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Pre-beeching density of railways


Deonyi
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Obviously, after the Beeching cuts the British rail network has thinned considerably, but before the cuts what was the 'coverage' per se like? I assume most towns would have had one or two railway stations, but for smaller villages was it likely that there would have been a station within ten miles (excluding Scotland)? Looking at old OS maps, it seems to be the case, with Dartmoor being maybe the greatest expanse outside of the northern counties without a railway line, however I'm not too sure. 

 

Also, is there any BR pre-Beeching map of the entire railway network anywhere? I thought the Handbook of Stations might have had one but it seems not.

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Have a look at/for a copy of  Ian Allan's "British Railways Pre-Grouping Atlas and Gazetteer" if you can find a copy, this will give you a good idea of the rail network around the time of the Grouping, bearing in mind that it does not show all of the private/industrial lines.

 

For more detailed maps of all lines in a particular area at a given time (mid 19th - mid 20th century) you can look at the 25" Ordinance Survey maps on the National Library of Scotland (Maps) web-site.

 

Pierre

 

 

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Obviously, after the Beeching cuts the British rail network has thinned considerably, but before the cuts what was the 'coverage' per se like? I assume most towns would have had one or two railway stations, but for smaller villages was it likely that there would have been a station within ten miles (excluding Scotland)? Looking at old OS maps, it seems to be the case, with Dartmoor being maybe the greatest expanse outside of the northern counties without a railway line, however I'm not too sure. 

 

Also, is there any BR pre-Beeching map of the entire railway network anywhere? I thought the Handbook of Stations might have had one but it seems not.

 

 

As an avid collector of railway atlases, I find the British Railway Atlas 1955 is the best one to refer to, where Beeching is concerned.

 

It's based on the Pre-grouping atlas but updated to 1955 (obviously) with routes show colour coded according to the British Railway Region they belonged to and highlighting lines that were, by then, freight only.

 

Very useful when accompanying the BR timetables of that period.

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I don't know how accurate this is, or whether it meets your requirements but it's a starter

https://cosmictigger.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/hamilton-potter.jpg

 

Yes and quite depressing clearly showing those rural regions that didn't do too well from Beeching.

 

However Beeching wasn't just about rural railways there are many provincial urban areas, to this day, devoid of train services thanks to Beeching.

 

Places like Birmingham and Manchester, where many rail corridors were replaced by the dreaded alternative bus service, with disastrous consequences for those cities.

 

The irony isn't lost on me, at least, that the good citizens of places like Castle Bromwich will be able to look over at HS2 and ponder how its lucky travellers should be in central London a good fifteen minutes before the best they can hope for, into central Birmingham, trapped inside a bus stuck at the cow's pace.

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Altases give a very good and immediate visual image of just how severe the pruning was between 1960 and 1970, after which it slowed considerably, but only tell a part of the story.  As well as branch closures and lifting, very large numbers of rural main line stations and goods yards on routes that remained open were done away with, and few big stations survived with all of their platforms intact and in use.  Acres of carriage sidings were disposed of for redevelopment, and it is difficult now to envisage environments like Stratford or Willesden/Old Oak Common in London, or Newton Heath in Manchester, that seemed to be railway for miles in all directions to the horizon. 

 

Many docks have closed or been reduced to ghosts of their former selves, and with them miles of sidings and yards, as traditional cargo handling was inevitably replaced by containers; this is something that 'just happened' at about the same time as the massive railway reduction and rationalisations.  Beeching had a massive direct effect, but a surprising number of closures were not directly attributable to him.  Carmarthen-Aberystwyth, for instance, arguably a vital link in a sparsely but not that thinly populated rural environment not dissimilar to the English West Country, was never earmarked by Beeching for closure but when it was severed by a landslip in 1964 the railway took the opportunity provided by the prevailing political and economic climate to rid itself of the line (actually a good bit of it remained to serve a dairy for some time).  This line is being seriously looked at for re-instatement now as the area's roads cannot cope with traffic and no cash exists for building new ones over very valuably farm land.

 

A better indication of how severely the railway was cut back in those days would be the employment figures; something like two thirds of staff of one of the nation's biggest employers were sent up the road in little more than 5 years.  This was to an extent inevitable as steam, manual signalling, and manual freight handling, all came to an end at around the same time, but much exacerbated by station and goods yard closures as well as the 'natural' (according to the conventional wisdom of the day) loss of traffic to motorways and containerisation.  It is a little surprising that the railway was still handling wagon load NCL traffic between the larger depots in the 70s against this background, very much in a 'traditional railway' way.

