Great Western Coffee Shop

I'm very much on home ground when it comes to the "stubby little Calne branch"  ;D

The Wiki page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chippenham_and_Calne_line) is quite informative and largely correct so, rather than write it all out again I will copy and paste portions of it here.

“Calne was an important market and industrial town not far away, and at the time it had 16 mills within three miles, and moreover housed the largest bacon factory in England.
 
Seeing themselves at a disadvantage by not being on the railway, a meeting of interested parties was held on 3 November 1859, and this led to a public meeting on 8 November 1859, proposing a railway connecting the town with Chippenham and the main line. This was supported with great enthusiasm; only James C Hale, proprietor of the Calne branch of the Wilts & Berks Canal, was not happy. £15,000 of share subscriptions were promised before the meeting closed. James Baird Burke was to be the engineer, and his estimate of the construction cost was £26,663.

The formal subscription proceeded and four members of the Harris family —proprietors of the bacon factory—subscribed over 50% of the capital. All seemed to be going well but a disturbing letter was soon received: it had been understood that the GWR would be supportive, but the letter warned that income on the line might not cover the operating costs of the line for several years, and that any profits would fail to contribute to repaying the capital cost.

From 1900 to the 1930s the line handled much passenger and freight traffic, making Calne one of the busiest stations in Wiltshire. During the Second World War there was heavy passenger traffic for the RAF establishments at Lyneham, Compton Bassett and Yatesbury, which continued into the early 1950s.

With the increase in road vehicle usage throughout the twentieth century, use of the line by passengers and for freight purposes declined steadily, and in the 1960s it was clear that the future of the line was doubtful. Freight traffic had disappeared by the time the last passenger train ran on 18 September 1965. The track was lifted in 1967.”

So, to summarise, the line was a privately funded venture that the GWR eventually bought for a song. It was never intended by the GWR or anybody else to extend the line.

The GWR, however, did investigate the traffic potential to the east of Calne towards Marlborough. The trouble with that neck of the woods is that there is no intermediate traffic to speak of; only a few minor villages and hamlets all the way, and a rise of 400 feet to cross the chalk downs at Yatesbury into the bargain. As a result one of the first GWR omnibus services was introduced on the route instead - I believe in 1909, but I haven't looked it up so happy to be corrected on the date.

Notwithstanding what Wiki has to say, it is a moot point whether Beeching “put it out of its misery” or closed a viable railway. Whilst I agree that freight had been lost to road traffic (intentionally by the way because they were trying to get shot of wagonload traffic at the time), passenger takings were reasonably healthy, and what made it look otherwise to Beeching was the ludicrous and subsequently discredited railway accountancy concept of “contributory income.”

This meant that places like Calne were only credited with fare income to and from Chippenham. The rather naïve view was taken that the revenue element of any tickets sales beyond Chippenham (eg to Bristol Bath Swindon London etc) would be counted as main line income. The railway rather naively thought at the time that if they closed a local station, the railway-travelling public would meekly and obediently travel to their nearest still-open station and catch the train from there. By the time they found out the hard way that that simply didn’t happen the damage had already been done, and that was one of the major reasons why the expected savings from Beeching’s branch line closures never materialised.

Finally, in place of a railway across empty chalk downs to serve as a secondary route, the GWR already had one a few miles to the south – Reading Newbury – Savernake – Patney & Chirton – Devizes – Holt Junction, then around the appropriate curve at Bradford Junction to get to Westbury or Bath. And they decided they didn’t need that either :)

Thank you, Robin, for that wonderful summary of the Calne branch.

The thing that has staggered me over the years of (casually) reading up about it and wondering is the sudden and dramatic fall of the line from a healthy passenger service and an apparently well used goods yard to closure.  Either there were massive underlying problems of empty passenger trains and wagons trundling about, or the closure looks to have been a very poor decision ...

Where lines just survived those times, they have done dramatically better in recent years. It feels (there are exceptions, including one in Wiltshire) comparing the start of the 1960s that lines and stations are either gone, or now have services way above the levels of that time.

Had the line to Calne remained open ... today MetroWest would be two trains an hour Bristol to/via Westbury (one stopper, one semifast) and three trains an hour to/via Chippenham - two London expresses and one stopper - after Bath Spa calling at Corsham, Chippenham and terminating at Calne, plus perhaps some other stations. 

The trackbed is still in place - though used as a popular walking and cycling route.  Built over only n the former site of Calne station.  Even the crossings of the River Avon and the Great West Way (A4) are still bridged - the A4, though, with a bridge now with a slight arch (to allow taller road traffic) and I don't know the state of the river bridge having crossed in just once in the dark (don't ask!).

