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Is it time to stop blaming Beeching?


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When ‘blaming Beeching’ it’s worth asking to what extent his report was actually implemented. It seems to me the network we ended up with differed very considerably from what he had in mind, both in terms of routes closed that he recommended be retained; and those he marked with the black spot that none the less survived.

I’ve done a couple of little lists – not fully comprehensive, but I think I’ve got most of the more obvious differences. I haven’t included lines like Coventry-Nuneaton which were closed and subsequently reopened, or Airdrie-Bathgate, which doesn’t seem to be on the Beeching Report maps at all. I’ve included a few notes where possible reasons for the anomalies occur to me.

 

THE SURVIVORS

Inverness – Wick/Thurso

Dingwall- Kyle

Ayr-Stranraer

Glasgow-Edinburgh via Shotts (although diverted from Princes St to Waverley, of course)

                [I imagine Scottish politics was a factor in these: I forget what the state of the Scots Nats was in the 60’s, but outside of Red Clydeside the Tories were still a force, and the Liberals kept winning by-elections]

Craven Arms – Llanelli

Bidston – Wrexham

Llandudno Jn - Blaenau

                [Nationalist politics again? Although I think Blaenau may have been because the road alternative was so hopeless. Alston’s closure was long delayed for the same reason – and then the new all-weather road was closed by the first snows IIRC]

Middlesbrough-Whitby [There was a big campaign, although I seem to remember it was the Pickering/York route (now in part the NYMR) that they expected to save?]

York-Harrogate

Leeds/Bradford-Ilkley [home town of some of West Yorkshire’s most affluent and articulate citizens]

Settle-Carlisle [a well-known and heroic saga]

Whitehaven-Barrow [possibly to do with the politics around Sellafield, or Calder Hall or Windscale as we called the complex then]

Blackpool North [they closed the Central route instead]

Sheffield – Manchester via Hope Valley [Woodhead closed instead]

Skegness – Boston [odd this survived, when the comparable Hunstanton branch was not on the Beeching hit list but closed anyway]

Ipswich-Lowestoft

Peterborough – Leicester [surprised that was ever proposed for passenger closure, at least as a through route: did the powers that be effectively swap that for closure of Oxford-Cambridge?]

Ashford-Hastings [now how that survived is truly beyond me!]

Ryde-Shanklin IOW

Peterboro – Spalding [but March-Spalding closed instead: I think because of better opportunities to improve the roads, which in fairness needed doing]

Nottingham – Lincoln

Liverpool – Southport [surprised they thought the Manchester traffic justified retention, but not the Liverpool? But a lot of ‘Manchester money’ used to live in Southport, club car and all]

Wigan-Liverpool via Orrell

Wigan-Liverpool via St Helens [did the good Doctor have a traumatic childhood experience in Liverpool, by any chance – he seems to have had it in for Scousers]

Penistone – Huddersfield

Burnley-Todmorden [part of the rethink of which Transpennine routes to retain?]

Severn Beach branch

Braintree branch [I suspect another enclave of high net worth individuals]

New Holland/Barton on Humber branch [needed until the Humber Bridge was built, by which time the mood had changed somewhat]

Darlington – Bishop Auckland

 

 CLOSED DESPITE BEECHING

Hunstanton branch

Woodhead route

Matlock-Buxton [Both of these part of the Transpennine rethink]

Cheltenham – Stratford on Avon [civil engineering problems, as the Glous-Warks Rly knows full well]

March-Spalding

Oxford-Cambridge (except the Bedford-Bletchley bit) [A truly unfathomable decision, being painfully reversed]

Skipton-Colne

Lincoln – Langwith (or possibly Mansfield) [I do wonder if that isn’t an error on the map]

Lincoln-Grantham [the Nottingham line survived instead]

Blackpool Central [North retailed instead – might have been something to do with property values, but I seem to remember the Central site remained undeveloped for decades]

Ayr – Heads of Ayr [but why was that retained on Beeching’s map – it served a holiday camp and we are told Beeching didn’t like assets that only got used in high Summer]

Gunnislake branch [another case of truly inadequate roads?]

Kidderminster-Bewdley [a funny little stub to propose for retention in the first place]

Paignton – Kingswear

Swanage branch

Fawley branch

 

Barring one or two special cases, neither the unexpected retentions nor the off-report closures make any kind of sense. For example, one can see that the growth in package holidays in the 70s might undermine the case for Heads of Ayr, Swanage and Hunstanton, - but not apparently for Skegness even though the latter was supposedly already unviable a decade earlier.

I haven’t looked at station (as opposed to route) closures, but there is equal weirdness. Nottingham-Newark not only survives, but retains all its wayside stations (as does Notts-Grantham, not on the Beeching closure list). Yet in the same county Mansfield becomes the largest town in England without any service at all!