 

Coal was throughout the period in terminal decline and is now all but a memory as far as deep mines are concerned; inevitably, the easily won seams worked out first and costs rose against increasing geological difficulties and the typically British chronic underinvestment of decades, further blighted by industrial relations issues that resulted in a government actually hostile to the industry per se.  The railways' staple mineral traffic is gone.  Huge areas that were once marshalling yards (Tinsley, Margam, Severn Tunnel Junction, Radyr, Temple Mills, and more) are now housing or buddlea forests.   

 

The nineties and early noughties saw a massive increase in passenger traffic and somewhat of an intermodal freight revival, and some railways have been reinstated as a result, but none of them have been restored with the number of stations or goods facilities they once had.  Modern stations replace booking halls and parcels facilities with bus shelters and single manned ticket booths, or on train ticketing, staff numbers are a fraction of the old levels, but wages are still low and railway work is not regarded as high status.

Edited by The Johnster
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... but wages are still low and railway work is not regarded as high status.

Actually railway workers are amongst the most highly paid of all manual workers. This is because the multiplicity of TOCs has allowed the unions to play one off against the other.

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Actually railway workers are amongst the most highly paid of all manual workers. This is because the multiplicity of TOCs has allowed the unions to play one off against the other.

The way the railway has changed the operating grades are not manual anymore

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Actually railway workers are amongst the most highly paid of all manual workers. This is because the multiplicity of TOCs has allowed the unions to play one off against the other.

 

Sorry mate, this is just plain not true of the 50s, 60s or 70s, though some improvements have been made since then.  Drivers and higher grade signalmen have always been fairly well paid, but for most other grades in those days the pay was low. and making a living depended heavily on overtime or bonus schemes which were not available at all depots and anyway the jealously guarded reserve of senior men.  In 1972 I was earning £27.50 a week take home as a freight guard at Canton, not far off the national average for gross pay before stoppages at the time, and with enhanced rest day and mileage bonus taking about that amount home after stoppages for a 40 hour week; I could have easily had £10 a week more for day time factory work in much better conditions and with proper regular shifts or even day work, and twice that in an office with a bit of grade improvement.

 

The unions fought hard to improve bonuses and overtime while ignoring the more basic issues of base rates of pay and tolerating (or even encouraging) appalling Victorian work conditions, actually worse than that because the Victorian facilities had never been maintained.  Hours were diabolical for traincrew grades; if you think there is any bonus to be had out of turning up at a depot at 03.20 or something on a winter morning, or booking off at that sort of time, you should try it for a few weeks and then come and talk to me about it.  However, Saturday, Rest Day, Bank Holiday and Sunday rates were very enhanced, and (obviously on the condition that they were available at your depot) could easily double your take home pay or even better that.

 

But one can never bank on overtime or enhanced rates being available, and modern conditions mean that basic rates or pay are far more determinative of your actual earnings!

Edited by The Johnster
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When you say 'some improvement', I think you are being disingenuous. I've just done some checking of what would seem to be the lower grades of staff and pay is not bad, some of the higher grades (drivers especially) are very well paid.

However with drivers it's not so much the unions playing TOCs off against each other, it's the drivers themselves.

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I think you are blaming the wrong bloke. Most of the closures were pre Beeching, Ashburton, Princetown, Kingham, MSWJR etc on the WR just the main lines were really Beeching, GCR, Waverley, MR Manchester Millers Dale etc.

Marples did far more closures of the branches we loved. 

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The way the railway has changed the operating grades are not manual anymore

 

Last time I shunted a train  it felt pretty manual pullin point levers in the pouring rain.

Though I was receiving a bit more than minimum wage for my efforts ;)

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Have a look at/for a copy of  Ian Allan's "British Railways Pre-Grouping Atlas and Gazetteer" if you can find a copy, this will give you a good idea of the rail network around the time of the Grouping, bearing in mind that it does not show all of the private/industrial lines.

 

For more detailed maps of all lines in a particular area at a given time (mid 19th - mid 20th century) you can look at the 25" Ordinance Survey maps on the National Library of Scotland (Maps) web-site.