Perhaps a fanciful dream to think that Calne could be re-opened - the last new station to open in Wiltshire was in 1937 and I can't think of any station that has re-opened on a new site / with a new platform at all.  (Melksham re-opened in 1985 on part of the old platform which - thank goodness - was in situ).  Its probably time for the powers that be in Wiltshire to catch up with many other parts of the UK in careful re-openings and new facilities and I hear promising plans - though I don't see any shovels yet ... and I doubt it would be Calne.

Beyond Calne, Robin is right - the ground rises and you hit that rural area that people have thought to be traditionally all Wiltshire.  And you also hit the end of the natural travel-to-work area (and river catchment) down to Bristol.   Perhaps, indeed, the high land past Avebury should be the natural place for SubNational Transport Bodies to meet.

As a historic note, early proposals for the Kennet and Avon Canal passed through Calne, and up a flight of locks around Cherhill then back down to join the Kennet at Marlborough.   What was built in the end to climb the escarpment was the flight of 29 locks at Caen Hill, Devizes which lift the canal 237 feet.

Graham and other mods – you might want to consider taking these posts out and starting a new thread on “The Calne branch then and now,” because we’ve well and truly hijacked this one and I could go on all day about it!

The entire trackbed is still in place all the way from the junction with the main line at Chippenham to the former station throat at Calne, with the following exceptions:

1.    The land immediately after the junction at Chippenham has been redeveloped as part of the former Cattle Market site for about 200 yards. There is however a field on the other side so the route would only actually need to be moved a few feet.
2.    Black Bridge over the Avon at Monkton Park, Chippenham was demolished many years ago. A new footbridge was installed in the late 90s/ early 2000s as part of the scheme to turn the route into a footpath/ cycle track. Needless to say if a railway was ever contemplated again this would have to be replaced with something much more substantial.
3.    The section between Stanley Bridge Halt and the site of the bridge that used to take the Wilts & Berks Canal under the line (traces of which still remain, by the way) is still in private hands, and somebody has built a tennis court over the trackbed at Stanley Mill. This section was not incorporated into the cycle track scheme because a relatively minor road with little traffic runs parallel to the railway here. This private section covers 0.45 miles of the trackbed.
4.    Black Dog bridge over the A4 – an identical situation that described at (2) above
5.    There is currently nowhere sensible to put a station at Calne, the station site having been redeveloped twice since closure. You could take the line to the south but that would be further from the town centre, or you could take it north into Castle Park. I can see the natives getting restless over that idea…

Whilst it was quite enjoyable sharing that lot with the group (I have been walking and cycling up and down the line quite frequently since 2002), I think that the idea of the branch ever reopening is pie in the sky for a number of reasons. Firstly, the Stagecoach bus service 55 runs at 20 minute intervals (30 mins on Sundays) between Calne and Chippenham railway station, and also between Calne and Swindon. It also serves the new developments on the western side of Calne, at Studley/ Derry Hill and Pewsham that were simply not there when the railway closed, and the railway’s route would have served then poorly anyway - nearly a mile away from Studley Cross Roads down a narrow lane, and even farther from Pewsham from where a walk into Chippenham would be shorter than down Stanley Lane to Stanley Bridge Halt.

Some might think that road/rail integration is poor now, but it is perfect compared to how things were in the 60s. NO buses ran to Chippenham railway station; they centred on the bus station, half a mile away and involving a quite steep hill. Even the forerunner of the current Faresaver X31 between Chippenham and Bath, the 46 and 46A in those days, went straight along the A4 Bath Road and expected its passengers to walk to get to it, rather than the situation today of serving the estates on the western side of town.

And the 46 in those days, incidentally, operated a two hourly service from Calne to Bath. So the idiots who dreamt up “contributory income” who thought that former rail passengers from Calne to Bath would get the bus to Chippenham, get off that bus THAT WAS ON ITS WAY TO BATH ANYWAY, walk up the hill to the station and then give the railways some money to take them to Bath when they could be bothered to run the irregular service that was the norm in those days, were living in Cloud Cuckoo Land. As they say, pigs secured and ready for takeoff…

I wondered about that at my earlier response.   Yes - I will do that ... but currently following up yesterday ...

Just a general thought, not relating to Calne or anywhere specific, but isn't that in part because there are more people now and more so because we travel more than we used to? People now don't tend to necessarily live locally to their work (or work locally to where they live, to look at it the other way), we travel more for business and for leisure, and so on; so even if rail's share of the travel pie is smaller than in 1960, the whole pie is sufficiently bigger to make it a bigger slice.

