Is it time to stop blaming Beeching?

[Oldddudders]

1 hour ago, Rugd1022 said:

A bit of related trivia - the lad 'imself Tony Hancock was paid £24k to appear in a promotional film for the Beeching Report, which was a lot of money to the average Joe in 1963, does anyone remember it...?

No, but it would have been the brainchild of John Nunneley, Beeching's right-hand man and PR adviser. He had recently come from Beaverbrook's media empire to BR when Beeching was appointed. An army officer and veteran of the Burma campaign he was not to be underestimated. In later years he headed British Transport Advertising. 

[Gareth-Ingram]

Roads are simply better than rail for almost everything because of their reach. The public road system will change forever in the coming decades when it becomes mostly an automated system. The chaos we see today will be looked back on as the great era of personal freedom. Eventually cars will talk with each other electronically, talk with roadside furniture and traffic flows will be managed by AI computers as a necessity for improving flow, optimizing the usage (e.g. pushing freight to night hours), managing disruption (e.g. from repairs), minimizing costs and greatly reducing accidents. Think of it as British Road instead of British Rail. There will be road trains, coupled virtually by computer. You will enter your destination into your GPS and the road system will direct you there, managing all the traffic. In this future roads rule and Beeching can hardly be criticized for realizing that rail was not the solution for many of our future needs.

 

Technologically, physical rail is superior for an ability to convey huge weights at low cost over large distances. Rail will prosper only when and where it plays to this specific advantage. 

Edited September 4, 2021 by Gareth-Ingram

[Nearholmer]

Yep, for a few weekends a year you could have a miserable time driving to the seaside well before 1990 (I remember such a trip in about 1975!), but I would hold that people generally didn’t suffer bad congestion on the way to and from work, and that road freight wasn’t badly affected by it …… besides which, the ‘solution’ was to build more and better roads!

 

Even now the message that making car trips easier only makes us all use the car more, leading to more congestion, leading to the need for more road schemes, as infinitum, seems not to have soaked-in.

[F-UnitMad]

12 minutes ago, Gareth-Ingram said:

optimizing the usage (e.g. pushing freight to night hours),

There is plenty of freight moved at night on the roads already. How do you imagine "next day deliveries" work? Stands a chance that if stuff can be moved at night, it already is. But that requires the start and end points for the loads to be open as well. You can't deliver to a closed premises.

[Nearholmer]

22 minutes ago, Gareth-Ingram said:

The public road system will change forever in the coming decades

Much as I’d love to think that you are correct in your utopian visions, I do have a nasty feeling that (a) it will all take longer than you seem to hint, and (b) it will all arrive in a patchy fashion that benefits first the big commercials and the very well-off, and that in the mean time a huge proportion of us will be left getting-by in the messy realities of current arrangements.

[Nearholmer]

29 minutes ago, Gareth-Ingram said:

Technologically, physical rail is superior for an ability to convey huge weights at low cost over large distances

And, longer distance high-speed passenger transport, and very high-density urban rapid transit.

 

Its definitely not the one-trick pony that the USA made the mistake of thinking it is.

 

Neither, of course, is it the be-all and end-all.

 

 

Edited September 4, 2021 by Nearholmer

[woodenhead]

12 minutes ago, F-UnitMad said:

There is plenty of freight moved at night on the roads already. How do you imagine "next day deliveries" work? Stands a chance that if stuff can be moved at night, it already is. But that requires the start and end points for the loads to be open as well. You can't deliver to a closed premises.

I used to live next to a motorway, on Christmas day morning the motorway would be all cars going to visit friends and relatives, no business transport beyond taxis.  Then late afternoon the lorries would begin, because of course, the supermarkets will be open the following day and need to restock. 

[MarkC]

3 hours ago, CKPR said:

True,  but there was still opposition to the closure of the Stainmore line as it meant that all freight traffic for West Cumbria and  Furness that originated from Teeside and Wearside had to be routed via Newcastle and Carlisle. There was also the loss of a diversionary east-west route to and from the north-east. 

Yes indeed, but at what cost? BR was hemorrhaging money, and whilst it could be classed as a secondary diversionary route, it was actually quite heavily restricted in what locomotives could run on it. Also, by this time, a fair amount of traffic to/from Teesside was already being routed via Ilkley, Skipton & the Carnforth avoiding lines. In addition, the trackbed between Kirkby Stephen and Tebay was already being eyed up by the local Council for when the line did close.

[GoingUnderground]

5 hours ago, kevinlms said:

Of course a government NEVER commissions a report that disagrees with its intentions. 

Have none of you learnt anything from Yes, Minister?