 

Pierre

 

Pierre,

 

I have this atlas & is excellent in showing all the different pre-grouping companies in different colours which I have had since 1976.  To complement it, my son bought me Ian Allan's 'Railway Atlas Then & Now' last Christmas which is a copy of the  'British Railways Pre-Grouping Atlas and Gazetteer' in A4 size.  On each pair of pages the left hand one shows the pre-grouping lines as at 1st January 1923 & the right hand one shows existing lines as at 1st January 2015 together with the lines that have been closed.  Unfortunately it is in black & white but an excellent reference document when used in conjunction with its predecessor to identify which company operated each line.

 

Peter

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Sorry mate, this is just plain not true of the 50s, 60s or 70s, though some improvements have been made since then.  Drivers and higher grade signalmen have always been fairly well paid, but for most other grades in those days the pay was low. and making a living depended heavily on overtime or bonus schemes which were not available at all depots and anyway the jealously guarded reserve of senior men.  In 1972 I was earning £27.50 a week take home as a freight guard at Canton, 

 

 

Wow, that is pretty good. I remember getting my first £100 pay packet (after tax, that is) in 1972; but at the time it was not common for those of my age. Mind you I was not yet aged 20, and had worked a good few hours overtime, nights and Sat/Sun hours in order to achieve that 3-figure sum. 

 

This was as a civilian in the MOD. I think the office day workers were probably on about £18 after deductions. I don't know how they managed, although petrol was still only about 30p a gallon, and the greasy spoon across the road from my flat charged 2p for each item in a fry-up, so I managed a good breakfast for 10 or 12p (I think two rashers of bacon counted as one item), but I doubt many of the office day workers ventured in there. 

 

I read in the paper that tube train drivers earned over £100 a month basic, and almost applied for a job going round and round the circle line. However, the government had agreed to a pay rise for us of something like 20% with back pay for around 6 months, so when that pay packet arrived I changed my mind and stayed where I was. Many of my colleagues bought a new car with the back pay. 

 

Sorry, my sudden burst of nostalgia has taken me way O/T.

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Last time I shunted a train  it felt pretty manual pullin point levers in the pouring rain.

Though I was receiving a bit more than minimum wage for my efforts ;)

I know what you mean but I expect like me you have loads more ' paperwork' or computer stuff to do than in the old days

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Rates of pay need to be treated in context and with care because the 1970s saw some significant inflation and railway wages tried to keep up but in the 80s there was a significant freeze on railway pay of the sort that makes 'austerity' in the present public areas of employment look like Christmas.

 

From May 1971 the basic rate for a Driver was £25.70 per week, after the August 1975 pay increase that had risen to £54.15 but 1975 was basically an inflation related increase - for example the basic rate for a Railman was increased from£25.65 to £33.35 plus a temporary non-enhanceable supplement of £1.30 per week,  In other words the 1975 pay settlement brought increases in excess of 20% but it hardly kept pace with the then rampant inflation.   And fora railman on bare money that - in 1975 was a pretty lousy wage when he could go elsewhere and in many cases knock up twice as much.

 

Rates of pay now certainly sound good for some grades such as Drivers with reported salaries in excess of £60,000 pa but there aren't many jobs around where you could kill several dozen people, or more, by a very simple mistake and there aren't many jobs around where you get up at 02.00 or thereabouts in order to go to work or don't get home from work at about that time and which require 100% concentration while you're doing the job.  

 

I'm not entirely sure that the multiplicity of TOCs has allowed the unions to play off one against the other.  ASLE&F policy was very clear and it was not that - Lew Adams, the then General Secretary convinced the union's Executive that their policy should be to set out and get the best deal possible for their members and they didn't need much playing off to do that as some of the new private owners were scared stiff of potential industrial disputes.  The concern I worked for gave away various things like lambs to the slaughter when trouble seemed possible and we had some of the best paid Drivers in the country. I had occasion to negotiate direct with ASLE&F in the privatised era I certain;y found things no different from BR days but then I know where the man I was negotiating with had come from and at the start of our meeting I let him know that I knew and made sure that he knew where I had come from so I got what I wanted (at no extra cost) and he got what he wanted in the correct form of words so no need for any nonsense from either of us.