Now split off from http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=21891.0

In part there is a lot more travel ... rail was 17% of around 300 billion km per annum in 1952, and 10% of around 800 billion km per annum in 2016

Great fun looking this one up. Selective quoting from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42182497 :


Other references:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/729521/national-travel-survey-2017.pdf

https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/average-annual-mileage-cars-uk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_Great_Britain#/media/File:GBR_rail_passengers_by_year_1830-2015.png

Now - 17% of 300bn is 51bn, 10% of 800bn is 80bn which suggests that passenger rail kms rose by 57% on a network who's route miles halved - 3.13 times the traffic per route km in 2016 compared to 1952.   I wouldn't like to suggest an elasticity factor - in other words, what the passenger numbers would look like today in alternative scenarios such as 75% of route miles being retained which hindsight might suggest, or just 25% retained which Serpell might have suggested.

At risk of throwing the points and sending us off on another diversion.

There was a railway, of sorts, from Salisbury to Amesbury via Porton. The extensions to Larkhill and Bulford. I believe it was entirely military so no "venture capital" involved.

And now for something completely different in relation to the chalk downlands. In the 1914 edition of "Notes on Reconnaissance & survey of military railways" there is an exercise to reconnoitre a military railway from the existing railway station at Hungerford to the existing railway station at Chipping Norton. Materials supplied half-inch OS map of the area (with railways removed), part sections and suggested answer. The 1940 edition "Notes on Military Railway Engineering" Part 1 (Survey) has similar. Possibly useful as an exercise, in an area the military was familiar with, but unlikely to ever exist as commercial entity.

To me this seems remarkably odd, as if the military didn't know what was already there.

Less that 9 miles from Hungerford is Savernake. There was a perfectly good GWR railway to get that far, and then there was a perfectly good Midland & South Western Junction Railway line to Andoversford. There it joined the GWR Cheltenham to Banbury line, the first major station on which after Kingham was Chipping Norton.

Building a new direct military railway seems a rather expensive way to avoid a reversal at Andoversford, but we are talking about the military here... ;)

PS - I wouldn't waorry about the diversion - its still the right part of Wiltshire and it went through Marlborough  ;D

Calne is an interesting case. The town has a population of over 17,000, so it's not quite as big as Portishead (25,000) but it's not far off. Would it be worth the cost of rebuilding 9km of track to put it back on the rail network? As others have pointed out, the obstacles are all probably surmountable. There's even a trackless platform in just the right place for it at Chippenham! At the Calne end, it would probably be necessary to find a new site; would somewhere near the White Horse Way/A3102 roundabout work?

I think the idea was a training exercise to show that  they had assimilated the requirements for a military railway, not quite the same as a civilian railway (steeper gradients acceptable etc). So I presume that the idea of removing the existing railways from the map was so they weren't distracted by the available lines.
The provided route (I presume the answer, after they had provided some thoughts of their own) went east from Hungerford.

A ripe case for a tramway.

OK - It almost certainly won't happen but

1. Here's the end of the old trackbed path. I'm standing on it, back to Chippenham looking at the new construction on the site of Calne Station. The path leads off down the hill across fields to the river / the slope is also fields and I wonder about the track in the approach being moved no more than a few yards north and brought it slightly lower to terminate near where the Calne branch of the Wilt and Berks canal terminated

2. Until a few years back, the 233 Bath to Chippenham bus carried on through to Calne but the Chippenham to Calne section was removed as the 55 Chippenham to Swindon via Calne grew.   I can't help feeling there was precious little through traffic;  an earlier post suggested that transferring to the train for Calne to Bath journeys would be unlikely - yes, but bear in mind that the bus (at least now) from Chippenham to Bath takes an hour longer than the train. 

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/calneoldstationsite.jpg)

There are two useful little books on this subject - confusingly, both called The Calne Branch. Both are still available from the Wilts County Libraries service. I did pick up a copy of one of them (1972 one) in a second hand bookshop when I lived in that neck of the woods.

Or indeed a notch on the scale measuring how much the government really was serious in their statement of "reversing Beeching"*


*I have felt for a long time and still do, that in this sort of context, the name "Beeching" would be more appropriately replaced by "Marples".

Quite so - but you should add 'Castle', who (I think I am right in saying) closed more route miles than the previous government despite an election pledge to stop the closures...

Certainly the pledge was broken and Barbara Castle may have some blame to share (although I sense the hand of Wilson there more).  In fairness though, Barbara Castle was a key figure in arresting (and to some degree starting the reversal of) the
advanced decline of our canal network just before it might have been too late to do anything.