It all has a rather modern feel – Government is of course ‘guided by the science’, but in the end the decisions are political. By elections, local elections, money talking (not necessarily Tory money either: I bet Jack Jones and the TGW had a word in Barbara Castle’s shell-like about the Liverpool services and Labour's funding needs). T’was ever thus.

Some of this is detail, but there are some very big changes in the ‘implementation’ of Beeching – especially in Scotland – which must have made a fair-sized hole in his financial projections (and eventually lead to the Social Obligation, taking some of the burden off BR’s books). The Beeching process notoriously failed to meet its long term goals (I seem to remember that the short-term goal, of an operating profit, was actually met, for about as long as Mallard managed 126mph) but I wonder how much closer it would have got if it had been implemented in full (including, of course, the investments, which is another story). If he were alive now, I could imagine him going to Court to demand that his name is taken off the report, rather like some film directors do when their philistine studios edit out all the good bits!

 

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21 minutes ago, lanchester said:

When ‘blaming Beeching’ it’s worth asking to what extent his report was actually implemented.

 

 CLOSED DESPITE BEECHING

Hunstanton branch

Woodhead route

Matlock-Buxton [Both of these part of the Transpennine rethink]

Cheltenham – Stratford on Avon [civil engineering problems, as the Glous-Warks Rly knows full well]

March-Spalding

Oxford-Cambridge (except the Bedford-Bletchley bit) [A truly unfathomable decision, being painfully reversed]

Skipton-Colne

Lincoln – Langwith (or possibly Mansfield) [I do wonder if that isn’t an error on the map]

Lincoln-Grantham [the Nottingham line survived instead]

Blackpool Central [North retailed instead – might have been something to do with property values, but I seem to remember the Central site remained undeveloped for decades]

Ayr – Heads of Ayr [but why was that retained on Beeching’s map – it served a holiday camp and we are told Beeching didn’t like assets that only got used in high Summer]

Gunnislake branch [another case of truly inadequate roads?]

Kidderminster-Bewdley [a funny little stub to propose for retention in the first place]

Paignton – Kingswear

Swanage branch

Fawley branch

 

You have come to exactly the conclusions I did when looking at the subject over the last few years.  Looking at your list above, note than every single example above (I think) was closed from 1968 onwards and some were NOT in the 1963 report (e.g. Matlock-Buxton).  Also, note how few of the lines which had active reopening campaigns - successful or otherwise - were closed pre-68; this strongly suggests Beeching's "mistakes" were made some time after he left the role.

I have long  believed this shows that by the late-60s, BR managers knew the only way to advance your career was to identify savings, preferably from closures and not attempting to grow the business, no matter that much of the savings by that time were phantom ones. 

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Just to clarify, Northmoor, ALL the lines I listed as CLOSED DESPITE BEECHING were mapped in red for retention in the Report's map. One could make another list of lines that Beeching recommended for closure, but which hung on, apparently reprieved, for 8-10 years before succumbing: the Penrith-Keswick remnant of the CKPR would be an example (1972), Ilfracombe (1970), Minehead (1971). Some of these had only just been reduced to 'basic railway' with no time properly to assess the economies.

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5 hours ago, lanchester said:

...

I haven’t looked at station (as opposed to route) closures, but there is equal weirdness. Nottingham-Newark not only survives, but retains all its wayside stations (as does Notts-Grantham, not on the Beeching closure list). Yet in the same county Mansfield becomes the largest town in England without any service at all!

...

 

 

There is only the one route between Newark and Nottingham.  However, between Mansfield and Nottingham, there were three routes, tormerly the MR, GCR and GNR.  Is it simply because individually none of the 3 "made a profit", so they were all done away with, rather than any attempt being made to consolidate traffic onto just 1 of them, even though almost all of the ex-MR route was retained for colliery traffic?  That idea seems to fit with the "what was required was a ruthless cull" mindset, as Northmoor siad above.

 

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1 hour ago, DavidBird said:

There is only the one route between Newark and Nottingham. 

There used to be a second GNR/LNER route, via the Grantham line to Bottesford and then up to Newark North Gate (over what was effectively the Northern end of the GN and LNWR joint, even though it was solely owned by the GNR). This lost its not very frequent passenger services in (IIRC) 1939. I've never seen a timetable, but I'd imagine it was painfully slow like the rest of the GN &LNW Joint services. 

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5 hours ago, Andy Kirkham said:

Another line that closed despite being (mysteriously) proposed for retention by Beeching was Johnston-Neyland

 

I'd forgotten that one (and I went to school with residents of both towns) but I agree it was an odd one to retain; "The Railways of Pembrokeshire" says that Neyland was reported to provide less than 100 passengers a day.  Milford Haven was always likely to have more potential traffic.

