I see this post as a sort of a DAA counterpoint to the current thread on this sub-forum, Alternatives to the Beeching cuts that thread, with many perceptive posts by people well au fait with the political / social / economic / rail-functional aspects of the issue, read with interest but passively, by apolitical and un-technical me. My kind of stuff indulged in here -- something which intrigues me, and about which Ive posted previously in the Railway History and Nostalgia sub-forum: happenings on Great Britains railways presaging in some sort, the Beeching closures; at a time when the gentleman concerned, was a teenager giving -- so far as we know -- no thought to railways other than as a way of getting from A to B.
The turn of the decades 1920s / 30s was in Great Britain a time of withdrawals, in greater numbers than ever seen before, of passenger services on more-minor local lines of the big companies; and also of passenger-closure of many individual local stations, on routes which were themselves retained for passenger traffic. Particularly notorious in this connection, is the great purge as of the Sep. 22nd end of the 1930 summer timetable, featuring simultaneous passenger-closure of various lines and stations of the LMS, LNE, and GW (from what I can ascertain, no actual routes of the Southern lost their passenger services in this withdrawal-bout; individual Southern stations, maybe).
An attempted trawl through Daniels and Denchs Passengers No More my bible for these matters would seem to reveal passenger-withdrawal on seventeen variously LMS / LNE / GW lines w.e.f. 22 / 9 / 30 quite a dismaying total, but adding up to fewer than I had previously misremembered. However this September slaughter would seem to be, from my investigating, just a not especially great part of 1930s losses re the big companies passenger services. Another twenty-seven lines of the above-cited three of the Big Four (again, the Southern does not feature) closed to passengers during 1930 on other dates January-to-December. In 30, a total of forty-four lines lost their passenger services, with lowland Scotland (significantly the greatest sufferer) and South Wales, being hardest-hit; but plenty of deaths elsewhere too. A bit morbid, but interesting if this stuff interests one...
By my perception, no highly-classic-acclaimed utterly delightful lines lost their passenger services in 1930, with extreme regret occasioned thereby: most were very obscure, in either non-touristed rural backwaters, or industrial regions. Nicest, and saddest-to-lose in my personal view: Alnwick Coldstream, and Hexham Allendale, in beautiful rural Northumberland; Skipton Grassington (kept freight for decades after); the Red Wharf Bay branch in always-delectable Anglesey, previously discussed on this sub-forum (whence we understand, this one kept excursion traffic for a while after everyday withdrawal); and Garstang Knott End (agreeably quirky and a bit steam-tramway-like).
The turn of the decades 1920s / 30s was in Great Britain a time of withdrawals, in greater numbers than ever seen before, of passenger services on more-minor local lines of the big companies; and also of passenger-closure of many individual local stations, on routes which were themselves retained for passenger traffic. Particularly notorious in this connection, is the great purge as of the Sep. 22nd end of the 1930 summer timetable, featuring simultaneous passenger-closure of various lines and stations of the LMS, LNE, and GW (from what I can ascertain, no actual routes of the Southern lost their passenger services in this withdrawal-bout; individual Southern stations, maybe).
An attempted trawl through Daniels and Denchs Passengers No More my bible for these matters would seem to reveal passenger-withdrawal on seventeen variously LMS / LNE / GW lines w.e.f. 22 / 9 / 30 quite a dismaying total, but adding up to fewer than I had previously misremembered. However this September slaughter would seem to be, from my investigating, just a not especially great part of 1930s losses re the big companies passenger services. Another twenty-seven lines of the above-cited three of the Big Four (again, the Southern does not feature) closed to passengers during 1930 on other dates January-to-December. In 30, a total of forty-four lines lost their passenger services, with lowland Scotland (significantly the greatest sufferer) and South Wales, being hardest-hit; but plenty of deaths elsewhere too. A bit morbid, but interesting if this stuff interests one...
By my perception, no highly-classic-acclaimed utterly delightful lines lost their passenger services in 1930, with extreme regret occasioned thereby: most were very obscure, in either non-touristed rural backwaters, or industrial regions. Nicest, and saddest-to-lose in my personal view: Alnwick Coldstream, and Hexham Allendale, in beautiful rural Northumberland; Skipton Grassington (kept freight for decades after); the Red Wharf Bay branch in always-delectable Anglesey, previously discussed on this sub-forum (whence we understand, this one kept excursion traffic for a while after everyday withdrawal); and Garstang Knott End (agreeably quirky and a bit steam-tramway-like).