Is it time to stop blaming Beeching?

[DavidBird]

9 hours ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

...

As far as his ownership of Marples Ridgeway was concerned, he sold his shares when Minister of Transport - to his Wife.

 

Announced to the HoC that, in order to be unbiased, he had sold his shareholding.  What he didn't say was to whom they had been sold.

 

For just £1.

 

With a stipulation that, when he was no longer the Minister for Transport, he could buy them back for the same price he sold them for.

[corneliuslundie]

Re safeguarding closed routes, I believe that this used to be done in Ireland - I seem to remember being told 13 years. That was several decades ago though and I suspect that things have changed. And I don't remember any routes reopening.

I suspect that in the UK more lines would have closed earlier if it had not been for the Second World War which forced traffic back on to rail for a period. The process had already started, often the last built lines going first, along with those built to keep out competitors but which had no real purpose once the two companies were in the same Grouped company.

But there was also now the "roads are wonderful, rail is finished" mindset of the 60s and after. 

Anyway, no going back in many places, though a few survivors and a few resuscitations (Ashington is a great one to come shortly; the Blythe and Tyner has been a real survivor).

Jonathan

[The Lurker]

21 hours ago, corneliuslundie said:

By coincidence I have just come across the following words, the final sentences of the book "Roads and trackways of Wales" by Richard Colyer, published in 1984:

"Of those few Welsh railway lines remaining many can only be travelled upon with inconvenience and discomfort, while at least one is positively dangerous. Whether they like it or not, most country people in Wales are now forced to rely on their motor cars for both long and short journeys. In the sense that virtually all the major roads in Wales lie on the course of a turnpike (which may itself represent the line of a much older road), we might be said to have entered the second turnpike age. Like readers of Punch in 1856, we must, for the foreseeable future, grin and bear, the 'ammer, 'ammer, ammer along the 'ard 'igh road."

Ignoring the bit about a dangerous railway line, what is interesting is how few of the railways in the area followed closely the turnpikes. I suspect that what he wrote about Wales, at least rural Wales, could be applied to rural England, Scotland and Ireland.

Discuss - or don't bother.

Jonathan 

That's quite an interesting thought.

 

In the south east, there were turnpikes along parts of the main roads to Dover (A2 and A20) or at least paralleling them, and in parts the railway has run the same route. But also as the old A2 was replaced and dualled by the Rochester relief road through SE London/Kent borders, the dual carriageway in part followed the route carved out by the railway, as anyone who has used Eltham station will know. Another factor is that some of the turnpikes were in fact completely new reworkings of the overall route - part of what is now the A20 down to Sevenoaks is not the road used in the 16th century.

 

But in other parts of the south east the turnpikes did different jobs. There were turnpikes that ran from the end of the navigable part of the Medway (Branbridges, where the Whitbread hop farm is and where Beltring station on the Medway Valley line is) to Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells. Neither of these have been paralleled by the railways directly because the old SE main line cut directly across all of the river valleys between Tonbridge, where it crossed the Medway.  

 

And there my half knowledge runs out; this probably deserves a thread of its own, bringing in the interaction with the canals too!

[rodent279]

I guess you could say that Beeching was the inevitable consequence of the haphazard free-for-all manner in which our railways were built. Political skulduggery aside, something like Beeching's cuts would have happened eventually, as (I postulate) the majority of cuts were of railways that either should not have been built, or should have closed earlier.

That's not too say that Beeching's methodology was spot on-I think without a doubt there were lines closed that shouldn't have, and I agree that ripping apart the infrastructure and selling off the land was short-sighted. But Britain had too much railway, which made cuts inevitable.

Edited September 7, 2021 by rodent279

[Bernard Lamb]

Back in the 1960s I often went to Austria to do a spot of mountaineering. I knew two of the top Austrian climbers and one of them was the private guide to Ernest Marples. I have seen the guide's log book and Marples had made some quite hard ascents and was a competent mountaineer. My Austrian friend told me that I must not mention anything about this, as such activities were thought to be too dangerous for a government minister and were expressly forbidden by McMillan. Even in respect of his hobby Marples broke the rules.

Bernard

[F-UnitMad]

1 hour ago, Bernard Lamb said:

I knew two of the top Austrian climbers and one of them was the private guide to Ernest Marples. I have seen the guide's log book and Marples had made some quite hard ascents and was a competent mountaineer.

