Beeching: The wonderful gift of hindsight.

[yorksrob]

Well, maybe. The Hull and Barnsley was a bit of a pointless route. Originally built as an out-flanking move because of the North Eastern's complete control of traffic into Hull, it almost exactly duplicates several parts of the previous route (quite deliberately). That was run down long before Beeching, but actual closure did not happen until after the report. The stub branch to Drax incorporates part of the route, along with part of the Selby-Goole line, which was arguably more useful in that it allowed traffic from Grimsby to avoid Doncaster when heading towards Leeds or York.

True, although I think that most of this route had closed to passengers long before Beeching.

 

[Gareth Marston]

I think it all boils down to Marples wanting to divert the Modernisation plan money to build roads pure and simple. the investment tap to the railway had to be cut.
At the time of the report most (c90%) Stopping services were still steam hauled. The savings to be made simply by replacing with a DMU were around 40% which would have brought many lines/routes into the black. The modernisation plan envisaged 4600 DMU's were needed nationwide only 3500 were delivered. If the money had stayed and the plan reached its conclusion many lines wouldn't have been closed.

Beechings model of the number of passengers needed to run a service profitably is highly suspect just comparing it with other figures in the report. For instance the report tells us that the 5900 single track route miles in existence then cost £20 million per annum to run which gives an average of around £3400 per single track route mile which presumably included freight, mail etc and was predominately steam hauled. Yet his model claimed a steam passenger service needed near on £13000 per single track route mile and a DMU £ one £7500 a year to run. Gerald Fiennes flatly contradicted the model saying a rural line such as the East Suffolk only needed £1000 per mile to maintain per annum compared to the models £3000. The 10000 passengers a week bar was set deliberately high and condemned many lines, I think 5000 with a DMU service and some rationalization would have been nearer the real mark.

 

[Gwenllian2001]

It is true to say that many lines would not have been built but for the 'free for all' that the Victorians engaged in. What is, perhaps, overlooked by many today is that the railways were almost wholly built to carry goods and minerals. Passengers were something of a sideline, for most railways, and the latent demand for such services was often met, grudgingly, with poor facilities and services. It came as surprise that people who never set foot outside of their local area, wished to travel using the new wonder of the age.

The rest, as they say, is history. Coal fields worked out, as did ironstone districts and their support industries, leaving behind populations whose usual travel to work needs were met by the railway that had been built to serve different needs. That did not happen everywhere, of course, and often the population melted away with the industry, probably because the communities had not existed for long enough to put down proper roots. Places like Aberdare, Maesteg and Ebbw Vale had been rail served since the earliest days of the Industrial Revolution and had been around long enough to have really established themselves as permanent settlements but all three were to lose their passenger services because of flawed thinking and highly questionable methods of accounting.

'Beeching' was wrong because it was not based on needs or potential but on a formula designed to support the political thinking behind it. Not everything could, or should, have survived but, too often, the baby was thrown out with the bath water leaving wounds which have still not healed.

 

[Tiny Tim]

A lot of the companies were spending money outmanoeuvring each other rather than looking for profit. The Caledonian and North British were very well known for this, and Fife was absolutely riddled with lines because of this. There are a few current lines cobbled together from bits of others, the whole Aberdeen Road for a start, where there is a milepost in the station showing the mileage from Carlisle by a route that no longer exists! Sometimes, parts of the newer route are actually better - although I won't go into the GCR vs Midland debate here - for instance the LSWR route to Exeter was almost always quicker than the GWR route up until the Western Region got hold of it. An incumbent route tends to do better.

Indeed the free market allowed railway companies to build lines simply to harass the competition, with little regard to strategic need or profitability. Also, as a result of unfettered capitalism, some routes failed to materialise as proposals were sabotaged by often dubious means. Numerous planned railways were countered by rival schemes which were designed to divide support for the original route. Obviously, under these circumstances, the profitability of any proposed railway was entirely irrelevant, whether it got built or not. It's an interesting fact that once an enabling act for a railway had been passed, there was a legal obligation to build it. It's entirely possible that some railways were built by mistake.

After grouping in 1923 some obvious duplications were eradicated, and very lightly used routes closed. But the Big Four had the same problem as Beeching was to encounter: Determining the actual costs and revenues of a specific length of track is very difficult. Beeching chose to use some deeply flawed statistics and thresholds for the purposes of his report, it's difficult to justify his use of dodgy figures as anything but a means to an end: closing railways.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

The GWR had a branch lines working group in the 1920's which looked hard at reducing costs and closures , the LMS and LNER did not appear to have similar. Had the BR nationalisation not happened , I suspect the private companies would have been much more active in closing unrenumerative lines in the 1950's and onwards.

 

[LE Greys]

The GWR had a branch lines working group in the 1920's which looked hard at reducing costs and closures , the LMS and LNER did not appear to have similar. Had the BR nationalisation not happened , I suspect the private companies would have been much more active in closing unrenumerative lines in the 1950's and onwards.

I suspect that's true, although many of the parallel main lines would have survived. The LNER would never close the Great Central, their access to the GWR without having to run over LMS metals and their rival to the Midland. In fact, I believe they had plans to electrify it, with the Woodhead being just the first stage (can't remember where I heard that from, though).

