Reversing Beeching

[chriswright03]

A bit difficult to do that given:-

 

(i) The document is a Government one, and anything the Government does is influenced by the political party in charge.

(ii) It rattles on about how great privatisation has been and implies that privatisation has more or less single handedly been the reason for the growth in passenger numbers

(iii) Lays out plans for yet more fragmentation (splitting of the GWR franchise etc) while at the same time calling for more consolidation.

(iv) Is being championed by a minister with a track record of manipulating things so it fits with their political ideology (re the Southern DOO dispute)

Agreed to some extent but it doesn't have to go to the extent of this Party did this and this one did this.  So maybe I should say without 'Party' politics.  Simple reason really is that where is plenty of views and discussion to be had without straying across the line where it will get locked.

[Nearholmer]

Actions tend to speak louder than government policy announcements, so I will be impressed when the Bletchley-Oxford link, or similar elsewhere in England, is re-forged, and only a tiny bit impressed until then.

 

As to Beeching: he had to work in a serious hurry, with very weak data, and while a very large proportion of what he shut was probably due for it, there were clearly some needless casualties.

[chriswright03]

I rather think the mistake was made early, when Beeching was mentioned, that's about as political as it gets on a railway forum.

 

Rather like posting a cartoon of the prophet and hoping there won't be a fuss on Muslim TV.

He wasn't to start with.  Predictive text decided Beecham was the culprit!

 

OK so lets start from a different angle then.

 

Is it possible (should the finances be there) to do something about it all this late in the day? 

 

Is the railway network able to take on the new challenges that having less cars/commercial vehicles on our roads will bring?

 

As has already been mentioned do we even have the skill sets to run something akin to what is being discusses?

[D854_Tiger]

OT, but certainly much commented on in Private Eye

 

PR is pretty much all that Branson does nowadays. He has turned himself into a brand, Stagecoach run his railways and Delta pretty much owns his airline.

 

Same with his other airlines in the US (Alsaka Airlines) and his Australian one looks to be going the same way in a deal with the Air China and Hilton Hotels.

 

Build something successful from scratch then flog it off.

 

He's good at it though and it's notable that whatever the deal the Virgin brand never seems to be thrown away by the new owners.

 

Notice how we always talk about Branson and the East Coast franchise never Souter.

[Zomboid]

Basically, given the money (and sensible time frames to get skills in place) almost anything is possible.

What will probably be asked for is the moon on a stick on exchange for 2 packets of non-premium brand crisps. Yesterday. And then part way through the project the goalposts will be moved.

[chriswright03]

I suppose anything is possible.  Who would have thought that trams would have made a come back in our Cities?

[D854_Tiger]

Actions tend to speak louder than government policy announcements, so I will be impressed when the Bletchley-Oxford link, or similar elsewhere in England, is re-forged, and only a tiny bit impressed until then.

 

As to Beeching: he had to work in a serious hurry, with very weak data, and while a very large proportion of what he shut was probably due for it, there were clearly some needless casualties.

 

He was right on some things clearly having multiple main line stations in so many cities was something that needed addressing, both from a cost perspective and a passenger perspective, a pain all round.

 

The joint lines were pretty much doomed, once there was only one railway company a lot of them lost their reason to exist.

 

But too many lines were closed, instead of economies being made, and he was a clever man he should have known full well that producing a report for politicians was always going to be a case of them implementing the bits they wanted to hear and ignoring all the bits they didn't.

 

That's what politicians do and Beeching trusted them to behave in good faith - rational and logical in their dealings with him and his report - and frankly that made him the biggest dumb arse ever to walk on the planet because he was left taking all the blame, the oldest trick in the book, just like the politicians had hoped all along and he fell for it.

[phil-b259]

Actions tend to speak louder than government policy announcements, so I will be impressed when the Bletchley-Oxford link, or similar elsewhere in England, is re-forged, and only a tiny bit impressed until then.

 

As to Beeching: he had to work in a serious hurry, with very weak data, and while a very large proportion of what he shut was probably due for it, there were clearly some needless casualties.

 

Quite so, particularly as despite all the hot air that has emanated from the DfT over the past few decades, the amount of railway reopened in England has been absolutely miniscule.

 

By contrast the Scottish Government have delivered the Larkhall, Alloa and Borders railway - plus the double tracked electrified Aidrie - Bathgate line in under two decades.

[Mad McCann]

Yes and we are having the wall rebuilt!

Excellent. Make sure it follows the original alignment then, thus sparing me a troublesome house moving/selling process... ;-)

 

D4

[Tim V]

Perhaps they will reopen the Canterbury to Whistable line.

It only closed because there were not "men with sufficient faith in Canterbury".