Pity they didn't give him a "helpful" push at some point....

[johnofwessex]

23 hours ago, F-UnitMad said:

Pity they didn't give him a "helpful" push at some point....

 

 

You have no consideration for the inhabitants of hell!

 

Actually both Beeching and Marples are quite fascinating, both rising from humble backgrounds to high office 

[RJS1977]

Incidentally, Dr.Beeching wrote some of the technical dialogue for the Ealing comedy "The Man in the White Suit", as he was a next door neighbour of T.E.B Clarke, who asked for his assistance to write something that was scientifically plausible.

[johnofwessex]

6 hours ago, RJS1977 said:

Incidentally, Dr.Beeching wrote some of the technical dialogue for the Ealing comedy "The Man in the White Suit", as he was a next door neighbour of T.E.B Clarke, who asked for his assistance to write something that was scientifically plausible.

 

Fascinating what you can learn on a discussion site, thank you.

[Colin_McLeod]

On 07/09/2021 at 10:14, corneliuslundie said:

Re safeguarding closed routes, I believe that this used to be done in Ireland - I seem to remember being told 13 years. That was several decades ago though and I suspect that things have changed. And I don't remember any routes reopening

 

Re reopening Irish lines there us Cork to Middleton, Belfast Central Railway, Belfast Great Victoria Street.

 

The Lisburn to Antrim line closes an reopens on a regular basis

[Northmoor]

On 06/09/2021 at 23:39, TheSignalEngineer said:

And reputedly made his escape by nipping round from his Pimlico flat to Victoria to catch the Night Ferry train to Paris.

As far as his ownership of Marples Ridgeway was concerned, he sold his shares when Minister of Transport - to his Wife.

That story has been repeated so many times everyone assumes it is true, unfortunately I understand that no evidence has ever been presented to confirm that it actually happened.  Marples was still a crook though and he's long dead so won't be suing for me writing that.

[Northmoor]

On 06/09/2021 at 17:14, Steamport Southport said:

 

Far from an over supply of taxis. Can we have more please? Proper ones rather than dodgy UBERs

 

If you've ever got a bus in Liverpool you would know why everyone uses cabs. Service stops early, starts too late, doesn't run at night, very poor Sunday service, too expensive, unreliable, too slow (often awful whiney electric things), I could go on.

 

Trains are just as bad as most of them don't go to anywhere people need to go to for work, school or home as those places weren't built in the 1830s and most newer houses and workplaces are out of town. However, nearly everything is still in the city centre, particularly peoples social lives.

 

So people wanting to go the pub. Wait half an hour for a bus that might not turn up. Pay £2.50 each which is the minimum fare. Or jump in a cab that turns up quickly and gets you to where you want to be. 

 

 

Jason

I used buses in Liverpool at the time in the early 90s and found them very effective, but was always curious why so many people (many on low pay or unemployed) got so many taxis, just about the most expensive way to travel.

Some guy at a bus stop late one night did explain why all the bus routes stopped at midnight; bus and taxi drivers in Liverpool were all members of the same Trade Union.  The taxi drivers threatened to leave en masse if they ever didn't have a monopoly on services after midnight.

[rodent279]

On 07/09/2021 at 08:49, DavidBird said:

 

Announced to the HoC that, in order to be unbiased, he had sold his shareholding.  What he didn't say was to whom they had been sold.

 

For just £1.

 

With a stipulation that, when he was no longer the Minister for Transport, he could buy them back for the same price he sold them for.

How would that work then? Wouldn't it have depressed the share price, if he sold his holding for £1, presumably way below what it was worth?

And wouldn't the name of the new shareholder be recorded somewhere?

[Compound2632]

11 minutes ago, rodent279 said:

How would that work then? Wouldn't it have depressed the share price, if he sold his holding for £1, presumably way below what it was worth?

 

Not if it was a private transaction.

[rodent279]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Not if it was a private transaction.

But you'd still need to register the shareholding in the new owner's name, so presumably there is, or was, a trail?

[DavidBird]

On 09/09/2021 at 23:01, rodent279 said:

But you'd still need to register the shareholding in the new owner's name, so presumably there is, or was, a trail?

Probably there was, but it was not announced in HoC.