 

[yorksrob]

I think it all boils down to Marples wanting to divert the Modernisation plan money to build roads pure and simple. the investment tap to the railway had to be cut.
At the time of the report most (c90%) Stopping services were still steam hauled. The savings to be made simply by replacing with a DMU were around 40% which would have brought many lines/routes into the black. The modernisation plan envisaged 4600 DMU's were needed nationwide only 3500 were delivered. If the money had stayed and the plan reached its conclusion many lines wouldn't have been closed.

Beechings model of the number of passengers needed to run a service profitably is highly suspect just comparing it with other figures in the report. For instance the report tells us that the 5900 single track route miles in existence then cost £20 million per annum to run which gives an average of around £3400 per single track route mile which presumably included freight, mail etc and was predominately steam hauled. Yet his model claimed a steam passenger service needed near on £13000 per single track route mile and a DMU £ one £7500 a year to run. Gerald Fiennes flatly contradicted the model saying a rural line such as the East Suffolk only needed £1000 per mile to maintain per annum compared to the models £3000. The 10000 passengers a week bar was set deliberately high and condemned many lines, I think 5000 with a DMU service and some rationalization would have been nearer the real mark.

Some very interesting calculations. It becomes hard to see Beeching as anything other than a corrupting influence on the railway.

 

[Tiny Tim]

Some very interesting calculations. It becomes hard to see Beeching as anything other than a corrupting influence on the railway.

....and we're back to my original post: Beeching was wrong!

 

[yorksrob]

....and we're back to my original post: Beeching was wrong!

Well, you won't find me disagreeing on that count !

 

[D365]

If only we had PPM-esque technology back then... Might it have saved a number of branch lines?

 

[paul1609]

Half right - the Lewes relief road was approved by Marples - but the railway closure wasn't.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealden_Line

To facilitate the road scheme, the British Railways Board (BRB) applied to Parliament for authorisation to re-route the line to Lewes via the alignment which had been abandoned in 1868, the so-called "Hamsey Loop". Approval was granted by section 4 of the British Railways Act 1966 which permitted:
A railway (1,586 yards in length) wholly in the parish of Hamsey in the rural district of Chailey commencing by a junction with the railway between Lewes and Cooksbridge at a point 365 yards south of Hamsey level crossing and terminating by a junction with the railway between Lewes and Eridge at a point 425 yards north-east of the bridge carrying last-mentioned railway over the river Ouse.

The new route would cost £95,000 to construct, and a request for funding was submitted to Parliament in 1966. This was turned down and the strategic function of the Uckfield line as a link to the south coast was effectively lost. BRB saw little further use for the line and applied for its abandonment.

The Conservative government lost the General Election of 1964 to Labour. By 1966 the Transport Minister was Barbara Castle, who also approved the closure of the GC Mainline (which was not recommended or proposed by Beeching).

The Lewes to Uckfield line is often bought up as a case of a line that should have never closed but the reality is that even if it was open today it would still have very few passengers, there are no intermediate communities on the line of the route. The equivalent bus route serves places such as Ringmer rather than following the Ouse Valley like the railway. The route is too slow to attract any London traffic from Lewes and Beyond. Uckfield itself is a dormitary town providing cheaper accomodation for workers from London, Gatwick Airport and the Crawley Area it has virtually no employment itself. Generally no one in the Southeast travels away from london for employment because of house prices.
If you wanted to make a case for re-opening in the Southeast Uckfield to lewes wouldnt even come in the top ten economically. If you are looking for an alternative route from London to brighton the Arundel Curve and improvements to the Mole and Arun Valley lines would have a far higher CB ratio.

 

[yorksrob]

The Lewes to Uckfield line is often bought up as a case of a line that should have never closed but the reality is that even if it was open today it would still have very few passengers, there are no intermediate communities on the line of the route. The equivalent bus route serves places such as Ringmer rather than following the Ouse Valley like the railway. The route is too slow to attract any London traffic from Lewes and Beyond. Uckfield itself is a dormitary town providing cheaper accomodation for workers from London, Gatwick Airport and the Crawley Area it has virtually no employment itself. Generally no one in the Southeast travels away from london for employment because of house prices.
If you wanted to make a case for re-opening in the Southeast Uckfield to lewes wouldnt even come in the top ten economically. If you are looking for an alternative route from London to brighton the Arundel Curve and improvements to the Mole and Arun Valley lines would have a far higher CB ratio.

So unlike all of the surviving Southern Region routes between London and the Coast which have seen increasing traffic, (including Tunbridge Wells - St Leonards which passes through no built up areas as opposed to Uckfield and Crowborough) a surviving line to the Coast through Uckfield would now be struggling.

I'm sceptical of that assertion I'm afraid.

Agreed, Arundel Curve would be great for diversions but little else. Apart from that it would merely create a marginal improvement for a few existing journey options which are relatively easy today with a single change at either Three Bridges or the Coast.

 

[tbtc]

I think it all boils down to Marples wanting to divert the Modernisation plan money to build roads pure and simple. the investment tap to the railway had to be cut.
At the time of the report most (c90%) Stopping services were still steam hauled. The savings to be made simply by replacing with a DMU were around 40% which would have brought many lines/routes into the black. The modernisation plan envisaged 4600 DMU's were needed nationwide only 3500 were delivered. If the money had stayed and the plan reached its conclusion many lines wouldn't have been closed

But then this would have required over a thousand additional DMUs to be built at a time when BR were trying to save money

 

[Pen Mill]

But then this would have required over a thousand additional DMUs to be built at a time when BR were trying to save money

Absolutely a case of economics But perhaps the DMUs could've been diverted to the marginal lines from more viable lines.