[Mad McCann]

Yes and we are having the wall rebuilt!

Excellent. Make sure it follows the original alignment then, thus sparing me a troublesome house moving/selling process... ;-)

 

D4

The Westminster government can make life difficult enough for the SNP that they will either be forced to follow suit or suffer rail services deteriorating.

 

The SNP will then have to find ways to blame any bad outcomes as England's fault (their usual ploy on which up to now they've successfully based their entire political career) but that sort of thing only has so much shelf life and tends to wear thin after a while with the voters.

Perhaps you should actually read up on Scotland's politics rather than parroting uninformed opinion from Daily Mail hacks.

[Hroth]

Perhaps they will reopen the Canterbury to Whistable line.

 

It only closed because there were not "men with sufficient faith in Canterbury".

Well, they cooked their goose (Prop. Bishop of Winchester, I believe!) when they didn't support the Squire!

[corneliuslundie]

So let's see. We'll break up the big franchises. There will then be even more lines where more than one franchise operates.

Then we'll pass the infrastucrture to the operator. 

Which operator? In the West Country we will have GWR operating the through services and "Wessex" operating the local services. So who owns the tracks west of Exeter?

Around London we'll have several companies operating over the Farringdon to London Bridge link. So who takes the tracks and who co-ordinates the services?

Between London and Birmingham we already have London Midland and the bearded fellow sharing the route. So who takes the tracks?

Of course, the answer is easy. We'll just duplicate all the shared routes. No problem. Just needs a bit of money,

Mr Grayling, just go home please and use your brain for a few minutes before you issue more waste paper (75% recycled).

And this is not a party political statement. It happens all the time with politicians of every hue.

But of course it is not really the politicians. This will give the civil servants another wonderful opportunity to tighten their grasp on "private sector" activity.

Forget Mr Branson's spacecraft. He is now operating buses. Rather more useful for most people.

I am afraid that like most major policy announcements, this will gradually disappear except when something which was already happening or had to happen for a completely different reason can be claimed as a triumph of the policy. That's how British governments work these days.

Bitter and twisted? Who, me?

Jonathan

[D854_Tiger]

So let's see. We'll break up the big franchises. There will then be even more lines where more than one franchise operates.

Then we'll pass the infrastucrture to the operator. 

Which operator? In the West Country we will have GWR operating the through services and "Wessex" operating the local services. So who owns the tracks west of Exeter?

Around London we'll have several companies operating over the Farringdon to London Bridge link. So who takes the tracks and who co-ordinates the services?

Between London and Birmingham we already have London Midland and the bearded fellow sharing the route. So who takes the tracks?

Of course, the answer is easy. We'll just duplicate all the shared routes. No problem. Just needs a bit of money,

Mr Grayling, just go home please and use your brain for a few minutes before you issue more waste paper (75% recycled).

And this is not a party political statement. It happens all the time with politicians of every hue.

But of course it is not really the politicians. This will give the civil servants another wonderful opportunity to tighten their grasp on "private sector" activity.

Forget Mr Branson's spacecraft. He is now operating buses. Rather more useful for most people.

I am afraid that like most major policy announcements, this will gradually disappear except when something which was already happening or had to happen for a completely different reason can be claimed as a triumph of the policy. That's how British governments work these days.

Bitter and twisted? Who, me?

Jonathan

 

 

Sadly in this country transport has never been reserved for the greatest political talent available.

 

Either a good one, on the way up, that doesn't hang around for very long or a bad one, on the way down, that usually does.

 

I will leave it to someone else to decide which category Grayling is.

[D854_Tiger]

Perhaps you should actually read up on Scotland's politics rather than parroting uninformed opinion from Daily Mail hacks.

 

I was actually parroting more than a few Labour MP's take on the SNP, there's no love lost there.

[62613]

I think it was right to reduce the railway network in the 1960s but it is surely right too to add to it now.

As ever it will come down to money. HS2 is costing a fortune and the government is still wedded to austerity

Actually, it's costing no more, annually, than Crossrail has. Nobody's whinged about the cost of that......have they?

[Zomboid]

Politicians have to tinker and fiddle to justify their existence. If they just set something up and let the experts get on with it, just about any structure could be made to work. But of course no one wants experts these days.

[Mad McCann]

I was actually parroting more than a few Labour MP's take on the SNP, there's no love lost there.[/

 

It's best not to place too much weight on what Labour's Scottish branch says; most of them are anti-Corbin and more interested in their own sense of entitlement than in serving as grown up members of our parliament and a listen to FMQs will leave you in no doubt as to their overall quality.

However, this is not a place to be discussing my country's national politics and the Mods will rightly expect us to leave it at that.

