.

I'm not sure how much the economic situation of the time was to blame, but the phrase directionless flailing springs to mind. I'd go so far as to say that if they'd stabilised the network in about 1968, even taking account of Beeching, we'd still be immeasurably better off today. Truly the nadir.

 

[Leylandlad]

If I may return to this thread

A few mentions of the Woodhead line, although that was covered by the Hope Valley line...Waverley Line local traffic to Hawick but duplicated as a through route by the WCML.

No single route has had peeps on here up in arms over its closure. None of us want to see lines closed obviously.

Bottom line is there really hasn't been a major irreplaceable main route closed, by Dicky Beeching or anyone else.

The rail network today is a great national asset. We can build it up with future reopenings. Future generations will not forgive us if we don't take the opportunity now to build HS2

 

[yorksrob]

If I may return to this thread

A few mentions of the Woodhead line, although that was covered by the Hope Valley line...Waverley Line local traffic to Hawick but duplicated as a through route by the WCML.

No single route has had peeps on here up in arms over its closure. None of us want to see lines closed obviously.

Bottom line is there really hasn't been a major irreplaceable main route closed, by Dicky Beeching or anyone else.

Quite a lot of us "peeps" didn't have the opportunity to be up in arms over the many irreplaceable routes closed.

 

[Leylandlad]

Quite a lot of us "peeps" didn't have the opportunity to be up in arms over the many irreplaceable routes closed.

Funny you should say that Rob

The Waverley line closure and its impending rebirth always had a special place in my heart as it was the first line to be closed in my lifetime.

I was 5 days old when it closed...my mother said I was very restless that night they were rioting at Newcastleton

 

[Amy Worrall]

Daventry is probably the biggest town with no railway station so I will go for the Leamington to Daventry line.

Kenilworth is a tad bigger than Daventry, and currently has no station — although that is due to change.

 

[steammemories]

For me it would be the Great Central and the Woodhead route which was all part of the same.

 

[AM9]

Without getting involved in the politics of the Beeching closures, there are many lines that were closed for the then popular reasons, (e.g. cost saving vs rapid increase in car travel). With the rapid development of Essex in the '70s and '80s with commuter villages, had they survived a few more years, they would have become key parts of commuter systems. Take the Essex lines like:

Bishops Stortford to Braintree, (already mentioned)
Witham to Maldon
Maldon to South Wooham Ferrers
Great Chesterford to Six Mile Bottom

Given that the Wickford to Southminster line survives today, some of the above lines would provide more valuable feeder routes into the WAML and GEML (in which case would have been upgraded by now rather than dragging-on as hopelessly overloaded with traffic from less stations).
In addition, some of the above lines provide good diversion routes in times of need.

 

[Lankyline]

The one closure that should have never happened and wasn't part of Beeching was that of Blackpool Central. It was the local council that wanted the land to 'redevelop' the land into what turned out to be a huge car park. 4-6 platforms on the excurision side would have closed Blackpool North - Poulton and given up the main Central station by the front for Council use. The Blackpool South line runs through the greater population centres and not closing Central but North could have possibly saved the Fleetwood line (closed 1970) as that would have been the only service left for Poulton, therefore enhancing the economic viability of that line. Hourly Fleetwood - Colne trains anyone?

Beeching did recommend the closure of Blackpool north, but as you state the council petitioned for closure of Central. One point though is that Central's main traffic was seasonal and this declined with increased car & coach traffic. It's also interesting to note that for those that don't know part of the M55 and Yeadon way, that continues from the end of the m/way runs along the old trackbed.

On a different point, why does Colne - Skipton keep getting mentioned on here as a "major" route closure, I thought this was just a provincial link ?

I would submit Penrith - Keswick - Workington line as an unnecessary closure & also as previously mentioned Preston - Southport

 

[Dr_Paul]

With the rapid development of Essex in the '70s and '80s with commuter villages, had they survived a few more years, they would have become key parts of commuter systems. Take the Essex lines like: Great Chesterford to Six Mile Bottom.

I think that this line would have needed to have survived more than 'a few more years'. It closed in the 1850s, although the track-bed is still visible in places.

I think that had the Buntingford branch lasted a few more years, it could well have become a commuter route.

One of the more stupid things was to close the line through Haverhill about the same time that it was developed as a new town, although in mitigation it didn't have a direct route to London via the Cambridge line, as the junction at Bartlow went the wrong way.

 

[Met5141]

I think that had the Buntingford branch lasted a few more years, it could well have become a commuter route.

Further to that, if they hadn't terminated the line at Buntingford during construction in the 1860's and had continued as originally planned to connect to the Great Northern at Royston, i feel that line would be here today, electrified and providing a useful diversionary route.

 

[Passenger John]

Further to that, if they hadn't terminated the line at Buntingford during construction in the 1860's and had continued as originally planned to connect to the Great Northern at Royston, i feel that line would be here today, electrified and providing a useful diversionary route.

Has anyone got any ideas to which route it would have followed from Buntingford to Royston