 

Looking at the passenger figures on the ORR website, it is concerning how much traffic West of Carmarthen has declined in the last couple of years, most stations seeing falls of 4-7% p.a.  It doesn't reflect well on the WAG or the previous franchisee (Arriva).

 

55 minutes ago, DavidBird said:

 

There is only the one route between Newark and Nottingham.  However, between Mansfield and Nottingham, there were three routes, tormerly the MR, GCR and GNR.  Is it simply because individually none of the 3 "made a profit", so they were all done away with, rather than any attempt being made to consolidate traffic onto just 1 of them, even though almost all of the ex-MR route was retained for colliery traffic?  That idea seems to fit with the "what was required was a ruthless cull" mindset, as Northmoor siad above.

 

Though you would have hoped for a little intelligence to be used.....!

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31 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

I'd forgotten that one (and I went to school with residents of both towns) but I agree it was an odd one to retain; "The Railways of Pembrokeshire" says that Neyland was reported to provide less than 100 passengers a day.  Milford Haven was always likely to have more potential traffic.

I wonder if this can be explained by the granularity with which the network was examined. I mean perhaps Johnston-Neyland was never evaluated in isolation; it could be that it was, say, Carmarthen-Neyland that was examined and found overall worthy of retention; Neyland being considered the natural destination of Pembrokeshire's principal main line because it was the terminus of the mail and sleeper services and location of the county's main loco shed.

 

(I also have Railways of Pembrokeshire and a very fine book it is)

Edited by Andy Kirkham
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57 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

Looking at the passenger figures on the ORR website, it is concerning how much traffic West of Carmarthen has declined in the last couple of years, most stations seeing falls of 4-7% p.a.  It doesn't reflect well on the WAG or the previous franchisee (Arriva).

 

 

Hardly surprising, though as there are currently no through trains between Pembroke Dock and Swansea (so passengers from Neath, Port Talbot, and stations to London now have to change twice, adding an extra 30 minutes to the journey). There are also no westbound trains arriving in Tenby after 6pm, so the 12:40pm from Paddington is the last train for anyone wanting to travel to South Pembrokeshire. The summer Saturdays through service has also not run last year or this.

 

This is a journey I used to do several times a year as my parents live near Tenby. As it is, I haven't been over since Christmas 2019, for a variety of pandemic-related reasons.

 

None of this I would say is Arriva's fault, the problems have all occurred on TfW's watch.

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On 04/09/2021 at 13:08, F-UnitMad said:

 to such an extent that reinstatement - especially of freight traffic - has been almost impossible in many cases.

 

What rot!

 

What prevents the 'reinstatement of freight facilities' is not land / railway lines being shut - its the very nature of freight itself (or more particularly how it and consumer / industry demands have radically changed over the past 60 years.

 

Freight these days is dominated by intermodal traffic requiring good road access for transhipment of ISO containers - and thus generally requiring new 'out of town' sites on mainline railways beside motorways or major roads. A tiny goods yard in the middle of nowhere only accessible by country lanes or an urban one hemmed in by housing and accessed by busy urban streets is useless.

 

What most ignore is that Beaching was a visionary when it came to Freight - get rid of wagonload stuff and focus on what rail was good at doing - namely block trains between terminals with a big push to containerisation. The UKs policy of not tolling the motorway network and the influence of the road lobby on politicians in progressively rolling back restrictions meant  the latter never really took off as intended with subsequent instructions from Whitehall the Railfreight must NOT be subsidised meaning contraction was the order of the day.

 

Edited by phil-b259
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2 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

What rot!

No need to sugar coat your opinions!! 

And FYI with 25 years in "logistics" I am well aware of the modern nature of freight & its distribution. When I have more time I'll enlarge on what I meant and the difference with what you think I meant.

In the meantime a bit less of the abuse,  please. :nono:

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1 hour ago, F-UnitMad said:

No need to sugar coat your opinions!! 

And FYI with 25 years in "logistics" I am well aware of the modern nature of freight & its distribution. When I have more time I'll enlarge on what I meant and the difference with what you think I meant.

In the meantime a bit less of the abuse,  please. :nono:

 

I look forward to your analysis - however this thread is about the Beaching report and ITS legacy, which in Freight terms was actually a positive move rather than a negative one seeking to re-position the railway freight sector to play to its strengths and take advantage of the container based freight revolution.

 

What subsequent Governments / British Rail have done after that with respect to Railfreight (which saw the closure of the many domestically oriented container terminals say) is a whole different topic.

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