I'm thinking specifically about the CLC line from Manchester to Liverpool which is very much alive and kicking Today.
I'm showing my age now but I did a school journey from Warrington Central to Widnes North (now plain Widnes) and return every schoolday from Late 1960 to mid 64
From memory ,my morning train was always a Fairburn or Stanier 2-6-4T but the return journey from about 1961 was in the hands of DMUs (108s possibly ?) , they were gradually worked in over those few years.
As steam was still prominent they could have used the DMUs elsewhere.
Bearing in mind that some of the 2-6-4Ts were built upto 1950 so were relatively young.

That's me retrogressing again !

 

[John55]

I think it all boils down to Marples wanting to divert the Modernisation plan money to build roads pure and simple. the investment tap to the railway had to be cut.
At the time of the report most (c90%) Stopping services were still steam hauled. The savings to be made simply by replacing with a DMU were around 40% which would have brought many lines/routes into the black. The modernisation plan envisaged 4600 DMU's were needed nationwide only 3500 were delivered. If the money had stayed and the plan reached its conclusion many lines wouldn't have been closed.

Beechings model of the number of passengers needed to run a service profitably is highly suspect just comparing it with other figures in the report. For instance the report tells us that the 5900 single track route miles in existence then cost £20 million per annum to run which gives an average of around £3400 per single track route mile which presumably included freight, mail etc and was predominately steam hauled. Yet his model claimed a steam passenger service needed near on £13000 per single track route mile and a DMU £ one £7500 a year to run. Gerald Fiennes flatly contradicted the model saying a rural line such as the East Suffolk only needed £1000 per mile to maintain per annum compared to the models £3000. The 10000 passengers a week bar was set deliberately high and condemned many lines, I think 5000 with a DMU service and some rationalization would have been nearer the real mark.

By the end of 1962 the Kent Coast electrification was complete, the Glasgow electrification first stage was complete, the Liverpool St to Southend, Clacton, Enfield, Hertford, Chingford and Bishops Stortford electrification was complete, Fenchurch St to Shoeburyness electrification (both routes) was complete and the West Coast Main Line (southern half) electrification was underway. The conversion of local services to DMU operation was well underway. The (r)evolution in track design and maintenance to allow 100mph running was also well underway.

The modernisation plan was adopted in 1955 and supposed to return the BTC to profitability by 1962. It is a bit hard to see how actions taken in 1962/3 could have led to the money for the Modernisation plan being diverted to road building. I am not sure there was even any money left from the modernisation plan to divert anyway. If so much hadn’t been spent on redundant marshalling yards perhaps there might have been.

In the Reshaping of British Railways Part 1: Report (table on page 9) the cost of the 5900 single track route miles is given as 15.5% of £110 million (£17.1 million). This is the figure for “signalled track” (i.e. formation, track and signalling for passenger services) and therefore amounts to an overall average of £2900 per mile per annum. This excludes sidings, yards, stations, depots and all train running costs. When you add in the cost of stations and train running expenses it is only to be expected that the revenue needed to cover the costs of operating the railway needs to be much higher than the “signalled track” cost.

I am assuming the model you refer to is the example of a stopping train service detailed on page 16. This is an illustrative example not a model. It assumes the average cost per mile of “signalled track” of £3000, an average spacing of stations of 2.5 miles and an hourly service each way running from 7 am to 10 pm and then goes on to quote typical costs.

For this example the line needs 6000 passengers per week over each track mile to cover the running costs of the DMU alone. Adding in the fixed costs of the “signalled track” and stations at £4000 per mile per year requires 14-15,000 passengers per week per track mile for a break-even situation (that is about 75 passengers per journey on average).

Now for a real service real numbers could be used and the report does quote a figure of £2000 per mile per year for the cost of the lowest category “signalled track” and different numbers could be used for less intense services and lines with fewer stations so a break-even figure of 10,000 doesn’t sound that outrageous.

If you look at the 3 cases on pages 97 – 99 the actual cost of the “signalled track” is actually much less than the average £3000 per year per mile above. For the Thetford to Swaffham example the closure of 18 miles of route gives a saving of £17200 per year which is even less than the figure Mr Fiennes is reported as saying is required for the East Suffolk line. I assume this is due to no signalling except at the junctions at each end, which were on lines not to close so no savings on signalling costs.

Whether the railway should break-even is another issue but until about 1970 BTC and BR were supposed by law to run as a business and not lose money.

While I am sure the analysis done for the Beeching Report had many flaws the question which had to be asked of the management of the railways from 1948 to 1961 is why they had so little understanding of the costs of their business? If the BTC and the regions had understood the costs of running the business I expect the railways would have been managed quite differently in the 1950s. Whether in the long run it would have made much difference will no doubt be debated for some time on his forum and elsewhere.

By the way does anyone know why from 1953 to 1961 the BTC was chaired by a professional soldier? It doesn’t seem to be an obvious choice to me.