The decline of the canal network is a different story though. I wouldn't like to guess what proportion of all canals survive but the arrest/reversal of that decline was a transformation, in that virtually none of them now serve a transport function. They're more akin to heritage railways where people go for days out with steam trains than the rail or road network. I don't know much about canal history but I guess that decline started with the coming of the railways in the mid-nineteenth century and was pretty much complete by the 1920s. Perhaps more to the point, I've no idea when the transformation to a leisure destination started or what role in it was played by Castle (or Wilson or Marples or Beeching or... )

Dealing with (2) first, you are probably correct that in later days there would have been little through bus traffic between Calne and Bath. The difference between now and then is that now the buses (55 and X31) both stop in the railway station forecourt. In the olden days I speak of the closest that Bath-bouns buses got would have been Bath Road/ Town Bridge. I can't remember where the stop was in the days when buses coming from the Bus Station came down the High Street and turned left into Bath Road after crossing the Town Bridge, but the closest they would have got to the railway station is still 0.3 miles away with Station Hill to walk up or down in between.

Moving on (or back!) to (1), whilst I have already said I can't see the branch reopening, there might be a glimmer of hope. There is a planning application which I think has now been approved for getting on for 700 houses and employment areas to the north and east of Chippenham. This will involve bridging the GWR main line to the north east of the town. The Calne branch trackbed has been protected in the plans for this development, but it does of course go straight through the middle of most of it. And of course right at this moment there are no bus services there because the only occupants are a couple of farmhouses and a lot of cattle. Perhaps a case could be made for reinstatement on those grounds?

All that said, the problem of where you could put a station in Calne wouldn't easily go away. If you only needed a 14-foot strip of land to lay a single line on and build a platform that would be one thing, but you also have to take into account access roads and parking. Something would have to go in the centre of Calne to make room, and it wouldn't be:

Any of Castle Park
Anything that would destroy or cover the mill race alongside the A4.

You could possibly knock the Fire Station down (ironic because it was the Fire Station that was the first new building on the old station site!) and provide an access road, car parking and a station there, but the site would still be very restricted. That said, you'd probably be able to provide a car park the size of the one at Cam & Dursley.

Every one of you is right but it really has to be looked at in the context of the day. That was that the railways were losing money hand over fist and something had to be done about iy PDQ.

And all politicians of all parties can have whatever election manifesto pledges they like, but sometimes those pledges get overtaken by events (see Lib Dems and tuition fees for a recent example...). When they get into power and actually see the books - well, as Dennis Healy used to say - "When you've got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow..."

There were certainly some lines that evidence suggests may not have needed to close - the Calne branch could be one and Kemble to Cirencester could be another locally. But whilst I don't recall seeing empty trains on the Calne branch I do remember instances elsewhere of being the only person on a train except the crew, and having a coach to myself in some of the "busier" S&D services.

Reverse Beeching by all means, but only where it is sensible to do so.

I think we'd all agree with that view. We might start to differ when asked to define 'sensible', though.

The post Beeching railway is shot through with anachronisms, probably mostly due to the fact that the process his report started was not seen through to completion. As an example, the Exeter-Barnstaple service stops at (or within a stiff walk of) a string of villages and hamlets, whilst to the east Exeter-Taunton services speed past Collumpton and Wellington. We all understand the reasons for this, but perhaps it is worth taking a couple of steps back and seeing it for what it is: ludicrous.

My question is: should any decent-sized community (and we can argue about what constitutes decent-sized!) be connected to the rail network by right? If we decide it should, then perhaps the £50Bn currently earmarked for road schemes could be reallocated to provide new links (such as to Calne) and capacity (such as would be needed for Wellington). If we decide it shouldn't, then let's stop pretending we care about runaway climate change or re-balancing the rural economy.

As you say, defining "sensible" could be a problem!

Take, for example, Norton Radstock, a community of some 21,325 souls in the 2001 census. If you wanted to reconnect the area to the rail passenger network you would have a huge potential practical problem. Most people in the area who work away from it will be going to Bath or Bristol, and could get there by a direct train service until 1966 and 1959 respectively. The line to Bristol via Pensford has largely vanished from the landscape (Pensford viaduct being the obvious exception) and the line to Bath didn't serve the largest community along the way (Peasdown St John) and that community has got far larger since 1966. Furthermore, at the Bath end it terminated in a station that is now predominantly Sainsbury's car park, even if the building itself is still there. Some means would have to be found to connect the former S&D route to the GWR, either by knocking half of Oldfield Park down or by building a steeply-graded and heavily curved chicane between Midford and Pensford.

And yes I've deliberately left the obvious until last!