Spot on. It's called "opinion shopping" in business circles. There's no point in commisioning a report from someone who isn't going to give you the answer that you want. Beeching's card was marked by his terms of reference which were set by the government of the day. And governments of all complexions are still doing it today, appointing folks to head up quangos, agencies and the like who are known to agree with the govt's aims and hence guaranteed to give the govt/PM the answer/result/outcome that it/he/she wants. It's naive and totally ignores human nature to think that they'd do anything else.

 

In the highly unlikely event that the opinion isn't quite what's wanted it gets questioned, then sidelined, followed by being ignored in the hope it'll be forgotten and then they go find someone else to do it again on the basis that circumstances have changed since the earlier report. Every time I hear a politician speak I see Jim Hacker and Sir Humphrey pulling the strings in the background. No wonder everyone is so cynical about politicos.

[Pandora]

If we cease  blaming Beeching, we can acknowledge  his recommendations for the reshaping in the form of  bulk trains,  Merry-Go-Round coal trains, freightliner, fully fitted freight eliminating the short wheelbase wagon etc.  Beeching did not appear to consider the future of the car in any critical  light,  ownership of the personal car at the time of his studies  expanding rapidly, environmental concerns for cars  and  traffic congestion came later..   Today we acknowledge  the  renaissance of the railway, the environmental champion of powered transport  and record  passenger numbers,  and  even consider "Peak Car" : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_car  .

Edited September 4, 2021 by Pandora

[kevinlms]

31 minutes ago, Pandora said:

If we cease  blaming Beeching, we can acknowledge  his recommendations for the reshaping in the form of  bulk trains,  Merry-Go-Round coal trains, freightliner, fully fitted freight eliminating the short wheelbase wagon etc.  Beeching did not appear to consider the future of the car in any critical  light,  ownership of the personal car at the time of his studies  expanding rapidly, environmental concerns for cars  and  traffic congestion came later..   Today we acknowledge  the  renaissance of the railway, the environmental champion of powered transport  and record  passenger numbers,  and  even consider "Peak Car" : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_car  .

See the post above yours. The Beeching Report was created at the request of the government to close lines. Some improvements were to be made, but largely trivial in the long term. How much money was wasted, when trunk lines were rebuilt to allow larger containers, then the required container depots closed down?

The Speedlink service closed down, not because the system was impractical, but various governments, notably Thatcher, kept redesigning the system, to save money again.

[009 micro modeller]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

Its definitely not the one-trick pony that the USA made the mistake of thinking it is.

 

I think in the USA there's also the slightly different and more extreme demise of passenger rail, often attributed to the way in which government regulations and subsidy favoured air and road transport over rail but probably also because their railways have historically been run with less government involvement than in the UK. Wasn't Amtrak essentially created to take the basic passenger network off the hands of private (increasingly freight-focused) railway companies before it collapsed? The other aspect in the US is that the larger distances make flying a more viable alternative to rail than it is over here. Possibly the longer distances work in rail's favour (as opposed to road) for freight - whereas in the UK I seem to recall that one of the criticisms of the Park Street freight terminal proposal (for example) is that it's too close to the nearest sea ports to be particularly useful as a rail to road interchange.

[phil-b259]

18 hours ago, Gareth-Ingram said:

 The public road system will change forever in the coming decades when it becomes mostly an automated system. The chaos we see today will be looked back on as the great era of personal freedom. Eventually cars will talk with each other electronically, talk with roadside furniture and traffic flows will be managed by AI computers as a necessity for improving flow, optimizing the usage (e.g. pushing freight to night hours), managing disruption (e.g. from repairs), minimizing costs and greatly reducing accidents. Think of it as British Road instead of British Rail. There will be road trains, coupled virtually by computer. You will enter your destination into your GPS and the road system will direct you there, managing all the traffic. In this future roads rule and Beeching can hardly be criticized for realizing that rail was not the solution for many of our future needs.

 

No it won't!

 

Motorists are voters and any Government trying to curtail the 'personal freedom' of motorists in that way will be kicked out of office pronto!

 

Hence the Governments push to cleaner and greener electric cars because thats a message they know the public at large will grudgingly accept - even though most will still be parked up most of the time and used to transport one person making them very inefficient as a transport mode however much tech you stuff into them.

 

Reducing motor vehicle use requires a change of mindset - with people effectively renting a vehicle when they need it. However you can already do this via car clubs or car hire companies yet doing so is seen by most as inferior to owning the vehicle outright (you could say there are interesting parallels here with the way the British look at a home owner having a higher social status than a mere renter, but I digress...)

 

Self driving cars will make minimal difference in terms of congestion or traffic flow - what they WILL do is potentially cut down massively on accidents, death and injury caused by inattentive motorists.

 

18 hours ago, Gareth-Ingram said:

 

Technologically, physical rail is superior for an ability to convey huge weights at low cost over large distances. Rail will prosper only when and where it plays to this specific advantage. 

