The LNER Encyclopedia

BIG week for Beaching fans , 50 years this week in March 1963 when he unvailed his report .....


mr B

I remember that week well.

They showed the current BR system on the news, followed by that after the Beeching cuts.

To me, it was like some nightmare which I couldn't wake up from. I think that day did more to affect my railway nostalgia than any other. Although the criminally wasteful slaughter of relatively new steam locos was under way and I had not really grasped the full extent of that at the time of Beeching, so that comes a close second.

That is probably why this piece is included on the BBC news site.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-21829838

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Yes I remember the Beeching cuts very well, as regards closures there were about 2500 miles of them previous to 1963 spread over many years and without him there would no doubt still have been some more. The Marples interests in road building at the time really did stink plus the pushing of other road interests whether owners or trade unions led to very little consideration given to rationalisation of some routes that no doubt could have saved some of them. It was his part two that was published in 1965 that finally done for him, remember the idea that the East Coast route should be a secondary route as far as Newcastle and the line beyond to Edinburgh should be considered for closure, within five years the whole route was on the way to being totally modernised. Many mistakes were made after World War Two including the wasteful building of 999 standard engines instead of carrying on with the construction of existing types until 1954 and pursuing electrification and the dieselisation mess did not help. I believe that there will be some more re-openings although not on the scale that we would all like to see. The political landscape in the 1960s with the age of white hot age technology did not bode well for railways. Todays politics! They don't seem to know how to deal with it. Muddled is the word that comes to mind.

The book to read about that whole era is 'British Rail 1948 - 1973, a business history' by Terry Gourvish. It sounds a dry read but this weighty tome nails the villains pretty well. It also debunks a few popular myths about the various personalities and confirms a few more! Worth joining a library for because copies are rather scarce and a bit pricey.

How Ernest Marples got away with owning 80% of Marples Ridgeway and being Minister for Transport still baffles me. It couldn't happen today and shouldn't have happened even then. He even suppressed a report saying that an independant body should decide what the future shape of the network should be.

The problem for the railway was that the Government had put millions into the industry on the promise that the finances (grim since 1955) would improve. Instead they went rapidly the other way and the Government lost patience, big style.

People tend to forget that closures happened before 1963 and the second worst closure year in BR history was actually in 1962, the year before the report came out. Nearly 800 route miles went that year. Beeching advanced the closure rate from 1964 and jacked up the average, hugely. He crammed about 15+ years worth of closures into 5 years.

What did for Beeching was political expediency. His work was done and the trunk routes report (largely the thoughts of an ex GM ScR) was the last gasp of what was seen as the last governments old regime. He also was a reputed poor picker of men to serve with him, which didn't help. He had a formidable intellect but needed someone to balance that characteristic and he didn't seem to find the right person.

Terry Gourvish really does lay on the line the total mistrust between Government and the BRB throughout the 1960's and it is a real wonder that we didn't lose a lot more than we did.

The ghost of the Beeching reports were hanging over the railway system for many years and various governments "tried it on", In 1972 it was proposed to close down at least another 2000 miles and I remember that tax exile Lord Marples telling the government they should not hesitate, the first lines slated for closure were Dingwell-Kyle of Localsh and the Cambrian Coast Line, such was the opposition that both proposals were withdrawn within a few months and just a few closures followed, in 1975 the Minister responsible one Anthony Crosland who was known to hate railways asked for plans to turn them into busways, when this was discussed on a Panorama programme it was laughed off the screen and of course not pursued, in 1980 with bus and coach deregulaton it was thought that this would lead to many closures, again in 1984 the government tried it on again with the proposals to close the routes out of Marylebone in London, the Settle & Carlisle and Henly-in-Arden to Birmingham, of course it did not happen. Then came Serpell another railway hater with ideas that might have led to only 1300 miles of track. When privatisation was first mooted it was thought that they should be sold off completely and let the system run down to a level where only profitable lines would remain open, by then politics were really getting in the way plus there was a more positive attitude to the system. Of course there have been some closures since the early 80s but it has been more than made up with re-openings including the docklands light railway that north of the thames runs over the routes of long closed lines. So perhaps this particular ghost has been finally laid to rest.
Also I believe it was Beeching that proposed the non railway activities such as hotels should be sold off, that took over 20 years to finally happen.

The pros and cons of Beeching have been debated endlessly, but that does not lessen the impact that those closure maps had.

We are used to seeing that reduced network now, but at the time it was a total shock.

But in 1963 we were in the "Space Age" and soon everyone would be driving jet powered cars, or at least that is what Tomorrow's World kept telling us.

Who needed boring old railways when the future was robots, maglev, and colonies on the moon?

It really is difficult to imagine the sheer naivety of those days, with regard to how the future was going to pan out.

And if that is not bad enough, just imagine for one moment that you are standing at the platform end of Doncaster station in the summer of 1958, watching Mallard depart with a London train and a WD clank past with coal empties. Then, someone comes up to you and suggests that in ten years time every single BR standard gauge steam locomotive in the country will have been withdrawn (they were still constructing 9Fs then). Would you have had them escorted off to the nearest asylum?

Well said Strang Steel. I think we were all guilty in getting carried away with the hedonistic 1960s, after the struggles of the post war years which lasted well into the 50s a new generation desperately wanted all of this change including fast new cars on seemingly wide open and empty motorways. The railways! What are they! Consign them to history said some people! We know that the roads will always be ahead of railways for various reasons,(there will be no Beeching for them will there) but we are now aware that railways will always be needed, passenger levels are proving that. Now with re-openings and reversals of track rationalisation. As the old saying goes "What goes around comes around"

Micky wrote:To be honest guy's i don't really know that much about Dr.Beeching other then to railway enthusiast's of England, Wales & Scotland over the last 50 years the good doctor has become a figure of HATE!!.

I was only about 6 years old in 1963 when the doctor was 'swinging his axe' and i vaguely recall some of the branch line closures of the mid-1960s being shown on the telly with the usual 'last train' being run. Maybe some closures were justified especially where there was a duplication of services but like everything he probably went a bit to far with the number of closures he instituted?.

Somebody posted this under one of my Flickr photos of a Beeching closure "A chap I used to work with many years ago often told the story of Dr Beeching's visit to Bradford and in particular Adolphus Street Goods yard. Apparently, the Dr, with his entourage, walked up to the gates, stood and peered in. Then he turned to one of his hangers on and said "Close it!"

There's also a well known thing called the "Domino Effect" whereby a branch line is closed and this has a knock on effect at the junction station since less people join trains and so on and so on. Also, as we know, lines such as the Alloa branch which were closed by Beeching have seen vast numbers of passengers using them since reopening. Its a "no brainer" that for example the Blyth & Tyne system would be heavily used if it was reopened.

G'day all
Beeching wanted to close the Redhill-Reading line intermediate stations and just keep it for freights etc. After a long campaign it was kept open with unstaffed halts etc. Now we have a better service (two trains per hour) that we had before Beeching came along (one train per hour). It's a great two fingers to Beeching.
Earlswood Nob

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I know that I am a cynic, but my opinion is that part of the enthusiasm for Beeching was the rich people realising just how much town/city centre 'real estate' was about to be released by BR to the property speculators.

Oh dear.

It's 50 years on. When will people stop living in the past? There are more important things to worry about than what may or may not have been.

If we are to stop living in the past do we disband this web site?