There is much more chance of reopening a railway from Radstock to Frome although even there something would have to be bulldozed at Frome to reinstate the north to west chord (unless you envisage an Ebbw Junction type arrangement where trains from Ebbw Vale to Cardiff go to Newport but don't actually stop there).

The average rail journey transit time from Frome to Bath is around 40 minutes. Be generous and only add on 15 minutes for the Radstock to Frome section and you are up to 55 minutes to an hour. Add another 15-20 minutes to and from Bristol depending on stops. The bus from Radstock to Bath takes 28 minutes and one to Bristol takes about 80 minutes. The only rail commuters to Bath and Bristol would be diehard railway enthusiasts - everybody else would drive or take the bus.

However, about 3 years ago Frome minibuses had me grace them with my presence on their mid-day service from Frome to Midsomer Norton. There were three of us on that bus, all with OAP bus passes, and the other two got off at the former pit village next to Kilmersdon colliery. It left Radstock for Midsomer Norton empty and I happened to see it coming back about an hour later. Empty again. With an off peak demand like that Norton Radstock hasn't got a cat in hell's chance of getting its rail service back, even if over 20,000 people live there.

Hard cases make bad law - but OK, let's look at Norton Radstock!

As the crow flies, it's 20km south of Bristol and 11km south of Bath. There is an existing freight line to Frome which, whilst potentially providing a useful connection to the Reading - Taunton Line, offers little benefit to anyone wanting to get to Bristol or Bath.

So how would you serve Norton Radstock? The S&D line provides the basis of a route to Bath, though as you say things would become rather difficult at the Bath end. There is a potential for connecting with the Camerton branch at Midford though, which provides a route through to Bath via Dundas. This route passes within 1.3km of Peasedown; not ideal but better than nothing. This has been discussed before: http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=20967.msg257150#msg257150

The North Somerset line to Bristol is obstructed in places, but again could form the basis of a useful link.

I don't think you can really compare potential usage levels with those of fifty or more years ago. Any new lines would use clean, fast, modern trains, and would show a commitment to the communities they serve. They would bear no comparison with the slow and dirty steam passenger trains that slotted between crawling freight trains in times almost out of memory.

I agree with the sentiment but in my post this morning I mentioned being the only person on a train except for the crew (that was between Highbridge and Evercreech), and having a coach to myself in "busier" S&D trains (that was on the main line). I was not suggesting that this was indicative of what present-day traffic levels on those lines would be (although it might be close to it in the case of Highbridge to Evercreech!) but to show that basket cases like these would not have survived long whatever the political and financial situation in the 1960s. It is difficult to argue an "essential public service" case when nobody wants to use the" essential public service" in question!

On the other hand I cited the Calne branch and the Kemble to Cirencester branch and also, thinking about it now, I will add the Chalford to Stroud and Gloucester auto-trains, as services that always appeared to me to be well-patronised and perhaps should not have been axed by the Good Doctor.

In my post earlier this afternoon I mentioned loadings on a bus between Frome and Radstock from 3 years ago. If, and I admit it's a big if, that is representative of the off-peak loadings that a reinstated train service would attract, then quite simply that reinstated train service isn't going to happen.

We seem to have widened from Calne!

We can learn a lot from history and historic used - but we must plan for current and future use.  How far into the future, and whether future planning should take the wider view of regional spatial strategies.

Back in 2006 I wrote a proposal for Bent (Bratton and Edington New Town) - see [[here]] (http://www.wellho.net/mouth/938_Bratton-and-Edington-new-town-Wiltshire.html) - "The population of the new town will rise to approximately 30,000 by 2026, so making it comparable in size with Trowbridge today."   

Now - had that tongue in cheek proposal come to pass, a railway station on the Berks and Hants at Edington - on the 22 miles from Pewsey to Westbury that has no stations at all at present - would make huge sense.   Re-opening Edington station without Bent or other development won't be best use of funds, though.   And with Bent, the station should be opened (should it not?) as people start to move in so that there's a quick uptake of public transport in the new town.   Perhaps it should open even as construction starts so that the teams building the place can get there!

OK - at present the directions that people from Norton Radstock want to travel are north north east to Bath, or north west to Bristol.  And the one remaining ("mothballed") rail line runs the opposite way - south south east to pass through Frome (though not through Frome station) and to Westbury.  Journey times, I concur, via this route to Bath and Bristol would be substantial. But then is Bath and / or Bristol the natural destination in a generation's time?   

