Beeching cuts

[whole diary]

[The Grecian]

It should be remembered that there was a general belief that railways were a Victorian anachronism that lasted in many places into the 1980s. Witness 'Option A' from the Serpell Report - although I've always suspected that it was leaked deliberately to create a climate where major rail closures were political dynamite. Even the Dorchester-Castle Cary line, mentioned in all potential closure reports, was never that close to closing down so far as I know.

I can't see that there was a conspiracy theory. The Great Western lines always served a larger population than the Southern lines and in Devon the only remainder of the ex-GW^▸ (Great Western) branches is the Paignton line, which was never going to close and is hardly a 'traditional' branch line. The Exmouth, Barnstaple and Bere Alston lines remain in comparison and while the first is too busy and the third too irreplaceable, it's arguable the Taunton-Barnstaple line could have stayed in favour of the Exeter-Barnstaple line to give North Devon a better link to London. I don't believe that was ever likely, but it's not implausible the figures could have been massaged to present a case if there was a conspiracy.

In Cornwall, the St Ives and Looe lines survived because they couldn't be replaced while the Falmouth line was certainly too busy. The Newquay line is something of a survivor admittedly (though does have particularly good summer traffic) but as has been said elsewhere, the Southern branches unfortunately just didn't serve large enough towns in the main to justify their retention at the time.

The S&D^▸ (Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway) had the problem that in 72 miles between Bath and Bournemouth, the largest town it served was (I think) Blandford Forum, modern population under 9000. The route was also limited to 60mph at best and had sharp gradients and lengthy single track sections which would have been very expensive to double. Other than stubs being retained as branch lines from Bath to Radstock and Poole to Blandford, it's difficult to see how it was ever going to survive as a through route. However, I am saying this from a modern perspective.

[34104]

It should be remembered that there was a general belief that railways were a Victorian anachronism that lasted in many places into the 1980s. Witness 'Option A' from the Serpell Report - although I've always suspected that it was leaked deliberately to create a climate where major rail closures were political dynamite. Even the Dorchester-Castle Cary line, mentioned in all potential closure reports, was never that close to closing down so far as I know.

I can't see that there was a conspiracy theory. The Great Western lines always served a larger population than the Southern lines and in Devon the only remainder of the ex-GW^▸ (Great Western) branches is the Paignton line, which was never going to close and is hardly a 'traditional' branch line. The Exmouth, Barnstaple and Bere Alston lines remain in comparison and while the first is too busy and the third too irreplaceable, it's arguable the Taunton-Barnstaple line could have stayed in favour of the Exeter-Barnstaple line to give North Devon a better link to London. I don't believe that was ever likely, but it's not implausible the figures could have been massaged to present a case if there was a conspiracy.

In Cornwall, the St Ives and Looe lines survived because they couldn't be replaced while the Falmouth line was certainly too busy. The Newquay line is something of a survivor admittedly (though does have particularly good summer traffic) but as has been said elsewhere, the Southern branches unfortunately just didn't serve large enough towns in the main to justify their retention at the time.

The S&D^▸ (Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway) had the problem that in 72 miles between Bath and Bournemouth, the largest town it served was (I think) Blandford Forum, modern population under 9000. The route was also limited to 60mph at best and had sharp gradients and lengthy single track sections which would have been very expensive to double. Other than stubs being retained as branch lines from Bath to Radstock and Poole to Blandford, it's difficult to see how it was ever going to survive as a through route. However, I am saying this from a modern perspective.

Stand to be corrected,but i thought that the Exmouth and Bere Alston/Gunnislake lines were both earmarked for closure in the Beeching report and were only saved by prolonged campaigning? I'm not quite sure what you mean by saying that the St Ives and Looe lines "couldn't be replaced".Genuine question,was there something different about those lines that made them more irreplaceable than say,the Seaton or Bude branches?

[TerminalJunkie]

it's arguable the Taunton-Barnstaple line could have stayed in favour of the Exeter-Barnstaple line to give North Devon a better link to London.

It wouldn't have made much difference - Barnstaple to Taunton (six trains per day, none on Sundays) took 1:45, while Barnstaple to Exeter (ten per day, three on Sundays) was anything from 1:04 to 1:17. For example, in 1965 (links to timetables below), the 10:42 Barnstaple to Taunton would have given you a three minute connection at Taunton to Paddington, but the 10:38 Barnstaple to Exeter had a more robust 19 minute connection into the same train at Exeter.

There was also a greater range of destinations via Exeter (and through trains to exotic places like Waterloo, Kingswear, Brighton and Honiton), but in any case there was much greater local traffic between Barnstaple and Exeter than there ever would have been between Barnstaple and Taunton.