The report says on page 138 that 4074 DMU vehicles were in stock at the end on 1962 (and doesn’t include the ex GWR vehicles). I don’t have the figures to hand but I believe 4200 DMU vehicles were delivered out of a possible total of 4600.

And finally if Gerald Fiennes was so sure of the error of the costs and assumptions why as Chief Operating Officer, General Manager Western Region and General Manager Eastern Region between 1960 and 1967 did he shut so many railways?

 

[LE Greys]

While I am sure the analysis done for the Beeching Report had many flaws the question which had to be asked of the management of the railways from 1948 to 1961 is why they had so little understanding of the costs of their business? If the BTC and the regions had understood the costs of running the business I expect the railways would have been managed quite differently in the 1950s. Whether in the long run it would have made much difference will no doubt be debated for some time on his forum and elsewhere.

By the way does anyone know why from 1953 to 1961 the BTC was chaired by a professional soldier? It doesn’t seem to be an obvious choice to me.

The report says on page 138 that 4074 DMU vehicles were in stock at the end on 1962 (and doesn’t include the ex GWR vehicles). I don’t have the figures to hand but I believe 4200 DMU vehicles were delivered out of a possible total of 4600.

And finally if Gerald Fiennes was so sure of the error of the costs and assumptions why as Chief Operating Officer, General Manager Western Region and General Manager Eastern Region between 1960 and 1967 did he shut so many railways?

The answer to a lot of this is political pressure. The country was alternating between Labour and Conservative governments for some time, each with a different transport agenda. Both were using the railways (and transport in general) as a political football, in many cases expecting quick responses to either improve services or cut costs before the next election. After all, they were now an arm of government, so this would be a vote-winner. Early on, they also had a massive repair bill after years of neglect, intensive use and bombing.

Regarding Sir Brian Robertson, he was a former Royal Engineer, although I don't know if he had anything to do with the Railway Operating Division (part of the RE). He was also an experienced manager/administrator who had worked for Dunlop and been part of the Allied Control Council in Germany. It sounds as though they wanted to bring in some outside experience after Sir Cyril Hurcomb while they put BR through a transitional phase. After all, Sir Cyril's basic plan was 'more of the same, then electrify', best shown by the 999 Standards built plus over 1,000 pre-nationalisation steam locos. Sir Brian had to handle the Modernisation Plan, so it could be that the current Transport Minister wanted a bit less conservative thinking.

As for the DMUs, they suffered from the usual Modernisation Plan problem of there being far too many different designs ordered without proper evaluaton, so some did not last very long. For one thing, they had three incompatible MU systems! The cost-reductions from only having a few designs might well have saved some routes, and would definitely have made cascades easier, but that would mean a slower Modernisation Plan, and with the next election looming, speed was more important.

 

[Tiny Tim]

By the way does anyone know why from 1953 to 1961 the BTC was chaired by a professional soldier? It doesn’t seem to be an obvious choice to me.

It's only a guess, but there was a Victorian tradition of the Railway Inspectorate being recruited from ex-army officers. Not a particularly good guess.

 

[Gareth Marston]

The Modernisation Plan was signed off by Govt in 1955 it was suppose to take until 1975 to complete. Marples when appointed Transport Minister in 1958 brought the end date forward to 1970. Therefore in 1963 it still had 7 years to run many of the proposed marshaling yards were never built. The lines closed were not the ones that had been electrified or given over to DMU working with a handful of exceptions, they were the ones at the back of queue for investment. By declaring them unviable the investment tap could be diverted.

Yes, the Thetford line was probably a line that that would only survive with subsidy however the report also tried to make out the York to Beverley route was a basket case example. The quoted movements costs on the line are steam hauled based substitute them with DMU ones and its a different case. This was a line that the traffic survey categorized in the 5000-10000 passenger per week bracket. BR were on the verge of single tracking a lot of route and installing automatic level crossings. Theres a campaign today to reopen it, it wasn't a 10000 a week plus line but was viable if modernised.

Stopping services according to the report cost £56.1 million and ran for 90 million train miles. Giving in decimal a cost of £0.62 per train mile ran. The reports model on which the magic figure of 10000 passengers a week to break even is based has a cost per train mile of £1.09.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
In the Reshaping of British Railways Part 1: Report (table on page 9) the cost of the 5900 single track route miles is given as 15.5% of £110 million (£17.1 million). This is the figure for “signalled track” (i.e. formation, track and signalling for passenger services) and therefore amounts to an overall average of £2900 per mile per annum. This excludes sidings, yards, stations, depots and all train running costs. When you add in the cost of stations and train running expenses it is only to be expected that the revenue needed to cover the costs of operating the railway needs to be much higher than the “signalled track” cost.


direct from Page 10 - you can see that the cost the report quotes to run the single track routes was £20 million.

"The lightly used part of the system includes most
of the single track branch line, of which there are 5,900 miles and of which 2,700
miles are open to freight traffic only. The proportion of British Railways' total,
passenger and freight revenue corresponding with this proportion of total traffic
movement is £4 1/2 m., while the cost of providing this route is some £20 m".

 

[Gwenllian2001]

.... The lines closed were not the ones that had been electrified or given over to DMU working with a handful of exceptions, they were the ones at the back of queue for investment. By declaring them unviable the investment tap could be diverted.