 

Not so - as the Japanese, French, etc have demonstrated with their high speed passenger network or the many urban metro systems around the world, Rail can also play well in other areas.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 5, 2021 by phil-b259

[pete_mcfarlane]

7 hours ago, spamcan61 said:

Absolutely, I've lost count of the number of line histories I've read over the years where a small company struggles to build a line from nowhere in particular to nowhere at all, then sells out to a big company for peanuts. Then the line closes eventually (often pre Beeching) anyway.

I think the only people who ever made any  money out of those lines was the Oakwood Press. 

[phil-b259]

56 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

 How much money was wasted, when trunk lines were rebuilt to allow larger containers, then the required container depots closed down?

 

 

Not a lot actually

 

You seem to forget that up until the mid 1980s the majority of containers were 8ft 6" high and thus could just about be accommodated within the UK loading gauge without massive amounts of bridge rebuilding. Most of the smaller / domestic orientated freightliner terminals were closed in this era

 

What has caused the need for expensive gauge enhancement since then is the widespread adoption of 9ft high containers - but by the time they had arrived on the scene domestic container traffic had long since gone over to road transport.

[Compound2632]

I've gone on before about Charles Anderson-Pelham, second Earl of Yarborough. He is best remembered for giving his name to a hand at whist or bridge containing no card higher than a nine. He proposed a bet: he would pay £1,000 to anyone dealt such a hand, on condition that they paid him £1 for every hand played. The odds on being dealt a Yarborough are 1 in 1828.

 

He was also chairman of the Manchester Sheffield and Lincolnshire in the 1860s - the old Money Sunk & Lost, that was ultimately Gone Completely. Why should such an astute nobleman invest heavily in such an unprofitable concern? Simply because the presence of the railway increased the value of his Lincolnshire estates by rather more than the amount he lost in the railway company. As with his bet, he stood to gain more than he lost.

 

The moral of this tale is that although many 19th century railways look to be financially shaky from the narrow point of view of the company histories, there was an overall return on investment to the community they served, so long as the railway remained the most efficient form of transport. Once more efficient forms became available, of course they were and are preferred. 

[Nearholmer]

14 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

Self driving cars will make minimal difference in terms of congestion or traffic flow

In the longer run, and depending upon what ‘hive mind’ or supervisory intelligence is applied, it could help in both areas, and actually it doesn’t need to be self-driving to do that - think how sat navs and Google maps advise dynamic re-routing to avoid congestion (although they don’t yet advise in an anticipatory fashion). AI can help a bit.

 

But, there are limits to what any clever system can achieve once you’ve committed  to a trip to a given place at a given time …..… what is really needed is for lots of people to stay at home unless the roads are really quiet in the usual hotspots. You know: drive to the shops when they are shut; go to the doctors at 0300; don’t go on holiday unless the weather is really bad; that sort of thing.

 

Its not as if we need AI to tell us when and where congestion will be at the broad level; we already know, but we still live in hope, and set-off towards the inevitable traffic jams.

 

EVs to cut emissions, and let the congestion happen, until we all learn our lesson the hard way???

 

[Nearholmer]

Actually, you know, I’ve changed my mind.

 

I think we should blame Dr Beeching for every single thing that’s wrong with transport in the U.K. today, all of it, down to the last bus that doesn’t turn-up, and when I get a flat tyre on my bike.

 

And, once each year, we should burn him in effigy on a huge bonfire.

 

Which would vent our various annoyances, and make us all feel a great deal better.

[Compound2632]

3 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Actually, you know, I’ve changed my mind.

 

I think we should blame Dr Beeching for every single thing that’s wrong with transport in the U.K. today, all of it, down to the last bus that doesn’t turn-up, and when I get a flat tyre on my bike.

 

And, once each year, we should burn him in effigy on a huge bonfire.

 

Which would vent our various annoyances, and make us all feel a great deal better.

 

Make room for others on the pyre such as Mr Marples and Herr Benz. 

[Chris M]

Using the little book “The story of Cornwall’s Railways” as published in 1970 and therefore written in the sixties I found the following.

Firstly, both Helston and Chacewater to Newquay branches were closed before Dr Beeching’s report so that proves he can’t be blamed for everything.

Mr Fairclough, the author, also wrote “Of the Beeching list of closures 28 stations and halts have been axed and 17 survive”. He goes on to write “It would be folly to assume that the retreat of the railway is complete”. Kind of sums up the mood at the time. Thankfully he was quite wrong.

[corneliuslundie]

Remember also that Beeching was using data provided to him by the railway management, many of whom seem to have been determined to close parts of the system, and fudged figures to prove that lines were losing money - as well as actively discouraging traffic. There are numerous examples of the latter which have been documented over the years. Beeching could only use the data he was given. Yes, his brief was in any case to close lines to save money but the railway management gave him a great deal of help.