From wikipaedia -(with references)

"Marples therefore sold his shares to his wife, reserving himself the possibility to reacquire them at the original price after leaving office;[3][12][13][14][15] by this time, his shares had come to be worth between £350,000 and £400,000.[10]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Marples

 

Ref [3] is from Hansard (link)

"When I became Minister of Transport, last October, I realised that there was a risk of a conflict of interest appearing to arise in consequence of my holding a controlling interest in the company. I immediately took steps to effect a sale of my shares. It has taken some time to arrange this as the company is a private one engaged in long-term contracts in civil engineering, but I hope that it will be completed very soon. Then I shall have no financial interest in the company. But I think that I should tell the House that the prospective purchasers have required me to undertake to buy the shares back from them at the price they are to pay if they ask me to do so after I have ceased to hold office. I myself have no option to buy the shares back."

 

The response of Mr Mellish and the Speaker is "interesting", in saying "It is wholly undebatable, and nothing may be asked about it", preventing anyone at the time from finding out whom he sold his shares to.

Edited September 11, 2021 by DavidBird

[Northmoor]

35 minutes ago, DavidBird said:

Probably there was, but it was not announced in HoC.

From wikipaedia -(with references)

"Marples therefore sold his shares to his wife, reserving himself the possibility to reacquire them at the original price after leaving office;[3][12][13][14][15] by this time, his shares had come to be worth between £350,000 and £400,000.[10]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Marples

 

Ref [3] is from Hansard (link)

"When I became Minister of Transport, last October, I realised that there was a risk of a conflict of interest appearing to arise in consequence of my holding a controlling interest in the company. I immediately took steps to effect a sale of my shares. It has taken some time to arrange this as the company is a private one engaged in long-term contracts in civil engineering, but I hope that it will be completed very soon. Then I shall have no financial interest in the company. But I think that I should tell the House that the prospective purchasers have required me to undertake to buy the shares back from them at the price they are to pay if they ask me to do so after I have ceased to hold office. I myself have no option to buy the shares back."

 

The response of Mr Mellish and the Speaker is "interesting", in saying "It is wholly undebatable, and nothing may be asked about it", preventing anyone at the time from finding out whom he sold his shares to.

 

The Hansard link is interesting but remember that Wikipedia is not an accurate source (you and I can change what it is written in it, which is the point of Wikipedia).  It is just repeating the rumour in this case.

[Compound2632]

35 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

 

The Hansard link is interesting but remember that Wikipedia is not an accurate source (you and I can change what it is written in it, which is the point of Wikipedia).  It is just repeating the rumour in this case.

 

But, as a well-constructed Wikipedia article should, it gives the sources of its information. It is built into Wikipedia that an article will reflect the consensus of its sources; if a majority of its sources repeat incorrect information, it will itself give that incorrect information and it will be an uphill struggle to correct it - vide the discussion about the GCR London Extension and Berne Gauge. One can see this happening in the talk section of the Marples article.

 

If you make an arbitrary change to a Wikipedia article, it is likely to be corrected back to the consensus - how rapidly will of course depend on the notability of the topic.

[DavidBird]

Of the references cited, [3] is to the Hansard article previously quoted.

[12] is to here http://www.terrynorm.ic24.net/photo%20railways.htm, about railways around Ammanford, Carmartehshire, but also contains the statement

"In 1959 Ernest Marples had given the go-ahead for Britain's first motorway, the M1 which initially ran from London to Nottingham and followed closely the London to Nottingham railway line. ... And when Marples then closed the railway line there was no other way for people or freight to get from London to Nottingham than by road."  Perhaps this source is less than reliable?

[13] is to "The Great Railway Conspiracy" Henshaw, David (1991).  Leading Edge Books. p. 126. ISBN 978-0-948135-48-4.  Not available online, but I have a copy of this, it does also contain the "shares to his wife" story, but doesn't provide a referencefor that part of it.

[14] and [15] are also not-available-online publications, so I've not been able to check them.

 

None of that means it isn't true, and the proven reports of his corruption in other areas lead credence to the idea that it is something he very probably would have done.

Edited September 11, 2021 by DavidBird
Add "Great Rly Conspiracy not available online."

[kevinlms]

From Model Railway Constructor 1975 February, there is an article entitled "A Foreigners Guide to British Rail", which uses fake German words, for common British expressions related to BR.

 

Two of which are.

"The Illustrious and efficient Railway system - Derbeechingmessemworks".

"Dr Beeching - Der Fuhrer mit ein Grossenaxe".