A handful of exceptions? In south Wales alone the Eastern and Western Valleys radiating from Newport had been DMU operated since 1956 and were very busy lines. Their closure to passengers was a trade off to economise on the Newport MAS scheme. In addition, the services to Aberdare (Low Level); Maerdy; Senghenydd; The Vale of Glamorgan; The coastal route to Barry via Penarth; Bridgend - Treherbert and services to Pontypridd via Wenvoe and St Fagans had all been operated by DMUs for some years before closure. The Pontypridd services were operated by power twins especially ordered for them. No attempt had been made to economise on station staff or signalling, with the exception of Bridgend - Treherbert which lasted until 1970.

It is a peculiarity of that period that lines like Aberdare, in particular, lost its service yet Merthyr Tydfil survived the cull despite having less potential. The whole system was flawed and the figures bandied about at the time seem to have been conjured out of thin air.

I was personally involved in collating the figures for the Vale of Glamorgan line and I was confident that services would be retained. However, when it came to the crunch, everything was so distorted as to give a thoroughly different slant on things. Only internal revenue was counted i.e. travel between stations on the branch whereas at least ninety five per cent of journeys were to and from destinations beyond; Cardiff, as now, being the obvious one and destinations all over the UK at the time of 'big leaves' for RAF trainees. Also at the time there were many thousands of journeys being made locally by RAF personnel and their dependants. They travelled at five sevenths rate as HM Forces on Leave. All of this traffic disappeared from the report on the branch and when I questioned it, I was told that they did not count government rated traffic. It was also stated that there were expensive track renewals etc etc that could not be justified. This was a pure falsehood since the line was to be maintained to passenger standard as an important diversionary route, a role that it still performs today. It remained as a double track railway serving the power station at Aberthaw and the Ford engine factory, to which a new branch was built off the Vale of Glamorgan line near Bridgend. So much for 'expensive renewals'!

Luckily it was there to re-opened to passengers but others like Senghenydd are now beyond recall, such was the orgy of destruction.

The lesson from all of this is that figures can be made to tell you what you want them to. It all depends on who is doing the sums and what they want them to add up to.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Regarding Sir Brian Robertson, he was a former Royal Engineer, although I don't know if he had anything to do with the Railway Operating Division (part of the RE). He was also an experienced manager/administrator who had worked for Dunlop and been part of the Allied Control Council in Germany. It sounds as though they wanted to bring in some outside experience after Sir Cyril Hurcomb while they put BR through a transitional phase. After all, Sir Cyril's basic plan was 'more of the same, then electrify', best shown by the 999 Standards built plus over 1,000 pre-nationalisation steam locos. Sir Brian had to handle the Modernisation Plan, so it could be that the current Transport Minister wanted a bit less conservative thinking


This is the guy who could not find his way to the Senior Officers Mess at Marylebone (and who indeed brought a number of his pals into the BRB - Maj Gen Slim as Head of PR for example)

 

[swcovas]

A handful of exceptions? In south Wales alone the Eastern and Western Valleys radiating from Newport had been DMU operated since 1956 and were very busy lines. Their closure to passengers was a trade off to economise on the Newport MAS scheme. In addition, the services to Aberdare (Low Level); Maerdy; Senghenydd; The Vale of Glamorgan; The coastal route to Barry via Penarth; Bridgend - Treherbert and services to Pontypridd via Wenvoe and St Fagans had all been operated by DMUs for some years before closure. The Pontypridd services were operated by power twins especially ordered for them. No attempt had been made to economise on station staff or signalling, with the exception of Bridgend - Treherbert which lasted until 1970.

It is a peculiarity of that period that lines like Aberdare, in particular, lost its service yet Merthyr Tydfil survived the cull despite having less potential. The whole system was flawed and the figures bandied about at the time seem to have been conjured out of thin air.

I was personally involved in collating the figures for the Vale of Glamorgan line and I was confident that services would be retained. However, when it came to the crunch, everything was so distorted as to give a thoroughly different slant on things. Only internal revenue was counted i.e. travel between stations on the branch whereas at least ninety five per cent of journeys were to and from destinations beyond; Cardiff, as now, being the obvious one and destinations all over the UK at the time of 'big leaves' for RAF trainees. Also at the time there were many thousands of journeys being made locally by RAF personnel and their dependants. They travelled at five sevenths rate as HM Forces on Leave. All of this traffic disappeared from the report on the branch and when I questioned it, I was told that they did not count government rated traffic. It was also stated that there were expensive track renewals etc etc that could not be justified. This was a pure falsehood since the line was to be maintained to passenger standard as an important diversionary route, a role that it still performs today. It remained as a double track railway serving the power station at Aberthaw and the Ford engine factory, to which a new branch was built off the Vale of Glamorgan line near Bridgend. So much for 'expensive renewals'!

Luckily it was there to re-opened to passengers but others like Senghenydd are now beyond recall, such was the orgy of destruction.

The lesson from all of this is that figures can be made to tell you what you want them to. It all depends on who is doing the sums and what they want them to add up to.

Some interesting points and your belief in the Vale line obviously justified with its ultimate reopening.