[jonny777]

So let's see. We'll break up the big franchises. There will then be even more lines where more than one franchise operates.

Then we'll pass the infrastucrture to the operator. 

Which operator? In the West Country we will have GWR operating the through services and "Wessex" operating the local services. So who owns the tracks west of Exeter?

 

 

 

"ProperJob Railways"

 

I'm sure they would love to take over everything west of Exeter, not just the tracks. 

[Dunsignalling]

Actions tend to speak louder than government policy announcements, so I will be impressed when the Bletchley-Oxford link, or similar elsewhere in England, is re-forged, and only a tiny bit impressed until then.

 

As to Beeching: he had to work in a serious hurry, with very weak data, and while a very large proportion of what he shut was probably due for it, there were clearly some needless casualties.

Not only weak data, but in many cases data that had been skewed (or obtained from rigged surveys) before it ever got to him. 

 

John

Edited November 29, 2017 by Dunsignalling

[jonny777]

Actually, it's costing no more, annually, than Crossrail has. Nobody's whinged about the cost of that......have they?

 

 

Maybe because Crossrail is not deliberately planned to go through areas of outstanding natural beauty and rare ancient woodland just because the objectors to that route can be fobbed off as loony-lefties and arrested/detained by the police at every opportunity.

 

If London wants to riddle itself with increasing amounts of large underground cylinders, that is their prerogative.

 

The rest of the country does not want its precious rural environment destroyed.  

[Nearholmer]

D854

 

You're clearly less than totally enamoured of politicians, but who or what would you replace them with?

 

Experts? Appointed by, and accountable to, whom? Resourced (= given money to spend) precisely how?

 

Actually, I think politicians can 'do' transport very well, but only when it is 'A Big Thing' on the list of things that might get them re-elected or de-elected. London works pretty well in that respect, as do most capital cities, because transport is probably the biggest issue that they get direct control over (some capital city politicians get policing too, but in London things are complicated). Read the current Mayor of London's election promises, the ones that got him voted-in, and you will find bus fares were top of his list, because that matters to a huge number of people.

 

A key reason why second-raters or wafting-through-merchants get given transport at national level is because, to be honest, it's a second-rate issue nationally, well behind the NHS, education, taxation and benefits, policing, immigration, housing, and the price of fish (=inflation) when it comes to election time. It can be argued that, given its affect on the economic viability of a region, it ought not be be, but it is.

 

When did a party last lose or win a general election over its record or promises about transport?

 

If you want transport to have a high place on the agenda in the region where you live, I suggest that the best option is to campaign hard for a devolved regional assembly, with hefty powers over transport.

 

Kevin

[APOLLO]

Transport should be No 1 priority.

 

The country is quite simply seizing up (and the M6 around Warrington is actually cracking up !!!)

 

Yes a devolved North of England (or NW / NE) would probably help.

 

Brit15

[Rivercider]

Actions tend to speak louder than government policy announcements, so I will be impressed when the Bletchley-Oxford link, or similar elsewhere in England, is re-forged, and only a tiny bit impressed until then.

 

As to Beeching: he had to work in a serious hurry, with very weak data, and while a very large proportion of what he shut was probably due for it, there were clearly some needless casualties.

Absolutely agree there.

 

Re-opening of the line Bristol to Portishead  to passengers has been at the top of the to-do list for years.

Despite the fact the line stayed open for freight until 1980, and since 2002 has been reopened to Portbury Dock for freight traffic only,

the date for the reopening to passengers has now been put back to 2021.

I had hoped to ride on the line the day, or week, it reopens, if I live long enough!

 

edit  - I had better add at this point that I am currently fit and healthy, and if I reach the average age I will hopefully have another 20 years,

however having attended a meeting in the 1980s extolling the virtues of the planned Avon Metro which included the Portishead Branch

I will believe it when I can actually ride on it! 

Edited November 30, 2017 by Rivercider

[caradoc]

The Train Operators may well be unhappy with aspects of Network Rail's performance, and are certainly not slow to say so, but how many of them genuinely want to assume responsibility (and therefore the blame when it goes wrong) for the infrastructure, which will mean hugely expanding their workforce and taking on all sorts of operational and maintenance functions of which they currently have no knowledge or experience ? And how are the rights of other Operators protected, both on a planning and day-to-day basis ?

 

Back to reversing the Beeching cuts: An obvious easy target is re-introducing passenger services over existing freight-only routes, Portishead and Okehampton being examples, but progress with the former has not exactly been fast, which makes me wonder how long it would take to actually rebuild routes closed and abandoned in the 1960s. Still, at least it is positive (in some ways) news about the rail industry.