Beeching - 50 Years of the Axeman

[Lady_Ava_Hay]

The Railway & Canal Act of 1888 amended and amplified some of the original imposition of the 1854 Railway & Canal Act which is stated by several sources to be the Act which put the Common Carrier duty onto the Railways (I can't find a copy of that Act to check the wording). The 1888 Act rearranged the way in which the duty was overseen and how complaints were to be handled and that explains the reference in the 1953 Transport Act (which altered the way in which complaints against railway charging were to be made).

 

I too have been unable to find any wording or indeed reference to this Act in the official history website. I do note that it was officially repealed by the Act in 1962 which is the one what Beeching wrote although, knowing how slow this sort of legislation is to pass into law, I would lay odds that it had been in the melting pot since 1955 anyway.

 

I get the impression from various notes that the 1854 Act was known as Cardwell's Act and was something of a revolutionary piece of legislation which was subsequently heavily modified by various other Acts. Perhaps it was a 'bad' law that was philibustered through during a holiday or something equally arcane.

[Guest Max Stafford]

It does seem that the 'landed gentry' sowed the seeds of disaster for the railways even before the first sod was cut, both with these conditions and with frequent interference when it came to the routing of lines and siting of stations.

 

It probably also explains a lot about why the largely state-inspired continental systems survived intact until very recently, having been mostly free of such machinations.

 

Dave.

[Bernard Lamb]

I had a quick skim through this in Smiffs. Two things struck me. One was a feature appearing to sing the praises of Barbara Castle as transport secretary. The second was an apparent absence of any mention of the Waverley Route closure. In view of the former item, was the latter an airbrushing job...?

 

Dave.

Just done the same thing. Although Richard Marsh had taken over at Transport at the time of the Waverley Route death sentence, Barbara Castle had presented the case to Harold Wilson and the relevant parliamentary committee. She was in favour of closure. Not many people know that. AFAIK the official papers have never been published. (Inserts advert for the forthcoming Waverley book). For all the claims about introducing subsidies she was not in favour of using these, or doing any thing else to keep the line open. Airbrush? more like a 9" paint roller.

Bernard

[dibber25]

Well, in one respect Beeching failed, because the railways have never made a profit after his tenure despite his surgery. However it is true to say that the losses would have been much worse had it not been for him. What is also true is that a large number of marginal lines were axed before the benefits of low-cost running methods were allowed to feature. It's easy to prove that a manually-signalled steam-worked line with a full complement of station staff at every station is unprofitable. A automatically-signalled line with a regular timetable of reliable (ie post early-60s) trains serving halts would be a different kettle of fish. The unions, government buying policy and the state of UK industry all had a hand in this.

Coming from a railway family, I have anti-Beeching vitriol in my blood, and no amount of unimpartial economic facts will purge it. He was given a task, he did it; the trends at the time were quite clearly against the railways, whatever role Marples played in things.

However I have to say that the biggest crime in this was not the wholesale closure of unprofitable lines, a project which was already in well in motion before him, but the wholesale disposal of former railway land that took place afterwards, mainly in the 1980s. That land should have been banked for future expansion in our era now that the railways are popular again.

 

Beeching was very clever. He knew there was a good chance that his 'surgery' would not work.He made it plain that that his plan was all or nothing. ALL the cuts HAD to be made or the plan wouldn't work. He knew, of course, that ALL the cuts would NOT be made and they weren't. So he could simply turn round and say "I told you so." Closure of everything west of the Tamar, for instance, was never going to be acceptable, but it was what Beeching wanted. The unforgiveable thing was the short-term thinking from people who SHOULD have been planning long-term, but we still suffer that on our 'political' railway, 50 years on. If you think the 'report' was in any way genuine just check out the figures for the sample routes shown in the report. The Chippenham-Calne branch was one sample with IIRC correctly £10,000 a year shown for signalling maintenance (a pole route, a token machine and a home signal protecting the junction at Chippenham). In 1963, £10,000 was a huge sum of money.

The only good thing he did was to recognise the inevitability of container transport and start to cater for it, but I bet the road industry wished they could have had all that for themselves, too.

CHRIS LEIGH

[Old Gringo]

A question generated by posts 24, 25 & 26: "What did it say in the Railway & Canal Traffic, 1854?"

From my battered copy of 'Biggs General Railway Acts 1830 -1911', I've set out below the most important parts of the 1854 Act, which appear to add to The Carriers Act of 1830, 1 William IV., cap. 68. (An Act for the more effectual protection of Mail Contractors, Stage Coach Proprietors, and other Common Carriers for hire, against the loss of or injury to parcels or packages, delivered to them for conveyance or custody, etc.).

