Ian Hislop & Beeching Report Anniversary - BBC4 Thursday 28/03/13 2100hrs

[whole diary]

[tramway]

Tonight BBC4 9pm

I can't remember seeing this posted elsewhere, and unsure if it might get wider visibility in 'Across the West', but posted here nontheless.

Ian Hislop brings his customary humour, analysis and wit to the notorious Beeching Report of 1963, which led to the closure of a third of the nation's railway lines and stations and forced tens of thousands of people into the car and onto the road.

Was author Dr Richard Beeching little more than Genghis Khan with a slide rule, ruthlessly hacking away at Britain's rail network in a misguided quest for profitability, or was he the fall guy for short-sighted government policies that favoured the car over the train?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00drtpj

[Lee]

See also link below.
http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=3539.msg27520#msg27520

I'll certainly be watching.

[tramway]

Probably why I didn't spot it then Lee. 

[Phil]

I'm watching the original, much-quoted post-report interview with him right now.

He really was a complete and utter b******, wasn't he? Surely one of the most despised men in British history. A genuine figure of hate. And the thing is, he didn't seem to care! The original "Fat Cat", paid for quite handsomely out of a reluctant taxpayer's pocket.

I suppose one has to hand it to him for standing firm on his convictions though, as insanely short-sighted as they were. Whoever is behind the similarly stupid efforts to close the nation's network of Post Offices today doesn't have half the guts that Beeching had - I notice he or she is hiding firmly behind the committees and red tape.

[RichardB]

Can I recommend the British Transport Films Collection Volume 4 - Reshaping British Railways.  It has the 23 min official film where Beeching explains the report.

Fascinating.

The whole BTF collection is well worth having.  Snowdrift at Bleath Gill, anyone?

[Phil]

Yeah, I have the complete set. You're right, that Snowdrift one is amazing!

[lj2]

Amazing programme. Applause for Ian, spot on I reckon.

So who on this forum thinks Beeching saved the railways by making the cuts he did? Would things be any different today if all those lines had remained open?

[Lee]

Whilst it would be pointless to argue that every single line, station and service could have been saved, I think Christian Wolmar made a good point that if a third of the lines that closed had remained open, they would have made a very useful contribution to today's rail network. You only have to look at some of the excellent re-opening proposals around to validate that.

From a CANBER^▸ (Campaign Against the New Beeching Report) perspective, Ian Hislop's point that very few lines were saved by what he described as the "militancy" of campaigners on the ground had obvious resonance. It is my belief (and hope) that campaigners and the public would stand a better chance of combatting a Beeching-style scenario if it happened today :

"In the South West of England there was extreme concern over proposed changes to the timetables on a number of lines at the time of re-franchising early in 2006. Some of these changes were driven by the Department seeking to improve the value for money of services on branch lines. The timetables as initially proposed did not meet local aspirations. The Department and the operator (First) actively sought the opinions of the partnerships and other local stakeholders and the timetables were thoroughly revised."

Could Beeching happen again? I think that it could, and perhaps sooner than people think :

Another  problem with Melksham is that it can't be closed because it would  polictically unpopular as the government wants to be seen as pro rail and not shutting railway stations especialy given the general elections only a couple of years away. The TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) are quite happy for it remain open as  a diversionary and freight route. They will be even more happy when it's needed for diversions for electrification.

I have a slightly different take on that.

I actually think we are entering a very dangerous phase regarding the future of several lines and stations. Yes, we have a general election a couple of years away, but it is also one that the current administration know that they cant win (as illustrated by the link below.)
http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/index.html

Polling might be an inexact science but I cant see them coming back from that. It is at these times that governments start doing very inadvisable things (as illustrated by the link below.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatisation_of_British_Rail

In the final years of the last Conservative government, closure was proposed at several stations, among them the Oxfordshire Halts and Dilton Marsh. Ironically, these stations, along with several others, were recommended for closure in the 2004 Greater Western Outline Business Case Report (link below.)
http://www.dft.gov.uk/foi/responses/2006/september06/swindonwestburytrainsservice/greaterwesternoutlinebusines1103

My worry is that, in the absence of any electoral imperative, and with recession on the way, such proposals could be resurrected in the administration's dying days.