Which came first - the chicken or the egg?  The Railway or the housing?  Current thinking seems like it's "oops - big place, no trains" - the housing has come first.  But look at the two in parallel.  Look at the suggestion of Ashton Park station (have you come across that one? It's in the LEP report). At "silly" ideas like Bent ... at Devizes Parkway and perhaps development around that rather like has happened around Bristol Parkway.  And do you end up suggesting that the Paddington to Bedwyn service should extend beyond the village of Bedwyn to the substantial town of Norton Radstock, with intermediate calls at Pewsey, Devizes Parkway, Bent, Westbury, Frome (Cheese and Grain) and Kilmersdon.  Fanciful? Maybe, but history shows us the model of the Metropolitan line out from London where Rayners Lane and stations to Uxbridge (and others) started as country halts ...

I was always lead to believe the Calne branch was the prime loss maker of all Western branch lines.

Has anyone else heard or read this?

Pages 100 and 101 of the Beeching Report is one of 10 examples of financial implications. For Western, just two (Yatton to Clevedon and Chippenham to Calne) are detailed.  The net financial saving of the Calne branch closure was evaluated as being higher than the financial saving by a closure of Yatton to Clevedon.

http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/BRB_Beech001a.pdf

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/beeched100.jpg)

The examples in the report had selected 10 lines one of which was Chippenham - Calne. There were actually over 300 proposed for closure or removal of local services - see http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/21945

This has been on my "to do" list since it was posted yesterday morning  ;D

Its been so long since I read the Beeching Report I forgot that those lines were detailed in that way. If you are reading the .pdf of the report that is available free online, this table is all on page 100.

You must always be careful with statistics because they often show what the report's author want them to show, and not the truth or anything like it. Anyone who just goes to the "bottom line" (ie the far right hand column in this case) will think: "I see we've got a couple of basket cases here. We can save £24k and £17.9k respectively by closing the Calne and Clevedon branches"

But when you look more closely at the figures that make up those tables a completely different picture emerges. I have tabulated the two horizontal lines in the report into vertical columns to help illustrate what was going on:

Seq   Item                           Chippenham-Calne   Yatton-Clevedon 1   Total earnings                         £4,700             £6,100 2   Expected to be lost                 £4,700             £6,100 3   Contributory revenue             £56,900                £22,000 4   Expected to be lost                 £5,700             £1,100 5   Expected total revenue loss   £10,400             £7,200    Expenses       6   Movement                               £15,500            £11,500 7   Terminals   £                              8,900             £5,600 8   PW and signalling                   £10,000             £8,000                     9   Costs of running the branch   £34,400             £25,100 10   Revenue we expect to lose           £10,400              £7,200 11   Therefore cost savings              -£24,000   -£17,900           12   Income from the branch            £61,600             £28,100 13   Costs of running the branch   £34,400             £25,100 14   Profitability of branch                   £27,200             £3,000

Item 1, total earning, is not the total takings on either branch. You need to include item 3, contributory revenue as well. These are the amounts that were taken on the branch for tickets beyond Chippenham, and Yatton respectively which, it was thought, would still come to the railways after closure because passengers would meekly and obediently get themsel;ves to Chippenham or Yatton and take the train from there. So the true incomes from the two branches, there in the table for all to see but not exactly being highlighted, are as shown in line 12 - Income from the branch - £61,600 in the case of Calne and £28,100 for Clevedon. These are at 1963, if not 1961, prices, and would be considered very healthy income streams today.

Now the wise accountants of the time knew that they would lose some revenue, so they put estimates on it. All the income shown in line 1 as "total earnings" would be lost (this of course stands to reason because that income only applies to journeys wholly within the branches and that would obviously be going if they closed), and they also allowed for some loss of "contributory revenue" as well. They allowed roughly 10% in the case of Calne and 5% in the case of Clevedon. Or in other words, they thought that they could close the lines and still retain 90% or 95% of the income from them. I would say a bit more about this but you would get bored reading a War & Peace sized epic so I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions...

So what the table told the unwary was that the lines cost the amounts shown in line 9 to run, and the expected losses of revenue were as shown in line 10, so line 11 told them how much they would save if they closed the lines in question.

The reality of what was actually going on is shown in lines 12, 13 and 14. The conclusion is that no matter how the figures were spun, the WR closed two profitable branches, and Calne was far more profitable than Yatton to Clevedon.

As they say "there are lies, damned lies and statistics." And from today we can probably add "and The Prime Minister" to that saying  ;)

As regards the Beeching closures, of which Calne was but one, it might be interesting to be reminded of how little opposition was actually heard, let alone listened to, at the hearings that were held into each case.

Here is a link to a copy of a letter that appeared in the Bath Evening Chronicle in May 1964: https://www.flickr.com/photos/byjr/8711128808/ (click on the photo to enlarge)

Nobody was allowed to challenge or query the railway's figures that "supported" the closures. The hearings only took representations on the grounds of "hardship" and, as will be seen from the letter, the definition of "hardship" was made deliberately hard to prove.