It reminds me of what is known in Wales as "The Treason of the Blue Books". Commissioners were appointed by the Westminster government to enquire about the state of education in Wales. They were specifically told to come back with a dreadful report. None of them spoke any Welsh. They only spoke to English people in most of Wales (often English speaking Anglican clergy). Bingo, the government got the report it wanted.

I am sure that others could quote other examples.

But at least we got "The slow train" - and when you listen to it note the stations that have not closed (and can you state where all the stations are/were?).

Jonathan

[TravisM]

6 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

Not so - as the Japanese, French, etc have demonstrated with their high speed passenger network or the many urban metro systems around the world, Rail can also play well in other areas.

I totally disagree with you there.  Until they were privatised in 1987, the Japanese railways were losing vast amounts of money, nearly to the tune of close to the national debt and even still requires significant government funding for projects.  SNCF and DB require huge subsidies, not to just the secondary and rural routes but the high speed lines as well.

 

Beeching is a easy target and basically wrote a report outlining what the government wanted to hear, but you have to also remember that there was also a lot of “creative accounting” done by BR management to get a line closed.  The “Sprat and Winkle” line between Andover and Southampton is a good example, they only looked at receipts between Andover and Mottisfont & Dunbridge which hardly anyone travelled because most people travelling over the route, travelled between Andover and Romsey/Southampton.

[GoingUnderground]

Rail will always be more expensive as it has to maintain its own infrastructure, with governments topping up the shortfall in many places, which is far easier to link to revenue as it is a relatively closed system.

 

Air will be always be less expensive in cash terms because it's infrastructure costs are much lower - no permanent way to maintain.  Aircraft are expensive but the lack of serious PW costs more than compensates.

 

Cars, no matter how they are powered, will be somewhere in the middle because drivers don't pay directly for the infrastructure, being paid for by local and national taxation including fuel duties, and the massive usage of the network makes for massive economies of scale. You only need to live next to a main line railway to realise how silent it is for the majority of the time compared to a motorway or trunk road. And please don't point out that fuel duties exceed the cost of maintaining the roads. Electric cars don't pay fuel duties, and as their numbers increase governments will have to find new ways to tax us to replace the lost hydrocarbon fuel duties.

 

Cars, for those that have them are just too convenient, just get in and go, even if it's only down to the shops at the end of the road. That's why sharing or leasing won't catch on as that takes away all the spontaneity as you have to arrange for the vehicle to be available at a time and place etc. OK you may be able to do that on line, but taxis are virtually the same thing, and does anyone goes everywhere by taxi?

 

Vehicle convoys all under central control on motorways and trunk routes will probably happen, increasing the capacity of those roads roads, but that won't help when you get to your destination as you'll still need somewhere to park the damned thing, and possibly recharge it. And I can't see central control coming all the way down to minor roads and back streets in towns and cities, it wouldn't be cost effective. A vehicle self-driving itself to a parking space away from the driver's & passengers' destination may help, but at the expense of creating more traffic. Hence I believe that ultimately parking capacity, and possibly availability of recharging points, will be the limiting factor for car ownership.  Once you get central control, then road pricing becomes very possible as all the necessary data will have been captured by the system at least on the priced roads. That may be the solution to the lost fuel duty, but it will make the cost of travelling by road much more visible.

 

We need a fully integrated public transport system that recognises the existence of the car, but doesn't make it primary mode of transport as we do today. And there isn't the overwhelming public will to create a fully integrated system that would make it politically possible.

[Compound2632]

23 minutes ago, GoingUnderground said:

does anyone goes everywhere by taxi?

 

I gather that is, or perhaps at one time was, the situation in Liverpool, owing to an over-supply of taxis. Which just goes to show that you're not outlining immutable laws of transportation - the balance could be changed if there was the political will-power. For example, air travel could be very much reduced by taxing aviation fuel. 

[Oldddudders]

51 minutes ago, GoingUnderground said:

 does anyone go everywhere by taxi?

Possibly more than we might think. Categories of such people include city flat-dwellers with limited mobility (late FiL), and others who rightly calculate the whole cost of running a car - unlike many - and conclude the hassle-free alternative of a taxi is the better, maybe even cheaper, option. Plenty of people get a taxi to take them and their weekly shop home from the supermarket. 

 

Taxi costs vary among locations, too. Sherry's son was most impressed with the availability and reasonable tariffs in Torbay, and he, as a seasoned night-out enthusiast, is used to taxi prices in the Midlands. 

 

Taxis may not be environmentally ideal, but they provide a service much more widely than some of us imagine from our own limited use. And for even occasional users they have sophisticated booking systems. If Sherry rings she doesn't even have to state her name - the automated system recognises her number, knows her address and confirms it is the pick-up point. They also have an app available on her phone.