Western Region Timetable, 1965 (First Half):
London Paddington to Bristol and the West of England
Taunton to Barnstaple
Exeter St Davids to Plymouth (via Okehampton) and Ilfracombe

[eightf48544]

Working on the railways in th Beeching era we were basically running at huge loss (subsidy) and the pressure was on to cut costs.

The planners were quite hard working at trying to save lines but the figures, fiddled or not were against them, especialy as there wasn't the captital to do things like install AHB etc and simplified single line working without tokens and signalmen at intemediate stations. Hence the S&D^▸ (Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway) and many other lines would have required almost complete resiganlling and lot of track improvements to get it up to a proper mainline standard to give the speed to compete with the private car.

Gerry Fienes in his superb book I Tried to Run a Railway says they sat down and worked out the expected traffic to Exeter and how best serve it. It came down to Paddington to Exeter via Bristol! Things were that bad. Fortuantely both the Salisbury and Westbury routes survied the former by drastic rationalisation.

The thing that got me about Beeching was that he rationalised a 1922 railway. If a route had been A to C serving B run by the Midland then it was still run by the Midland  but in many cases there might  also route between A & D also serving B run by GC^» (Great Central Railway - link to heritage line) (which was hated by Midalnd men up to it's closure. Instead of rationalisg the service onto one route perhaps by serve AB C D in some cases this could have been done by  rerouting as the junctions existed. Or by putting in spurs. A classic case being Barnsley.

However Beeching diddn't do that he looked at routes A to C and A to D and closed them both. The classic being the Lene Vally North of Nottingham where you had Midalnd GC and GN running parrallel and serving Mansfield. The link to Mansfield on the Midalnd was severed and the GC and GN shut. Now we have the reopened Robin Hood line running mostly on the Midland but using a short stretch of the GC GN North of Annersley. This kind of rationalisation could have taken palce in many other places.

 BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) freight were the most succesful at achieving this also in Nottinghamshire by the provison of a couple of spurs at Shirebrook they were able to single serve all the large Nottinghamshire pits and bring the MGRs into use. Which was one of the successes of the Beeching report. OK so perhaps we shouldn't have burnt so much coal but we did have a relaible electricty supply for all those years. What we should have done is use our technology skills to devise clean coal burning and carbon capture we could have been world leaders but there were too many "bean counters" in the way. Rant over.

[The Grecian]

Stand to be corrected,but i thought that the Exmouth and Bere Alston/Gunnislake lines were both earmarked for closure in the Beeching report and were only saved by prolonged campaigning? I'm not quite sure what you mean by saying that the St Ives and Looe lines "couldn't be replaced".Genuine question,was there something different about those lines that made them more irreplaceable than say,the Seaton or Bude branches?

What I meant to say is that the St Ives and Looe branches couldn't be adequately replaced by road transport. Anyone who's been to St Ives in the summer will know what I mean, while Looe's road connections to the A38 (and Liskeard or Plymouth) appear rather meandering. To take your examples in comparison, Seaton is fairly easy to reach from Axminster and has regular buses to Exeter, while Bude has a fairly fast (by bus standards) bus service to Exeter along A roads.

You're right though about Gunnislake and Exmouth - the Gunnislake branch originally went to Callington but that had better road connections so it was truncated at Gunnislake. Exmouth was originally listed but survived - I'm not sure how sustained the campaign was, but the passenger numbers certainly made a difference there.

Incidentally, it's interesting to note the journey times for the Tarka^▸ (Line from Barnstaple to Exeter) line haven't changed much from the 1965 timetable. I suspect that due to the overall 70/55/60mph speed limit the acceleration of modern units can only make a small difference.

[JayMac]

I'd just like to thank TJ for the timetable links. Made for very interesting reading.

All those trains that had restaurant cars and only 10s/- for a full breakfast......

http://www.timetableworld.com/timetable_catalog.php?cat=4

[Timmer]

I'd just like to thank TJ for the timetable links. Made for very interesting reading.

All those trains that had restaurant cars and only 10s/- for a full breakfast......

http://www.timetableworld.com/timetable_catalog.php?cat=4

Indeed, I second that. Great to see someone is working towards getting previous editions of the Regional and National Rail Timetables online. Most useful.

[vacman]

The Exmouth branch was the only line in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) that was listed in the Beeching report that BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) actually refused to close, it was very strange that it was listed in the first place as it exceeded the benchmark minimum passengers per week set by beeching for a closure and the line also returned higher recipts than the minimum benchmark.

I notice someone touched on the Serpell report, the option A was basically the only railway that could operate with nil subsidy from government, Serpell was asked to create these reports and he did!