Both Acts applied to the U.K. which at that time consisted of England, Ireland, Scotland & Wales.

Headed up 17 & 18 VICT. Cap. 31: “An Act for the better Regulation of the Traffic on Railways and Canals" [10^th July 1854].

The general preamble sets out the parameters of the act - "expedient to make better provision . . ., etc."  Then, Paragraph one includes the following description: "The word 'traffic' shall include not only passengers, and their luggage, and goods, animals, and other things conveyed by any railway company, or canal company, or railway and canal company, but also carriages, wagons, trucks and boats, and vehicles of every description adapted for running or passing on the railway or canal of any such company": There then follows a description of what qualifies as a 'railway' and a 'canal' and all their associated premises, etc..

Paragraph 2 sets out the provisions of the act: "Every railway company, canal company, and railway and canal company, shall, according to their respective powers, afford all reasonable facilities for the receiving and forwarding and delivering of traffic upon and from the several railways and canals belonging to or worked by such companies respectively, and for the return of carriages, trucks, boats and other vehicles, and no such company shall make or give any undue or reasonable preference or advantage to or in favour of any particular person or company, or any particular description of traffic, . . . . . . shall afford all due and reasonable facilities for receiving and forwarding all the traffic, . . . . . . , without any unreasonable delay, and without any such preference or advantage, or prejudice or disadvantage, as aforesaid, and so that no obstruction may be offered to the public desirous of using such railways and canals, . . . . . . , so that all reasonable accommodation may, by means of the railways and canals of the several companies, be at all times afforded to the public."

Paragraph 3 then sets out the law in relation to any violations and contraventions of the Act, penalties, costs, etc.

Paragraphs 4, 5 and 6 set out further rules of law and proceedings; Paragraph 7 sets out the companies' liabilities and refers back to statute set out in the Carriers Act of 1830.

 

Paragraph 8 states that the Act may be cited for all purposes as "The Railway and Canal Traffic Act, 1854".

As such the Act appears to tie the railway and canal companies to accepting everything that was offered to them, with no opportunity of refusal, subject to writ of injunction, penalties and costs.

The road operators, who flooded into the transport arena after the First World War, were able to 'cherry pick' the most lucrative high value goods traffic from the railways (now at a disadvantage tied to this Act).  As the competition intensified during the 1930s, the 'Big Four' launched the 'Square Deal' campaign, but the Second World War intervened before any proposals could be properly evaluated by Parliament.

By the time the 'common carrier' regulation was removed it was too late to stem the loss of traffic and in any case the railways were regarded as an 'old-fashioned' mode of transport by most of those in positions of power.  As for effective transport planning in Britain, I've yet to see much of it in all the fifty-plus years that I've taken an interest in the chequered history of the world's railways.

I look forward to reading my copy of "Beeching" if my local Smiths newsagents have still got any left tomorrow!!

All the best, John.
 

[Metr0Land]

I must admit I didn't have much time for Barbara Castle at the time but at least 2 things have mellowed my opinion of her with hindsight:

 

1/ She was derided at the time for not being able to drive a car. I wonder how many times since, most of us have seen the Ministry of Transport as being the Ministry of Road Transport and would have given anything to have a minister with a more balanced view of the nation's needs for surface transport?

 

2/ She was derided as being a silly woman when she suggested car manufacturers come up with a device to 'make all a car's lights flash' when it's in trouble. Most of us have never driven a vehicle without hazard warning lights.

[Guest Max Stafford]

Fair comment but it doesn't exonerate her from her role in initiating an entire region's slow lingering decline which continues apace to this day.

Still, being Liberal country it wasn't going to cost the government of the day any votes...

 

Dave.

[Bernard Lamb]

Fair comment but it doesn't exonerate her from her role in initiating an entire region's slow lingering decline which continues apace to this day.

Still, being Liberal country it wasn't going to cost the government of the day any votes...

 

Dave.

 

At around the same time that closure of the Waverley route was being discussed, the fate of Inverurie works was being decided. In the case of Inverurie Harold Wilson did actually bring up the question of moving another public sector employer to the area as a sweetener to stem the possible loss of votes.

Bernard

['CHARD]

"...took away our lifelines, gave us call-centres..."

 

I have to stay away from this thread, it's too raw.

I'm off to dream of a Borders Sodor

[johnstreet]

I thought this 'bookazine' looked interesting when I spottted it in WHS and liked some of the illustrations, but when I sampled the text and captions I put it back on the shelf as I noticed too much guesswork in the little bit that I did read.

[Brinkly]

Still, being Liberal country it wasn't going to cost the government of the day any votes...

 

Sadly Dave I think that happened to a lot of areas.

 

Regards,

 

Nick

 

Good publication though, nice selection of photos.