But of course things change. With much increased road traffic and travel times by road, some of those branch lines could well be economic today. But once closed are almost impossible to re-instate.
Indeed. I grew up in Brighton and belong to a quite interesting FB group which has lots of interesting photos and stuff (as an aside, it recently featured a family run shop where I used to buy tools; it's still open and doing well, and I bought some tools there over 50 years ago that I still have).
Anyway, there was a branch line from near my house, running to the main town station. It closed in 1970-ish, but that was goods; it closed for passenger traffic in the 1930s.
There are people in the group who go on and on about how much better things were 'back then', and want to re-open that line. However, that would require opening an ancient single track tunnel, restoring a long cutting that is now a school playground and a rather nice park, rebuilding a bridge in place of new houses, and building a long viaduct whose footprint is now occupied by Machine Mart and Sainsburys.
They also forget that the line was *never* remotely economic; it was built by the railway company as a spoiling tactic, to stop a competing line to London!
Do remember who often stayed at the end of the branch line.
Since a lot of such journeys are regular, and there are common destinations for many of them, using a pre-booked minibus to pick up multiple passengers makes this much more economical than a straight taxi service. School buses in rural areas, or 'dial a ride' schemes, inevitably subsidised, are examples.
But he didn't just close "tiny branch lines with no traffic". He closed, for instance the only North-South routes in Wales, which had, and have, very poor road competition.
But I don't think he needed to artificially reduce traffic. The policy at the time was to just close even very busy routes, on the vague grounds that road vehicles would turn out much cheaper and more convenient.
To be pedantic :-) he didn't close any, just recommended them for closure.
The real shame is that the rights-of-way were not permanently held. That would have allowed for them to be later re-used for rail, or bus-ways or bike/walking routes f'rinstance. Such as parts of the Worth Way in Sussex.
Indeed. I vividly remember waiting at a Devon station for a saddle tank with just one carriage to puff up and take us another ten miles nearer our destination. Late 50s or early 60s. I think we were the only passengers.
Even then it went to the wrong place and needed a pickup from the grandparents and a further 30 mile drive.
Fundamentally trains dont work except for high volume and either longish distances or a massively high population density.
They are utterly unsuitable, as are buses, for rural densities.
What is needed is to integrate them with driverless electric shuttle taxis for the last 20 miles etc etc.
Well said. There should have been a clause which said that any former transport route should remain a transport route (even if only for walkers and cyclists) and BR should not have been allowed to sell off the assets which at the time belonged to the nation (since BR was a nationalised industry).
By all means save money by not running trains and not employing staff to do so or to maintain the route to railway standard, but that's as far as it should have gone. At least where lines have been closed since the days of Beeching, it was been on the basis of mothballing, with routes protected against development.
Fundamentally rail doesn't work in low density areas . The track and staffing costs need high traffic volumes to justify the outlay.
There's lots of romantic crap talked about railways. I remember that to get from Surrey to S wales took from 8 in the morning to 6 at night. You can drive it in three to four hours these days. Door to door. No taxis undergrounds, no need to go up to London and change twice..lugging heavy luggage.
Beeching was 100% right to recommend closure of loss making rural branch lines.
And I'll tell you something else: if home and teleworking takes off, you can kiss good bye to dormitory towns and commuter traffic too.
And that means the end of commuter railways leaving just the high speed intercity stuff. To compete with air travel in the sub 1000 mile routes
Utter bollocks, Beeching, unlike his detractors, was not motivated by ideology.
He was a pragmatic engineer with a remit to get the best benefit out of a massively loss making railway system.
He wasn't even in power. He was commissioned as chairman of British Rail to do a report as a consultant. He was closely allied with the Labour party.
Like coal mining, the government found itself with a nationalised legacy of failed private companies, that couldn't just be left to die, because the ruddy things had been nationalised.
Like coal mining, adherents to this day refuse to understand the deep structural problems of running the business in the face of alternative and competing technologies.
Railways serve a niche market: when all you had were coal powered steam trains or stage coaches, that was not the case.
Road maintenance to an acceptable standard is far cheaper per mile than railways are. Spending public money on roads and letting railways lapse on all but the most profitable routes was a sensible move.
As it was for coal mines.
Fundamentally railways are pretty crap. Driverless cars under computer control will take over in due course. For longer distances they can be glued together as 'trains' anyway.
mmm. A factory at which I was working in 1959, used to have 2 coal wagons dropped off by a passing goods train each day, The branch line was closed, It needed 8 lorries to deliver the same amount of coal.
Yes - although not exactly walking distance. Well remember the Royal train going past - could see the line from our house. Only time you ever saw a clean engine.
At a cheaper price probably.
What? The state owning things? Surely an anathema to the likes of you?
Far better to sell them off and have a private company charge cyclists etc to use them.
But it's OK for the NHS etc to sell off 'spare' land to build houses few can afford on?
Big problem is maintaining things like bridges and tunnels. If that isn't done, cheaper to simply demolish. And extremely expensive to reinstate.
And so many couldn't be improved to twin or more tracks economically anyway. So only really of use for leisure.
but at an increased cost to the environment, roads, etc.
In article , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes
So you would have subsidised them for 50 years on the off chance they may be useful one day.
In article , charles writes
Still more economic than keeping a branch line open,
So, how did the coal get from the railhead to the factory?
Men trundled it in barrows did they?
And actually you have no evidence that rail transport overall is more or less polluting than road.
Its someone elses money innit?
Actually branch lines aren't economic today either.
I remember trundling along the line from reading to Canterbury once, many many years ago. There were 3-4 people on it all the way on and off. I went back via London. Much faster.
That was just after Beeching.
I doubt it gets any more traffic today. It simply doesnt connect people and their work.
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