Station closures 1955-1967

[The DJ]

I suspect that the county of Lincolnshire suffered the most closures. Having watched a Hastings Diesels video, with the little green train passing the points where these stations were located, it is hard to imagine why they were opened to begin with as many sites are literally in the middle of nowhere. But did any other county suffer more station closures in this period.
Many in Lincolnshire closed in 1961 which was some time before Beeching began sharpening his Axe.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Lincolnshire is quite a large county so will have had more stations to close than (say) Rutland.

No doubt this thread will degenerate into another argument about ceremonial counties, county boroughs, doughnuts and so forth but I have always thought that the Isle of Wight emerged from the closure era rather heavily affected.

 

[hexagon789]

Kinross-shire and Fife both had high levels of closures

 

[30907]

If we were to go by the proportion of closed stations to the total, rather than absolute numbers, then Norfolk and Suffolk might be in the running, or Northumberland and (what is now) The Borders alongside the IoW (which lost about 80%, which might beat Lincs).

 

[Bevan Price]

"Pretend" counties (e.g. Merseyside, West Midland, etc.) did not exist in 1967.
Lancashire & Yorkshire both lost a lot of stations between 1955 & 1967.

 

[Gloster]

Somerset lost quite a few, although the Minehead line did not close until 1971.

 

[yorksrob]

Having watched a Hastings Diesels video, with the little green train passing the points where these stations were located, it is hard to imagine why they were opened to begin with as many sites are literally in the middle of nowhere.

For a lot of wayside stations, passenger services were second to freight. I imagine the empty spaces of Lincolnshire would have produced a lot of agricultural goods.

 

[RT4038]

Unless someone is prepared to count up the number of stations closed between 1955 & 1967, sort them and divide them appropriately into the square mileage of each county, then and now, this is just going to be a guessing game without a clear answer.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

"Passengers no more" - an old book published by one G Daniels might answer some questions.

Leave it at that - but in Victorian England , Wales and Scotland , and Ireland - the railway transformed freight as well as passenger mobility compared to unmade or barely passable roads.

 

[YorksLad12]

Unless someone is prepared to count up the number of stations closed between 1955 & 1967, sort them and divide them appropriately into the square mileage of each county, then and now, this is just going to be a guessing game without a clear answer.

I'm not, but I do have a list of the closed stations in the former county of Yorkshire, from which I extracted the two lists in this document (for pre- and post-Beeching closures). I count 202 stations (note: counting not my strong point).

 

[Taunton]

Many Scottish border counties lost all their stations - am I correct that Kirkcudbright, Roxburgh, Selkirk, Peebles, Berwickshires ended up with nothing.

 

[Gloster]

#11 Also Kinross and possibly Clackmannan, although the latter later regained Alloa.

 

[APT618S]

it is hard to imagine why they were opened to begin with as many sites are literally in the middle of nowhere.

Remember that when a lot of these places opened the latest road transport technology would be a horse & cart or mule trains for freight and stagecoaches pulled by horses for passengers !
In general water - canals, rivers, shallow coastal routes were used for freight.
So the early railways were a massive leap forward in technology.
Nowadays we now take road transport for granted at these places.

 

[Bevan Price]

I'm not, but I do have a list of the closed stations in the former county of Yorkshire, from which I extracted the two lists in this document (for pre- and post-Beeching closures). I count 202 stations (note: counting not my strong point).

Without checking all the closure dates, I estimate that Lancashire lost about 150 B.R. stations between about 1955 and 1967 -- plus the entire Liverpool Overhead Railway system. In addition it had lost, maybe, about 20-30 stations between 1948 and 1955.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Without checking all the closure dates, I estimate that Lancashire lost about 150 B.R. stations between about 1955 and 1967 -- plus the entire Liverpool Overhead Railway system. In addition it had lost, maybe, about 20-30 stations between 1948 and 1955.

Congratulations on your 5,000th post, Bevan.

 

[High Dyke]

If we're talking of passenger traffic, then Lincolnshire lost 87 stations in the period 1955 - 1967. As the OP mentions 1961 was the worst year (23 closures to passengers), plus the whole Grimsby - Immingham tramway (a further 20 stops). Two stations (Methringham and Ruskington) closed in 1961, but re-opened in 1975.

Many stations continued on for goods traffic for a considerable time.

 

[peteb]

Unless someone is prepared to count up the number of stations closed between 1955 & 1967, sort them and divide them appropriately into the square mileage of each county, then and now, this is just going to be a guessing game without a clear answer.
[/QUOT

Actually it's quite interesting to look at http://systemed.net/atlas/ and see which stations have closed. I reckon about 60 in Worcestershire alone but not sure about how many in the specific time frame requested by the OP.