Closure of Aberdare whilst services to merthyr were retained seems odd on the face of it given that the population in the Cynon Valley was greater than that of the Taff valley. However, as I understand it, the roads in the upper Taff Vale were pretty poor at the time and train was more competitive. In the Cynon Valley the bus service was highly competitive......half hourly to Cardiff as opposed to the more or less hourly train which usually required a change at Abercynon. Again as far as I know, Maerdy and Senghenydd also faced stiff competition from bus. Maerdy's train service was pretty abysmal being virtually just a peak hour service in the 60s except for saturdays.

Not that many lines in Wales were closed as a result of Beeching......much more went in the late 50s and early 60s including the Western and Eastern Vallies you mention, Brecon, Denbighshire, Cardigan, Aberayron, Towy Valley, Heads of the Vallies and others. Of all the lines closed I think that despite calls for more reopenings (Carmarthen - Aber keeps cropping up) most of the potential reversals have now taken place.

 

[Gwenllian2001]

Some interesting points and your belief in the Vale line obviously justified with its ultimate reopening.

Closure of Aberdare whilst services to merthyr were retained seems odd on the face of it given that the population in the Cynon Valley was greater than that of the Taff valley. However, as I understand it, the roads in the upper Taff Vale were pretty poor at the time and train was more competitive. In the Cynon Valley the bus service was highly competitive......half hourly to Cardiff as opposed to the more or less hourly train which usually required a change at Abercynon. Again as far as I know, Maerdy and Senghenydd also faced stiff competition from bus. Maerdy's train service was pretty abysmal being virtually just a peak hour service in the 60s except for saturdays.

Not that many lines in Wales were closed as a result of Beeching......much more went in the late 50s and early 60s including the Western and Eastern Vallies you mention, Brecon, Denbighshire, Cardigan, Aberayron, Towy Valley, Heads of the Vallies and others. Of all the lines closed I think that despite calls for more reopenings (Carmarthen - Aber keeps cropping up) most of the potential reversals have now taken place.

The problem with Aberdare and Senghenydd was the ninteenth century legacy of changing trains not bus services which served a slightly different market. Both services could and should have run through to Cardiff to supplement Pontypridd and Caerphilly services. The 1953 interval service was never expanded to include these routes. If it had been, they would undoubtedly be with us today. Aberdare, of course, is back and fully integrated within the 'Valley Lines'. It is interesting that trains now run between The Vale of Glamorgan and Aberdare and Merthyr. Who could have foreseen that in the days when 'railways were a thing of the past'?

Senghenydd is, sadly, no longer an option. Maerdy was seriously considered for reopening in the Eighties but the stations were badly placed, in the bottom of the valley, so it was thought to be too much of a gamble and a bus link was introduced instead. On the other hand, if the original service had run through to Cardiff, it might well have survived, as the valleys, in general, have now become popular as dormitory areas because of the high price of property in the Cardiff area.

So much infrastructure was destroyed that many places such as Tredegar and Blackwood, which could have had useful services instead of the pre-grouping thinking that they were stuck with, were eliminated from the railway map forever.

Such is short termism and political dogma and we're still paying the price.

 

[yorksrob]

If you look at the 3 cases on pages 97 – 99 the actual cost of the “signalled track” is actually much less than the average £3000 per year per mile above. For the Thetford to Swaffham example the closure of 18 miles of route gives a saving of £17200 per year which is even less than the figure Mr Fiennes is reported as saying is required for the East Suffolk line. I assume this is due to no signalling except at the junctions at each end, which were on lines not to close so no savings on signalling costs.

Whether the railway should break-even is another issue but until about 1970 BTC and BR were supposed by law to run as a business and not lose money.

Another interesting assumption in the Thetford - Swaffham example was gross revenue accruing to other services contributed by passengers using the Thetford - Swaffham service for part of their journey. This was calculated as being £16,000, yet the example only assumed that the railway would lose £1,700 of this. A little optimistic perhaps ? (although to be fair, the report was planning to retain Wymondham - Kings Lynn via Dereham and Swaffham so they might have been expecting some to travel this way).

 

[Gareth Marston]

The problem with Aberdare and Senghenydd was the ninteenth century legacy of changing trains not bus services which served a slightly different market. Both services could and should have run through to Cardiff to supplement Pontypridd and Caerphilly services. The 1953 interval service was never expanded to include these routes. If it had been, they would undoubtedly be with us today. Aberdare, of course, is back and fully integrated within the 'Valley Lines'. It is interesting that trains now run between The Vale of Glamorgan and Aberdare and Merthyr. Who could have foreseen that in the days when 'railways were a thing of the past'?

Senghenydd is, sadly, no longer an option. Maerdy was seriously considered for reopening in the Eighties but the stations were badly placed, in the bottom of the valley, so it was thought to be too much of a gamble and a bus link was introduced instead. On the other hand, if the original service had run through to Cardiff, it might well have survived, as the valleys, in general, have now become popular as dormitory areas because of the high price of property in the Cardiff area.

So much infrastructure was destroyed that many places such as Tredegar and Blackwood, which could have had useful services instead of the pre-grouping thinking that they were stuck with, were eliminated from the railway map forever.

Such is short termism and political dogma and we're still paying the price.

