UK Beeching Cuts, a Reversal Study is Underway!

At long last the UK Government is pledging a fund to look into reversing some of the infamous Dr. Beeching route cuts.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51272817


Well, it's a start, but a lot more money would be required for rebuilding.

Is this the prelude to scrapping the HS2 and using the money for local route rebuilding?

Chemical company boss Dr Richard Beeching was given the job, despite famously telling the Daily Mirror newspaper: "I have no experience of railways, except as a passenger. So I am not a practical railwayman. But I am a very practical man."

In 1963, Beeching wanted to close 189 stations across Wales - cutting most of the branch lines
He took what many saw as a simple accounting view of the branch lines that criss-crossed the country. If they could not turn a profit, and were not carrying sufficient passengers, then the axe should fall.

More than 2,000 stations will be closed. Wholesale shut down of passenger services will leave huge areas of the country to the buses. Every part of the country is affected.


Setting a raging bull loose in the China shoppe, so what he wanted, you got it, now you have nothing.

And with all the money saved, what did you do with all that money ? Nothing !

There are several ways that all parties are deserving of criticism over this, both the government, the Labour party and the unions. For a starter, the Beeching cuts were only one part of the period in which the rail network shrank, with significant closures both preceding and post-dating his spell in office. There is no realistic prospect of "reversing" anything but a small portion of the closures and the grindingly slow processes in England & Wales mean that those that do will take "forever" to achieve, but then neither Labour nor the unions have a workable plan either.

Sadly, most of the closures during the fifty years between 1948 and 1998 were justified, particularly so when considering rural branch lines. In some cases it would have been cheaper to put passengers in a taxi and take them directly home than run the branch passenger train. However, there were some glaring failures in the closure process and undoubtably the minister Ernest Marples was behind some of them. His association with the road construction company Marples Ridgeway was recognised at the time and yet he rode out the accusations of conflict of interest. In my opinion, the worst decisons on closures post-1963 were those which cut some main lines; the Waverley route, the GNR direct line between Grimsby and Spalding and the Exeter to Plymouth former LSWR line. Another significant loss, but rather later, was the former GN-GE joint line between March and Spalding. I do wonder what might have been if the singling which took place between Salisbury and Exeter had been duplicated between Edinburgh and Carlisle, Exeter and Plymouth via Okehampton or Grimsby and Spalding what we might have today. Yes, services through the seventies, eighties and nineties would have been miserable but some restoration has taken place between Salisbury and Exeter since 2000.

It has taken over a decade to even start building a station to serve the town of Peterlee on the Durham Coast route, a line already running passenger trains, so restoring passenger trains to the freight only line to Ashington will possibly take even longer, even if funding does materialise. As for actually restoring track to places such as Fleetwood, or between Colne and Skipton, I think that the real challenge is overcoming the immense inertia of Network Rail. The supposedly "cast-iron" business case for restoring the Oxford to Cambridge "Varsity line", on which track is at least in existence for some of the western part of the route, is glacially slow to progress, with the likes of Grayling taking an axe to the ambition to electrifiy it.

I suggest that the government could also take a look at some of the lines on which John Major demanded cuts in 1991 as economy measures, which have never been reversed. Knottingly to Goole is one such line. The Whitby line is another, though there a limited improvement has just taken place.

Very good post borderreiver.

Whilst many cuts and reforms have taken place over the years, there is nothing better for the spinners and media than a Dr. Beeching headline to get the public interested.
Well, they got their headline noticed today, we'll just have to see what, or if, any progress is made.
Feasabilty studies are fine, but action and delivery is what counts.


We had a local section of track re-open to regular passenger services last year, 2.7km at a cost of over £14m!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halton_Curve

I hope that the government have deep pockets for future investment!

It's similar over here, thus, my forum post: Those poor decisions and regrets later, and lost dreams.

Today there is talk of extending, I mean rebuilding the Eastern Railroad from Newbury to Portsmouth. This work will require replacing the swing span on the stuck drawbridge over the Merrimack River, and rebuilding the main line completely north, this exists only as talk and the subject comes up at least once every couple of years.

The Northern Railroad of New Hampshire - Concord to White River Jct. Vermont has met the same fate. It sat in limbo after being railbanked when PAR closed the line in the mid-1980's. It was proposed recently as part of a Boston to Montreal route, or rather resurrected as such since it used to be that, but instead the tracks have been removed and the line is now a bike trail.

Once track is gone, it's gone. The cost of putting the infrastructure back runs into the $100 millions or more. Being what it is here should a plan like that ever come into fruition, the contractors will get no-bid contracts, the politicians will get a nice fistful of cash, and there will be delays to ensure that everyone gets their bigger share of the project. That is should the project ever come to fruition.