[TerminalJunkie]

only 10s/- for a full breakfast......

Only 10s/-? Hmm...

Current data is only available till 2010. In 2010, the relative worth of ^0 10s 0d from 1965 is:

^7.54 using the retail price index
^7.60 using the GDP deflator
^17.80 using the per capita GDP
^20.30 using the share of GDP

[inspector_blakey]

So given that a Travelling Chef breakfast meal deal costs GBP 9.95 (assuming the website is up-to-date) and this does not appear to include coffee or tea, discuss...

[Umberleigh]

The North Devon (Tarka^▸ (Line from Barnstaple to Exeter)) Line had a lucky escape (also the Oke/Meldon line, of course). In the early 60's The Exe bridges at Cowley were on the verge of collapse, with plans in place to provide road transport replacement. The  cost to replace them was ^600k in today's money. Apparently the bean-counters in London considered this to be a gross misuse of public funds and wanted the line shut.

However, the Barnstaple - Taunton line had already been earmarked for closure and it was considered politically unnaceptable to sever the rail link north of Exeter.

Once the decision to keep the line had been taken, the cost of the new bridges 'miraculously' dropped to around ^400k (I'm told) - strange, eh?

 

[RichardB]

The North Devon (Tarka^▸ (Line from Barnstaple to Exeter)) Line had a lucky escape (also the Oke/Meldon line, of course). In the early 60's The Exe bridges at Cowley were on the verge of collapse, with plans in place to provide road transport replacement. The  cost to replace them was ^600k in today's money. Apparently the bean-counters in London considered this to be a gross misuse of public funds and wanted the line shut.

However, the Barnstaple - Taunton line had already been earmarked for closure and it was considered politically unnaceptable to sever the rail link north of Exeter.

Once the decision to keep the line had been taken, the cost of the new bridges 'miraculously' dropped to around ^400k (I'm told) - strange, eh?

I uncovered this tale in the National Archives a couple of years ago and wrote a piece for the Tarka Rail Association newsletter.

In 1965, BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) told the Ministry of Transport that the Cowley Bridges needed replacing at a cost of over ^300k.  They said that although the Barnstaple and Okehampton lines had not been included in the Beeching list, they felt the expenditure could not be justified.

They looked at keeping the Taunton line for Barnstaple and retaining a line to Launceston from Plymouth for the Okehampton catchment area.  Both were felt to be dead losses so they applied for permission to put both the Exeter - Barnstaple and Exeter - Okehampton lines up for closure.

The Government told them (in no uncertain terms) that Barnstaple was not to be left without a rail service and shortly after the BRB^‡(resolve) authorised the ^300k spend on the Cowley Bridges (through very gritted teeth.)  The price for the bridge works didn't miraculously drop.

Barnstaple's rail link was saved in 1965 and when Beeching was still BR Chairman. 

Sitting in the very quiet reading room at the National Archives seeing this story unfold in the papers I was reading was quite something. 

Richard Burningham
Devon & Cornwall Rail Partnership
(BR Travel Centre Manager, Barnstaple, 1985 -7)






 

[Chris from Nailsea]

Thanks for offering that fascinating insight, Richard. 

[woody]

I can understand why the whole line from Launceston to Plymouth was felt to be a "dead loss" but Tavistock!.How did the bean counters justify the complete removal of the important market town of Tavistock from the rail network at Plymouth in 1968 by truncating the LSWR^▸ (London South Western Railway) main line just over 5 miles short at Bere Alston.I suppose ultimately Tavistock was effectively sacrificed to help ensure the closure of the LSWR route as a through main line between Plymouth and Exeter by creating a gap between Bere Alston and Okehampton.Hindsight is of course a wonderful thing.

[34104]

I can understand why the whole line from Launceston to Plymouth was felt to be a "dead loss" but Tavistock!.How did the bean counters justify the complete removal of the important market town of Tavistock from the rail network at Plymouth in 1968 by truncating the LSWR^▸ (London South Western Railway) main line just over 5 miles short at Bere Alston.I suppose ultimately Tavistock was effectively sacrificed to help ensure the closure of the LSWR route as a through main line between Plymouth and Exeter by creating a gap between Bere Alston and Okehampton.Hindsight is of course a wonderful thing.

Interesting to speculate what could have been with vision and a decent budget.Daft to leave Launceston without a railway IMHO^▸ (in my humble opinion).How about if the line from Launceston to Halwill had been closed but the one from Launceston to Lydford retained and developed to give a good connection between an upgraded North Cornwall line and the SR^‡(resolve) mainline? It was never going to happen in the prevailing thinking of the times of course,but interesting nevertheless.