Personally I think it also shows how far into the clouds the heads of senior railway managers were if they really thought that their "contribtory revenue" would still be received after the closures. Others may of course draw different conclusions :)

That's not an easy question to answer because there is no one answer.

Back in 1972 or so John Betjamin hosted a documentary called "Metroland" (I was only watching a VHS tape of it again last week as it happened!) which showed that the growth in commuting along the Metropolitan Railway was the result of the railway's own policy of buying land and selling parcels off to speculative builders. So in that case the railway came first.

Quite a few years ago now the MOD moved its administrative centre from Bath to Abbey Wood and a new station was provided. In that case you could say that the station was provided as a result of a major change to local commuting habits. Yes the railway came first but not in quite the same way as with the Metropolitan - indeed, the existence of the railway may have influenced the MOD decision to relocate there rather than somewhere else.

In the case of Yate the station closed in 1965 just as the first foundations for the New Town were being laid. In that case the housing definitely came first and well before the station was reopened.

The real question that needs to be asked is what are people commuting for (yes of course to get to work, but why they are living where they are living and not a few minutes walk from their employment)? Initially the answer to that was the reasonably well-heeled moving out from the centre of filthy Victorian cities onto the surrounding leafy glades. There is still an element of that but it has also been exacerbated by housing costs. People commute from Frome to London because the houses are cheaper, or from Norton Radstock to Bristol for the same reason.

But whatever the specific reasons for the commute there is one constant, and that is that people tend to commute to large industrial and/or commercial centres with high staff requirements, and that generally means large cities of their environs.

In this neck of the woods, London, Bath and Bristol are going to be the major magnets for commuting for the foreseeable future, and to me that means in a generations time if not longer. Other major centres like Swindon, Reading and Oxford will also have their commuters from this part of the world, although I suspect less in proportion than the three first mentioned. Unless something major and unexpected happens (for instance an expansion of Warminster or similar to a population of 250,000, or perhaps a slump in house prices in particular parts of the country) I doubt that things will change much for many generations.

There is also the global warming/ carbon emissions etc issue of course, but if anything I would expect that to reduce commuting rather than find new destinations for it.

Another question is to what extent commuting patterns are determined by available transport links and vice versa. I know several people who commute from Bristol to Cardiff, Bath, Gloucester and even Reading, but no one who commutes to Oxford. Is this because it's a bit harder to get to Oxford or because Oxford's job market is less attractive? Or something else?

People I know commute to Oxford. It's just that from Swindon they do not use the train.  I am sure some people commute to Oxford by train e.g. from Didcot or Banbury or Bicester (that was after all the reasons  for reopening the Bicester line).

Something else.

Bristol has direct train to ... "Cardiff, Bath, Gloucester and even Reading".  It doesn't have direct trains to Oxford.

From Bristol, from Chippenham, there was a direct service early in the last decade that built up good custom - I recall a pretty crowded service which in the peak skipped Didcot and I'm pretty sure those were travellers on a daily basis.    Fast forward to today, and you've got to change at Didcot to make the journey (or double back for £££ via Reading) using a train that's just once an hour from Bristol, Bath or Chippenham, with the Didcot train times not appearing to be designed as a well-making connection, and changing into what are local trains for the final section of the journey.   With the lack of reliability and timekeeping, connections are especially unstable too as they double the risks - I've done quite a bit of work in Oxford going up there via Chippenham and I'm very used to the "Didcot Dance" - pulling in there and seeing an onward train pulling out, whether or not the timetable suggests that should happen.

Interestingly, there are others who commute from Bristol (and Cardiff) and intermediate stations in WECA to Swindon who are going to have a significant loss of service from they December ...

Obviously, if you change the starting point you change the likely destinations. I don't know anyone who commutes to Newcastle but I quite likely would if I lived in Sunderland!

I think the data (https://commute.datashine.org.uk/#mode=allflows&direction=both&msoa=E02005947&zoom=9&lon=-1.7023&lat=51.5435) seem to back up your perception of things here.

That is an interesting resource!

This view (https://commute.datashine.org.uk/#mode=allflows&direction=both&msoa=E02006887&zoom=9&lon=-2.6157&lat=51.6316) rather makes the obvious point that commuting depends on good transport links: Lots of people commute into Bristol from Weston, but very few from Wells or indeed Norton Radstock... is it too big a leap to assume that more people would do so if it were easier? 'Commute' in this context is arguably shorthand for 'take advantage of economic and educational opportunities'.