The removal of any useful TransWilts service certainly has Beeching-esque characteristics. The pattern is being repeated in other areas, with franchise agreements seemingly no barrier to the withdrawal of passenger services (example link below.)
http://www.canber.co.uk/?q=node/35

The current DfT closure guidance also makes it far easier to close lines and stations, in comparison to the lengthy process it replaced.

As eightf48544 states, the line itself has never been under threat. It has always had strategic value for diversionary purposes, and along with freight traffic plus a single (nonstop) train on Summer Saturdays, running from the Midlands through to Weymouth for holiday makers, survived on that basis between 1966 and 1985 while Melksham station was closed.

However, from a CANBER perspective, it is of no use to me if no passenger service is provided and Melksham station closes again. I consider this to be a real possibility if the current passenger service continues in its present form.

I'm not sure that the danger would ease if/when the Conservatives come to power either. They have pledged to spend ^1.3bn a year for 12 years from within current levels of government capital spend on rail on a high-speed link. Logically, this money would have to come from "efficiencies" made to the current rail budget.

See also link below.
http://railwayeye.blogspot.com/2008/10/crankfest.html

Whoever is behind the similarly stupid efforts to close the nation's network of Post Offices today doesn't have half the guts that Beeching had - I notice he or she is hiding firmly behind the committees and red tape.

The poilitician originally responsible for the Post Office closure plan has also been quoted as saying in the past "We cannot be in the business of carting fresh air round the country. If we are terrified to go near any service for fear of flak, then sooner or later we will come a cropper." (links below.)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article742099.ece

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/mar/05/post.publicservices

Given that this politician is now Chancellor, I refer you to one of the points I made earlier in this post.

For a taste of what rail services were like in the FGW^▸ (First Great Western) area shortly before the Beeching cull took full effect, check out the link below.
http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=3042.msg23402#msg23402

[Electric train]

Lets tot up the tory (recent) history on Britain's railways ....... McMillan = Marples = Beaching ........... John Major = privatization = RailTrack = Hatfiled & Potters Bar and the tory prime misters in between did not help much, to much party sponsorship from the road haulers and motorway builders.

Was Beaching right, something need to be done our railway network was not built to any National strategy in fact it was built totally adhoc something we still live with 150 years later; the Nationalized Railway did not make good use of the (in todays money) ^26B to rebuild the railway, perhaps they had their hands tied by Government policy etc that figure of ^26B is very close to to amount NR^» (Network Rail - home page) are seeking for CP4^▸ (Control Period 4 - the five year period between 2009 and 2014) NR have the vision but are often held back by Government be cautious.

We should not dwell on was Beaching right or wrong he was a man of his time in his time, what is more important is strengthen the system where needs it divert it if need be and build new routes / lines if that is required in the National interest and then in 50 years our descendants can say they got it right in naughties.

[eightf48544]

Was Beeching right, something need to be done our railway network was not built to any National strategy in fact it was built totally adhoc something we still live with 150 years later; the Nationalized Railway did not make good use of the (in todays money) ^26B to rebuild the railway, perhaps they had their hands tied by Government policy etc that figure of ^26B is very close to to amount NR^» (Network Rail - home page) are seeking for CP4^▸ (Control Period 4 - the five year period between 2009 and 2014) NR have the vision but are often held back by Government be cautious.

We should not dwell on was Beeching right or wrong he was a man of his time in his time, what is more important is strengthen the system where needs it divert it if need be and build new routes / lines if that is required in the National interest and then in 50 years our descendants can say they got it right in naughties.

I agree pretty much with the above. Yes the network was built in an ad hoc fashion by competing companies. At the time of Beeching actual train services were pretty musch as at grouping. You went from Manchester to Sheffield by Midland or GC^» (Great Central Railway - link to heritage line). My biggest complaint about Beeching was he didn't look at the Network he looked at services and say how do we serve A B & C which ight have two or three different services. Insteaed of saying if we rooute trains via E awe can shut one line between A & B an another between B & C. And maybe with a spur or two we can serve A, B, C, D And F.