The other problem now is NIMBYs. Yes those people who complain if something smells, makes noise, or interrupts their drive on the clogged highways to their destination. A simple proposal was brought up a few years ago to extend the local commuter line two more stops to Plaistow, NH. The residents of Atkinson, located 6 miles from the end of the line, complained there might be noise and smells from the parked trains. The proposal was canceled even though that would have relieved a substantial amount of traffic and other clogged commuter stations south of these.

There's a bit more to say on New Hampshire in general. The state of New Hampshire will pay for absolutely nothing when it comes to rail infrastructure and services. The state has been since the invention of the highway, a road-oriented state. When it came to sending Amtrak to Portland Maine, now extended to New Brunswick Maine, New Hampshire got a free ride so to speak, Maine and Massachusetts have foot the bill for the service and New Hampshire gets 3 free stations in the process. This is the same with the Maple Leaf to Rutland Vermont. The short thin bit that runs in New Hampshire has two stations, yet the donate zilch to the cause.

With this attitude everywhere, it's difficult to rebuild anything even if it means taking a gazillion drivers off the road. Instead drivers from New Hampshire will sit in traffic for hours as they commute back and forth between their homes and their jobs in Boston. If they do take the train, they will drive 6 to 10 miles to Haverhill rather than have a local commuter stop of their own. This increased clog of cars has forced Haverhill to institute parking fees and meters to prevent the outsiders from seeking free parking.

It would be good to see some old railway lines re-open but there has to a decent business case, not just out of some displaced sense of nostalgia.

A good example of this is the Western Rail Corridor in Ireland, from Galway to Limerick which by all accounts has made a huge loss with a sparse service of three trains a day carrying a handful of passengers slower than buses on the adjacent road. Plans to further extend the route back towards Tralee or on to Claremorris and Sligo have by all accounts been quietly abandoned. And at the same time IE were reopening this backwater route, they were closing Rosslare to Waterford a service which connected into the ferry port!

Vern said:

It would be good to see some old railway lines re-open but there has to a decent business case, not just out of some displaced sense of nostalgia.

A good example of this is the Western Rail Corridor in Ireland, from Galway to Limerick which by all accounts has made a huge loss with a sparse service of three trains a day carrying a handful of passengers slower than buses on the adjacent road. Plans to further extend the route back towards Tralee or on to Claremorris and Sligo have by all accounts been quietly abandoned. And at the same time IE were reopening this backwater route, they were closing Rosslare to Waterford a service which connected into the ferry port!

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I agree. There is no reason to just open up a line because it was there previously unless there's a reason. The problem is routes were abandoned because that was the old way and everyone wanted cars. In some cases, the railroads themselves wanted to shed lines but could not due to business obligations. In my area, that infamous Guilford, aka Pan Am Railways, discouraged freight service by deliberately curtailing maintenance. They were instead focusing on the mainline from Bangor to Mechanicsville while killing off local branch line and secondary mainline service by either outright abandoning working lines, or by driving away customers. In some cases, they were stuck servicing customers through contractual agreements, but found every excuse they could to cut the service. When the washouts occurred, or a bridge failed, that was used as an excuse to lift the line. It's amazing how quickly the rails were lifted and the ROW paved over for a bike trail.

In the 1960's my local railroad, pre-Guilford and PAR, the Boston and Maine, did what it could to get rid of its long distance passenger trains and focus on commuter and freight only. To discourage the passengers, they went as far as to let the maintenance drop on their equipment, and lowered the speeds of the trains so that a journey that once took 3 hours from Boston to Troy, NY, now took 8 hours. The Penn Central did that as well on its long distance lines. They ran old crappy equipment with dirty coaches, some without heat and aircon, and long with ghastly dirty bathrooms all to discourage passenger ridership. The drop in ridership was then used as an excuse to cancel the service.

John, re post #7, British Railways also used various shenanigans to bolster their case for closure. The favoured technique was usually to set the timetable with inconvenient train times, reduced services and missed connections. Once passenger ridership dropped they then made the case that traffic was low and retention of the line unsustainable. On some lines the passenger rolling stock was obsolete, dirty and in a poor state of repair yet on others new equipment was provided but they went ahead with the closure anyway.