 

And if salaries have risen exceptionally since privatisation (and a lot haven't, they were just long overdue increases) it was mainly down to weak management rather than union threats.

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In conversation the other day I made the comment that train drivers were worth at least £60K given that they stand a good chance of having to witness at least one suicide related death, at very close quarters during the span of their working lives. Is that true or was I being over dramatic?

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I saved this file many years ago. 

 

I don't know if it has been updated since then, but I find it quite useful on occasion. 

 

 

attachicon.gifNew_Adlestrop_Railway_Atlas.pdf

Thank you, Johnny.  Useful it is - even if only as a comparison against other maps.

 

Currently downloaded by 30+ users - but only a couple of us have bothered to acknowledge your post.

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A better indication of how severely the railway was cut back in those days would be the employment figures; something like two thirds of staff of one of the nation's biggest employers were sent up the road in little more than 5 years.  This was to an extent inevitable as steam, manual signalling, and manual freight handling, all came to an end at around the same time, but much exacerbated by station and goods yard closures as well as the 'natural' (according to the conventional wisdom of the day) loss of traffic to motorways and containerisation.  It is a little surprising that the railway was still handling wagon load NCL traffic between the larger depots in the 70s against this background, very much in a 'traditional railway' way.

I find it fascinating how the railways sustained such high levels of employment at their greatest extent.  Even modest country stations had a significant staff, at least one fully manned signal box and clerks dealing with goods traffic separately.  Nowadays it seems we struggle with single-manned trains, unstaffed stations and centralised signalling.  What is the difference today?  Is it the drive for higher profits/returns to shareholders, a greater disparity between those Jobs For The Boys at the top and, well just about everyone else, or a greater "investment" in middle management, IT technicians (though I'm sure that layers of bureaucracy have always been with us - after all it's what we bequeathed to Indian Railways, the largest employer on Earth)?

 

From what I understand, receipts (passenger fares and goods charges) were comparable in real terms and there wasn't the "state aid" that subsidised the modern railway.when first privatised.

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Local landform had a lot to dictate density of railways. In some cases later railways had to adopt hiller routes away from the river valleys while in other cases they all found a way along the river valley. One example of the latter is north of Nottingham where the Midland, Great Northern and Great Central all found a way along the Leen Valley. The GN lost its passenger services in 1939 under LNER ownership when they were diverted onto the GC line.

 

A lot of urban routes closed down or were seriously reduced in service way before Beeching as a result of competition from trams and motor buses - the Nottingham Suburban Railway being a good example, opened in Dec 1889 part of its role in providing a more direct route for the Great Northern 'Derbyshire' trains was upstaged by the more direct route afforded by the Great Central a decade later and passenger trains ceased to call at its stations from 1916 having been significantly reduced in the preceding years. The last through passenger train to use the line ceased in 1931 and then a WWII bomb severed the line in 1941 which was never repaired and the line closed altogether in 1954.

Edited by Butler Henderson
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I find it fascinating how the railways sustained such high levels of employment at their greatest extent.  Even modest country stations had a significant staff, at least one fully manned signal box and clerks dealing with goods traffic separately.  Nowadays it seems we struggle with single-manned trains, unstaffed stations and centralised signalling.  What is the difference today?  Is it the drive for higher profits/returns to shareholders, a greater disparity between those Jobs For The Boys at the top and, well just about everyone else, or a greater "investment" in middle management, IT technicians (though I'm sure that layers of bureaucracy have always been with us - after all it's what we bequeathed to Indian Railways, the largest employer on Earth)?

 

From what I understand, receipts (passenger fares and goods charges) were comparable in real terms and there wasn't the "state aid" that subsidised the modern railway.when first privatised.

Fundamentally costs are much higher now then in the 1950s - it's not fat cats lapping up profits but the overall growth in wages, and also costs in running a 21st century railway with much higher standards of operation in terms of safety provision and passenger requirements -  a Mk1 coach is cheap and reliable but cart springs and slam doors are not acceptable these days, whilst a freight wagon can no longer be an unfitted box on wheels. 

There is a real issue with managing these costs which have got out of hand in a number of areas (witness the 'gold-plated' electrification of the GWML) but both passengers and staff had a much higher chance of encountering death or injury in the 1950s (in a society that was far more acquiescent to those risks) and the modern railway may be more boring but is safer. 

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