The real stupidity was that the real cost of providing passenger services to most of the towns in the Valleys would have been marginal (certainly once pay trains came along)as the track and signalling costs was still being incurred due to the heavy industry that still existed in 1963. A 9F beating up to Ebbw Vale Steelworks did a lot more wear and tear than a Class 101 DMU would!
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Another interesting assumption in the Thetford - Swaffham example was gross revenue accruing to other services contributed by passengers using the Thetford - Swaffham service for part of their journey. This was calculated as being £16,000, yet the example only assumed that the railway would lose £1,700 of this. A little optimistic perhaps ? (although to be fair, the report was planning to retain Wymondham - Kings Lynn via Dereham and Swaffham so they might have been expecting some to travel this way).

The traditional Beeching flaw was that once a line was gone folk used different modes for the entire journey and didn't railhead. BRB convinced themselves (wishful thinking) they would still travel by rail for part of their journeys and thus retain a fair percentage of the revenue. This "contributory" revenue disappearing is one of the big reasons the closures didn't actually save any money. I've seen the figure of just £7 million quoted in terms of identifiable savings by the closure programme. One one hand BRB was stating rail was old hat go buy a car but still expected customers to travel on the rump - bonkers.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

A bit of legacy comment - the Vale was re-opened by the gift of the SRA through Rail Passenger Partnership funding.

Certain people (ummm..) wanted it to go ahead , but the infrastructure operator was not so keen - at the critical meeting , after much deliberation it was said (so one gathers) - no-one would leave until the right decison was made.

One of the key issues was the poor expected patronage Llantwit to Bridgend - agreed a special fare would apply , with some marketing. Scheme went ahead with the full service planned.

When the line was eventually re-opened , it was noted that the thought of dead section mentioned above triumphed with good off peak loadings. A gamble taken , and a good result all round.

 

[Gareth Marston]

A bit of legacy comment - the Vale was re-opened by the gift of the SRA through Rail Passenger Partnership funding.

Certain people (ummm..) wanted it to go ahead , but the infrastructure operator was not so keen - at the critical meeting , after much deliberation it was said (so one gathers) - no-one would leave until the right decison was made.

One of the key issues was the poor expected patronage Llantwit to Bridgend - agreed a special fare would apply , with some marketing. Scheme went ahead with the full service planned.

When the line was eventually re-opened , it was noted that the thought of dead section mentioned above triumphed with good off peak loadings. A gamble taken , and a good result all round.

yes everything that's reopened recently has had usage on an upward curve faster than Usian Bolt - yet the planing assumptions/methodologies that have been proved wrong over and over are still used!

 

[John55]

The Modernisation Plan was signed off by Govt in 1955 it was suppose to take until 1975 to complete. Marples when appointed Transport Minister in 1958 brought the end date forward to 1970. Therefore in 1963 it still had 7 years to run many of the proposed marshaling yards were never built. The lines closed were not the ones that had been electrified or given over to DMU working with a handful of exceptions, they were the ones at the back of queue for investment. By declaring them unviable the investment tap could be diverted.

Yes, the Thetford line was probably a line that that would only survive with subsidy however the report also tried to make out the York to Beverley route was a basket case example. The quoted movements costs on the line are steam hauled based substitute them with DMU ones and its a different case. This was a line that the traffic survey categorized in the 5000-10000 passenger per week bracket. BR were on the verge of single tracking a lot of route and installing automatic level crossings. Theres a campaign today to reopen it, it wasn't a 10000 a week plus line but was viable if modernised.

Stopping services according to the report cost £56.1 million and ran for 90 million train miles. Giving in decimal a cost of £0.62 per train mile ran. The reports model on which the magic figure of 10000 passengers a week to break even is based has a cost per train mile of £1.09.
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In the Reshaping of British Railways Part 1: Report (table on page 9) the cost of the 5900 single track route miles is given as 15.5% of £110 million (£17.1 million). This is the figure for “signalled track” (i.e. formation, track and signalling for passenger services) and therefore amounts to an overall average of £2900 per mile per annum. This excludes sidings, yards, stations, depots and all train running costs. When you add in the cost of stations and train running expenses it is only to be expected that the revenue needed to cover the costs of operating the railway needs to be much higher than the “signalled track” cost.


direct from Page 10 - you can see that the cost the report quotes to run the single track routes was £20 million.

"The lightly used part of the system includes most
of the single track branch line, of which there are 5,900 miles and of which 2,700
miles are open to freight traffic only. The proportion of British Railways' total,
passenger and freight revenue corresponding with this proportion of total traffic
movement is £4 1/2 m., while the cost of providing this route is some £20 m".

Marples became Minister of Transport on 14th October 1959.

If Marples brought forward the end date for the Modernisation Plan would that not increase spending in the short term at least not reduce it and make it more difficult to transfer money to the roads programme?

The 5 planks of the modernization plan were;

1 Track and signaling to allow 100mph running
2 Electric and diesel to replace steam traction
3 Modernisation of coaching stock
4 Freight....(vacuum brakes, marshaling yards etc)
5 Other (Ports, office mechanisation, research)

As far as I can see 1, 2 , 3 and 5 went ahead reasonably as expected. The single major project that did not happen was the electrification of the ECML but conversely the electrification to Bournmouth that wasn’t planned did go ahead (with the IoW!).

The real nightmare was item 4 where I don’t think the investment did much good in the long term and added to the railway’s debt. It was unfortunately only later that the freight side managed to find its real trainload markets and exploit them better although still loosing money hand over fist on the dregs of the old business. A couple of minutes on google and I found 12 yards new or reconstructed in the 1958-65 period – not cheap.