Article is anonymous, but I suspect might be then editor S.W. Stevens-Stratten. Perhaps Chris Leigh might remember?

 

So that 'proves' that the Dr's reputation was one of international knowledge!

[Northmoor]

9 hours ago, DavidBird said:

Of the references cited, [3] is to the Hansard article previously quoted.

[12] is to here http://www.terrynorm.ic24.net/photo%20railways.htm, about railways around Ammanford, Carmartehshire, but also contains the statement

"In 1959 Ernest Marples had given the go-ahead for Britain's first motorway, the M1 which initially ran from London to Nottingham and followed closely the London to Nottingham railway line. ... And when Marples then closed the railway line there was no other way for people or freight to get from London to Nottingham than by road."  Perhaps this source is less than reliable?

 

I noticed that quote too, apparently the MML and ECML route via Grantham were both closed and it also repeats the myth that the GCML was built to Berne Gauge.  Much of the text is (as they admit) from the R4 "Back to Beeching" programme (which I have recorded somewhere, probably in breach of the PRA), which I seem to remember does question the share transfer story/rumour.

 

The site does mention one pre-Beeching closure which demonstrates just how the whole management strategy was about chasing savings, however small.  The Carmarthen - Llandeilo (ex-LNWR) branch, I have seen in one source, lost £11,000 p.a.  In 2021 terms that's less than £250k, but when you consider the line was still steam-worked, all except one station was fully staffed and none of the six level crossings had been modernised.  If all the stations had been de-staffed (there would have been no need for freight facilities), the crossings had been converted to AOCL like on the Pembroke Dock branch (most crossings were at stations where trains would have stopped anyway) and steam replaced with a DMU, the loss would easily have been reduced to 4 figures or less. 

 

But that wasn't the mindset, what was required was a ruthless cull.  The process was already underway and had been for over ten years, but Beeching was recruited to speed up the process as the government wasn't satisfied with the savings being achieved.  It is why I do get annoyed at the public (or more so, politicians) blaming the Good Doctor for doing exactly what he had been appointed to do (and generally blaming him for every closure from 1950-1970), then complaining that it wasn't painless.   

[RJS1977]

Also - the M1 wasn't Britain's first motorway - the Preston bypass (M6) was first...

[caradoc]

Was Beeching's report actually entitled 'The Reshaping of British Railways and Tramways' ? I didn't think so, but according to an article in the current (Issue 939, Sep 8-21 2021) Rail magazine,  'Britain's tramways didn't escape Beeching's axe, and routes back from the Blackpool waterfront were dismantled in the 1960s'.

 

This has to be the most ludicrous example of falsely blaming Beeching yet. 

[mdvle]

11 hours ago, Northmoor said:

The site does mention one pre-Beeching closure which demonstrates just how the whole management strategy was about chasing savings, however small.

 

Add up enough small savings and you end up with big savings.

 

11 hours ago, Northmoor said:

but when you consider the line was still steam-worked, all except one station was fully staffed and none of the six level crossings had been modernised.  If all the stations had been de-staffed (there would have been no need for freight facilities), the crossings had been converted to AOCL like on the Pembroke Dock branch (most crossings were at stations where trains would have stopped anyway) and steam replaced with a DMU, the loss would easily have been reduced to 4 figures or less. 

 

But it would have still been a loss.

 

And this is also where we have to forget everything we know about what has happened post-Beeching, particularly the growth of rail in the last 3 decades.

 

When making those decisions they had to base it on the conditions of the time - and those conditions were more and more rail traffic being lost to the roads.

 

So yes, perhaps with those cost saving measures that branch could go from £11,000 to say £2,000 loss - but as more passengers left rail for the roads in the following decade those losses would have crept up again.

 

Even today, looking at the passenger numbers for Llandeilo (19k per year) and a population of around 2k I would wonder if that branchline would be viable (yes, the Llandeilo population won't tell the whole story, but it is a good start at indicating that there might not be the passenger volume to justify a rail line).

 

Hence the desire, once the political will was there, to do it all at once instead of a version of the death by a thousand cuts over the next 10 years.

 

 

[pete_mcfarlane]

10 hours ago, RJS1977 said:

Also - the M1 wasn't Britain's first motorway - the Preston bypass (M6) was first...

Plus the M1 doesn't actually go to Nottingham, as anyone who ever had to trundle up the (pre-widening) A453 from the M1 to the city can testify.