In my opinion some closures were inevitable. I was just reading about the Whithorn branch in Scotland, which never made a profit during its entire existence. Passenger services ended in 1950 and freight in 1964, though for some years only three goods trains ran each week. During the "Big Four" era (1923-1947) the LNER was no stranger to closures either. In 1930 they closed the branch passenger service on the Amble branch. In May 1939 ended those on both the Lanchester Valley branch as well as between Tow Law and Blackhill, accompanied on the latter by the closure of the line between Dan's Castle and Parkhead Junction. In 1940 they ended local passenger services on the Leamside line between Ferryhill in the south and Leamside in the north.

Euro, re post #4, yes, quite an amount for a short stretch of line but despite being dogged by DMU shortages (as was the Todmorden curve re-instatement) the Chester - Runcorn - Liverpool service has finally begun. I personally hope that the action group succeed in persuading the government to restore the Colne- Skipton line. One freight operator has already stated that they will use the line to shorten the time it takes for them to run between Lancashire and Yorkshire due to the severe limits on freight paths currently available across the pennines through Manchester. Restoring Colne - Skipton will also open up many economic benefits for people who live in NE Lancashire and who either work/study in Yorkshire or want to be able to do so.

I am also frustrated that six years after the blockage at Dawlish and the subsequent statement by then-PM David Cameron that "money was no object" there is still no plan for a diversionary route. While there was some mention of the pre-WWII GWR project to bypass Dawlish with a new inland line (cancelled due to WWII) and even of using the trackbed of the Teign Valley branch the main contender was probably the former LSWR line via Okehampton. I suspect that the whole project has been shelved, with the hope in Westminster circles that it will be forgotten. However, it is unlikely that mother nature will co-operate on that. Irrespective of any climate change issues, the line at Dawlish is exposed and despite what might be built at either the seafront or offshore to mitigate storm effects, the sea will ultimately triumph. If another Dawlish blockage takes place between now and 2024 then both the government and Netwrok Rail are going to have a real caning about the failure to reverse the beeching cut between Exeter, Okehampton and Plymouth.

Missed a bit of the boat here in Gt Britain euromodeller!

I have already intimated on our Trainz forums that up here in the northern part of our kingdom Scotland we have had 5 re-openings whilst our cousins down south have wished for this. We have now been told that a 6th re-opening to Leven is being scheduled so come on and catch up! Would lso say the worst part of Britain for closures was Ulster where it went down by nearly 75%.

Would also agree with the comment borderreiver made regarding Dr Beeching and closures. There were unfortunately routes which ran more or less almost empty trains and financial disaster. Even in my city (Glasgow) which has a goodly suburban service I can remember lines I travelled on and hardly a soul on a train. There are places on the mainland where there will be old routes that can be looked at for bringing back and the great success of our modern system will make our American pals envious!

Well, I'd love to see a full reopening of the Waverley route, now that the northern end has been completed by the Scottish Government (and has been a great success). This is definitely a line that should never have closed!

Paul

Some lines can be reopened and run profitably now with increased population and tourism - these should be no-brainers.
Some lines will fulfill Tory political objectives of leveling up areas considered disadvantaged - mostly northern and western areas.
Some lines could be worth reopening even at a loss for their network effects - making the rest of the rail network more valuable since there are more places to go/more complete coverage.
I am always amazed at the number of people interested in railroads/railways, and if I ran the UK tourist board I would be offering subsidized flights/rail passes to North American and other visitors.

Well euromodeller would you like to acknowledge that 5 lines HAVE been brought back in Gt Britain and now a 6th decided and all up here in the north of Kingdom! Maybe England, Wales will catch up one day although unfortunately not Ulster.

Hi

Why do people never look at the overall picture when criticising Dr Beeching? In a nutshell the country was still struggling financially following the huge expenditure made during WW2 and the railways were running at an increasing loss. Dr Beeching was tasked with providing a report into turning the railways into a profitable business.

He wasn't responsible for closing any railway line as he only produced recommendations. The government of the day was responsible for implementing those recommendations that suited them and ignoring those that didn't.

It has been convenient for various governments since to let him take the blame.

Regards

Brian

Always passingly sad for folk who are rail enthusiasts when lines closed back at Dr Beeching's time but unfortunately there were an awful lot of lines that people ignored using. Where I live I well knew lines that were empty and away back many moons ago when Glasgow electrified it's eventual massive tram system two railway companies complained! Amongst the 5 lines brought back here in Scotland the part-Borders return was great and the longest with over 30 miles! Wish they would do something with the present terminus. Okay the train sitting in the platform has toilets but there should be one in the station and somewhere for a snack with the business on the line. Interesting the Leven line is next for being brought back after decades of just freight (just over 6 miles and no doubt track rebuilt and the cost at around seventy million quid! So come on down south catch up with us folks!