As far as the train costs go the table at the top of P17 (which I assume is where the 10,000 passenger break-even point comes from) is derived from the costs of running a DMU at £0.54/train mile not a steam train at £1.09/train mile.

System cost………..£77/m

Movement cost…… £168/m……steam
£77 + £168 = £245.
£245/224 = £1.09/m

Movement cost……..£45/m……..DMU
£77 + £45 = £122
£122/224 = £0.54/m

I don’t recognize the figure of £56.1m for 90m train miles – is it a typo for £56.9? Even so the £0.62m/train mile figure for movement costs for all stopping services over the network sounds reasonable for a mix of DMU and steam services and is consistent with the figures in the rest of the document.

In the case of the Hull – York service via Beverley the report gives the following figures;

Train miles……………………….260,000
Movement expenses (£).....84,000

Cost/train mile (£/m)………....0.323 (or 6s-6d/m)

This seems quite consistent with the earlier figures for a mostly DMU service. The reduction in track and signaling costs of £43,000 for 30 miles of double track doesn’t seem excessive either especially given the 22 level crossings.

I could not comment on the rest of the costs quoted for this route as they don’t make any sense to me.

I now see the origin of the £20m compared to my figure of £17m. The difference is the cost of stations, which are separated out in the table on page 16 and the associated data but not on page 10.

The problem of the lightly used railways was not that the report had inconsistencies, the problem was that there was not enough traffic to justify the number of railway lines open in Britain. The line from Thetford to Swaffham is reported as having 9 passengers on each of the 12 trains per day. Geleneagles to Comrie is reported to have had 5 passengers on 20 trains per day.

What is remarkable is that by 1963 when the report was published BTC/BR had already shut 3429 miles of railway since 1948 so the passenger numbers/freight totals on those must have been really really poor. After the Beeching report BR “only” shut another 3633 miles of railway up till 1970 when closures more or less stopped.

 

[Gwenllian2001]

One of the key issues was the poor expected patronage Llantwit to Bridgend - agreed a special fare would apply , with some marketing. Scheme went ahead with the full service planned.

When the line was eventually re-opened , it was noted that the thought of dead section mentioned above triumphed with good off peak loadings. A gamble taken , and a good result all round.

This thinking was almost certainly a legacy of the last days of the passenger service when the service was deliberately made useless. If the figures were still available, they would have shown just a handful of journeys a day between the two points, which was hardly surprising because before closure there was only one train in each direction, for school children, between Llantwit and Bridgend.

A lot had changed since the sixties however and it was fairly obvious to anyone who knew the area that Bridgend would be a bigger attraction than Barry, for all kinds of reasons. Shopping; medical services; and pubs and clubs for example. About a quarter of an hour to the centre of Bridgend or about twenty five minutes to the wrong end of Barry? The answer was obvious.

If you want to know where people wish to travel, just go and ask them; I did and the answer in Llantwit was either Bridgend or Cardiff. The doom mongers might have been influenced by the poor patronage of the existing bus services without realising just how long they took to make the journey. As I expected, the 'Cinderella' end of the line has now gone to the ball which only goes to prove that local knowledge is worth far more than expensive 'feasibility studies' and 'surveys' carried out by people who probably don't know where they are and care even less.

Back in 1963 I put forward, as part of a staff initiative, a detailed proposal for a new station at Eastbrook, between Dinas Powys and Cogan. Paddington dismissed the idea out of hand deciding that it would simply abstract business from Dinas Powys. Someone probably based that decision by looking at a map. What the map would not tell them was the different social economic group that the proposed station would serve. Many years after I had left the area someone came up with the same idea (I like to think that maybe he found my original plan gathering dust in a drawer) and Bingo! Eastbrook had its station in 1986. As far as anyone can tell it made not one jot of difference to Dinas Powys and over twenty years of useful revenue was lost.

Never discount local knowledge, especially from those at the sharp end. This was something that was never investigated by 'Beeching'. Their philosophy was 'That looks useless. Close it'. Far too simplistic but swallowed whole by politicians and public alike. Not surprisingly, those who actually used the railways weren't short of ideas on how to improve and economise but they fought an enemy who refused to come out of the bunker and kept on firing their artillery at the poor bloody infantry.

The most damning legacy of all was that, far from making savings, the deficit increased alarmingly and many of the closures were unecessary and unfair.

 

[Tiny Tim]

I wouldn't dispute that it was Beeching's intention that the cuts would reduce the huge deficit that afflicted BR, although, as we know, matters only became worse. I can only guess that Beeching believed that a reduced network would continue to attract the same amount of business as before the cuts. This seems to be a major fault in his logic. Without the (apparently) loss-making lines, even less freight and passengers would be fed onto the major routes. Is it just me or is that obvious?

 

[Welshman]

I wouldn't dispute that it was Beeching's intention that the cuts would reduce the huge deficit that afflicted BR, although, as we know, matters only became worse. I can only guess that Beeching believed that a reduced network would continue to attract the same amount of business as before the cuts. This seems to be a major fault in his logic. Without the (apparently) loss-making lines, even less freight and passengers would be fed onto the major routes. Is it just me or is that obvious?

It was obvious to most people except, it appears, Dr Richard Beeching.
He seemed to simply look at each line in isolation .