My "perception" was really more of a thinking-aloud question about the interplay between job market, transport links and housing on commute patterns, and on each other.

But in a way I started from the wrong end. I was thinking of people I know who live in Bristol and work elsewhere, but Bristol is mainly an attractor of commutes and jobs (as is Oxford) rather than an origin.

Warnings:

1. I'm going to continue Sid's diversion (after observing that 20 months ago I explored the trackbed from Calne to Chippenham).

2. My Specialist Subject is "Military Wiltshire 1897-1920", meaning I can be very boring about military railways in the county.

Despite its name, the Amesbury and Military Camp Light Railway carried civilian traffic to Amesbury and on an extension to a civilian station at Bulford. In 1914 a branch was built over the River Avon through Lark Hill Camp and eventually terminating at an airfield close to Stonehenge. Jeffery Grayer, Rails Across the Plain, is an excellent history.

As for the military railway from Hungerford to Chipping Norton, this was obviously a hypothetical exercise, hence the removal of actual railways from the map. Neither town had much military significance (though the former hosted troops camping on the Common and convoys of lorries moving along the Bath Road). My first thought was that the line would go north west through Aldbourne and then one side or other of Liddington Castle to Chisledon, where the MSWJR had found a way to Swindon. The east-of-Hungerford solution would have taken the route to Newbury and, presumably, thence north along the route actually chosen by the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton line.

Any other route between these two would have had to go over hilly country before somehow having to get down the very steep escarpment into the Vale of the White Horse.

Marlburian

Apologies to moderators, split if necessary.

It was a survey exercise, not sure at this distance in time as to whether it was purely a table-top exercise or whether they rode the country.
Proposed route goes east from Hungerford, generally following the line of the R. Kennet. After it crosses the R. Lambourne it routes towards Chieveley then Hampstead Norris where it turns north to Compton.
It continues north between Upton and Harwell (similar to Didcot to Newbury line?). East of Abingdon and than a broad sweep round towards Eynsham, then east of Handborough and Charlbury then follows the R. Evenlode round to Shipton.
Then skirts north towards Churchill and then to Chipping Norton.
Spellings as the original map.

I have a scan of the original map, too big to fit on here (thank goodness think mods!)

Chippenham to Calne timetable - January 1960

Amazing how many lines with an excellent service in 1960 were gone by 1970 ...

(http://www.wellho.net/oldpix/2020_04_20_15_20_16/image00018.jpg)

Time for a thread resurrection  ;D

I haave niw posted the final timetable for the Calne branch to Flickr, together with a collection of tickets from the line I bought in 1965 and a more recent shot of what is left of Black Dog Halt

https://www.flickr.com/photos/93122458@N08/50350173566/

YouTuber's Paul & Rebecca Whitewick visited the Calne Branch for their latest episode of 'Every Disused Station' uploaded on 15/01/2023.

https://youtu.be/jFfo6TqIumQ

Thanks for the link, Jay. A couple of years ago, I walked the route in the opposite direction - and missed the broad-gauge rails re-purposed as fencing posts. And the video happily segued into one about the Lambourn Valley Branch.

I've cycled along it a couple of times, though only from the outskirts of Chippenham to Calne. I hadn't spotted them either. Anyone planning on riding or walking it should pick their weather, the section immediately south of that girder bridge over the A4, which incidentally didn't feel at all wobbly when I used it, gets very muddy.

When I walked it, I was puzzled by a sign that said that the path might be closed from time to time. (I can't recall the exact wording.) A passer-by said that this was to facilitate safe shooting of game. A bit of a bummer for a walker having to find a diversion.

(Two years ago I was walking on a right-of-way near South Warnborough in North Hampshire and came across a temporary notice-board inviting people to ring a loud bell, which would alert people to pause their shooting of game; after several hundred yards then rang another bell to give the "all clear".)

I suspect it might be a permissive path - not a public right of way, but a path the public are allowed to use.  My understanding is that such paths are closed from time to time (perhaps for one day a year) in order to prevent them actually becoming rights of way from being in continual use for 20 (or is it 40) years, to the detriment of future owners of the land over which they pass.

Yup. Another permissive route is the 'Colliers Way' between Midford and Wellow south of Bath The agreement with the landowner is that it is closed for around ten separate days in winter, announced well in advance with notices on site so people can plan. Dates here:

https://www.twotunnels.org.uk/midford-wellow-closures.html

Mark

https://www.facebook.com/DidcotRailwayCentre/posts/pfbid02mGXtkTQVWKpPSEY12pRwtSANGtHmpNcMgPX7jconqBoCiyG94HmegyAKvTq2cGodl