I think what killed this approach was Leeds Hauptbahnhof an excellent scheme which like WCML^▸ (West Coast Main Line) modersation was perceived to be too expensive and was constantly stopped and started.

The WR did  put in  some links which shut some lenghts of line, most notably between Cymmer and Treherbert where two single lines were linked and about three miles of parallel track were shut and a viaduct and tunnel closed. But it was too late to save the line.

The third that Christian Wolmar mentions are probably the lines that could have most benefitted from new links to form an integrated network.

It's interesting that Chiltern are actually proposing a new link at Bivcester to give an Oxford Marylebone service. Given the pre Beeching network just think what other links could have been put in or services imginatively rerouted.

[bemmy]

It seems to me that the biggest problem the railways face today (that arises from Beeching) is not so much the fact that so many lines were closed, but that the trackbeds were not safeguarded. Of course the attitude was that rail use was falling and would never rise again, so there would never be any need to reopen old lines.

In the current climate it might be possible to reopen a lot of old lines if the trackbed was more or less intact, which is for example why the Portishead freight branch could be re-opened, because since closure they hadn't got round to putting it permanently beyond use by building on it and destroying bridges and tunnels.

I remember reading in some report (I think it was the Atkins report on the Greater Bristol transport plan) a comment that rail campaigners are only interested in opening old lines. This ignores the fact that there is no chance whatever of totally new local lines being built, so it's not really worth campaigning for... besides, it's not as if there are campaigns for every former line.... at least I don't remember hearing calls to re-open Yatton to Blagdon, or Yelverton to Princetown....

[grahame]

Old news, as I know it was a repeat, but I watched Ian Hislop's program on Dr Beeching and the Beeching plan on BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) 2 at 8 p.m. last night - wonder if anyone else did?   

What struck me ("three golden nuggets")

1. How the 'moderniastion plan' poured huge amounts of money into freight facilities that hindsight / commentators say "could never have worked". And I wonder could that have been realistically forecast at the time, and the money more wisely put into passenger provision?

2. The suggestion that around a third of the lines that were axed should in fact have been saved; clearly there were some 'basket cases' and others which should never have been closed, and I wonder is that 1/3 figure about right?

3. A comment from Christiam Wolmar when describing parliamentary services (1d per mile fares)0 and saying how some companies were naughty because they ran the train that met the specification at 6 in the morning to supress demand intentionally. Which town that FGW^▸ (First Great Western) serves has just two return trips a day even now, with the first of the two setting off towards it at 05:19?

[Electric train]

1 Hindsight has 20 20 vision, the railways before the mid 60's were seen principally has freight movers passengers came second in terms of revenue

2 At the time possibly right but the Beeching report set the formula that BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) was forced to adopt by the DoT in to the 1980's for closing stations and lines so it had a cascade effect

[Btline]

I think the 1/3 is about right.

Although, why did BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) close so many useful lines later on?

*Barnstaple - Illfracombe;

*Bewdley - Stourport - Hartlebury/ Bewdley - Kidderminster;

both are on the BR 1969 map, but were axed soon afterwards.

If only they had survived another 10 - 20 yrs (and the later was still mostly open for freight in the 80s!), they would have been secured, and there would be far fewer traffic jams.

I believe that both would be profitable.

In some ways, the post Beeching closures are worse, as Beeching/ the gov obviously found them worthwhile/ necessary.

Another eg is Oxbridge line.

[John R]

In some ways, the post Beeching closures are worse, as Beeching/ the gov obviously found them worthwhile/ necessary.

Another eg is Oxbridge line.

I would agree with that. Some other closure in the early seventies that would still be very useful branch lines are of course the Minehead branch (1970), Swanage branch (1972) and Alton to Winchester (1973). The latter was killed off by doing the passenger survey at a time when rail replacement buses were in operation. Scandalous.

These lines all survived in part by being late closures, when there was much more interest and will to preserve them. And whilst they all play a significant part in the local economy, I'm sure they would have been more useful as parts of the national railway network.