dr beeching railway cuts

Some examples are East Lancs Railway, Mid Hants Railway, North Yorkshire Moors Railway, North Norfolk Railway and West Somerset Railway. The Beeching cuts (also Beeching Axe) were a reduction of route network and restructuring of the railways in Great Britain, according to a plan outlined in two reports, The Reshaping of British Railways (1963) and The Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes (1965), written by Dr Richard Beeching and published by the British Railways Board.wikipedia The following year he became chairman of Associated Electrical Industries, a role he also held with Redland from 1970 to 1977, Furness Withy from 1973 to 1975 and the Economic Insurance Company. [23], Holiday and coastal resorts were severely affected by the closures. He concludes that three of the 10 worst closures were in Scotland. ", Borders railway campaigner Bill Jamieson says: "Hawick became very isolated. Dr Richard Beeching sparked uproar in the 1960s when he closed 4,500 miles of railway line and 2,128 stations to save money. The Conservatives will make a. [25] Beeching's findings have also been reviewed in two books by his contemporaries: R.H.N (Dick) Hardy: Beeching Champion of the Railway (1989) .mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-style:inherit;word-wrap:break-word}.mw-parser-output .citation q{quotes:"\"""\"""'""'"}.mw-parser-output .citation:target{background-color:rgba(0,127,255,0.133)}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-free a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-free a{background:linear-gradient(transparent,transparent),url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Lock-green.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .id-lock-registration a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-registration a{background:linear-gradient(transparent,transparent),url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-subscription a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-subscription a{background:linear-gradient(transparent,transparent),url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .cs1-ws-icon a{background:linear-gradient(transparent,transparent),url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg")right 0.1em center/12px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .cs1-code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:none;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;color:#d33}.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error{color:#d33}.mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{display:none;color:#3a3;margin-left:0.3em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-format{font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right{padding-right:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .citation .mw-selflink{font-weight:inherit}ISBN0-7110-1855-3 and Gerard Fiennes: I Tried to Run a Railway (1967) ISBN0-7110-0447-1. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Possible changes to light railway-type operations were attacked by Beeching, who wrote: "The third suggestion, that rail buses should be substituted for trains, ignores the high cost of providing the route itself, and also ignores the fact that rail buses are more expensive vehicles than road buses." He is often criticised for ignoring the social benefits of having a rail line. After the war Smith returned to ICI as Technical Director and was replaced as Chief Engineer of Armament Design by Sir Steuart Mitchell who promoted Beeching, then 33 years old, to the post of Deputy Chief Engineer with a rank equivalent to that of Brigadier. Imran Khan survives deadly Pakistan rally shooting, Jeremy Bowen on reporting from Ukraine's frontline. British Rail was losing 140million a year when Dr Beeching took over as a chairman of the British Transport Commission. [2] Stedeford and Beeching clashed on a number of issues connected with Beeching's proposal to drastically prune Britain's rail infrastructure. Dr Beeching spent two years preparing his detailed report on rail cuts, it was based on a seven-day study of British railway traffic. Waverley Route protesters muster prior to the three-person delegation proceeding to 10 Downing Street, Riccarton Junction was a village of 37 houses created for railway workers between Hawick and Newcastleton, David Steel MP looks on as the signalman tells the driver he can proceed on the last journey, Local minister the Reverend Brydon Maben was arrested after protesters blocked the passage of the last train at Newcastleton level crossing, Contractors lift a section of track near Whitrope in late 1969, The 09:20 Carlisle-Edinburgh service non-stop through Stow in December 1968. When you place your query on date and time and number of people to travel from London to Amsterdam and back on Eurostar's website, you will see options of direct trains and those which involve a change. The Times, "Lord Beeching: 'I Was Not Sacked. Finally there was the service from Hull to York via Beverley (using part of the Yorkshire Coast Line, which was not closed, and the York to Beverley Line, which was). Beeching continued his work with armaments, particularly anti-aircraft weaponry and small arms. Dr Beeching initiated a thorough analysis, including surveys and cost analysis, of the rail system. [7] However, the precise savings from closures are impossible to calculate. True, he took a clinical, bean-counting approach to the problem. Mr Spaven says: "Once the Borders railway is reopened the towns which will inherit the unwanted mantle of being the farthest towns of their size from the British railway network will be Fraserburgh and Peterhead in Buchan, north of Aberdeen. Services from Edinburgh to Carlisle, via the Scottish border towns of Galashiels and Hawick, stopped when the Waverley line closed, In 1963, at the time of the Beeching report, railways criss-crossed Britain, and even remote areas had stations, Ironically a bypass for cars has replaced the railway at Melrose station in the Scottish borders, Work is under way on a new 300m railway between Edinburgh and Tweedbank, Jeremy Bowen on reporting from Ukraine's frontline. [33], Marples had a background with a successful road construction company. Dr Richard Beeching has a bad reputation among rail enthusiasts. The closure left the Scottish Borders as the only region of Britain without a train service and Hawick, 56 miles from Edinburgh and 42 miles from Carlisle, as the largest town farthest from a railway station. On 16 February 1965, Beeching introduced the second stage of his reorganisation of the railways. No need to register, buy now! At the appointment of the British Transport Commission in 1947, the question of uneconomic branch lines and their selection for closure was the subject of a Railway Executive branch line committee. It took six years from the Beeching recommendations to the actual closure of the Waverley Route in January 1969. What's New; Forum Listing; Marketplace; . The Beeching Act of 1963 spelt the closure of over a third of Britain's Railways. In 1963, Dr Richard Beeching took an axe to the British rail system - and made getting around Wales by public transport significantly more difficult. However, despite the considerable increase in railway journeys since the mid-1990s, rail transport's share of the total passenger transport market remains below that of the early 1960s, with road overwhelmingly the dominant mode: rail's market share was 13% in 1961, 6% in 1991 and 2001, and 10% in 2014.[57]. An item on the BBC website "Did Dr Beeching get it wrong with his railway cuts 50 years ago?" here. [2] Transport minister Barbara Castle decided that some rail services, which could not pay their way but had a valuable social role, should be subsidised. It is in keeping with the bold scientific age in which we live. "It will be the longest rail route reopening in modern British history. Frank Cousins, the Labour Minister of Technology, told the House of Commons in November 1965 that Beeching had been dismissed by Tom Fraser, then Minister of Transport. It was quietly shelved in the run up to the 1983 election. [38] There was no evidence of any wrongdoing on anyone's part in this or any of the other contracts awarded to the company during his term of office,[39] it did however lead to a sense of unease, not least within the railway sector. Using criteria such as the length of line closed, the population of the affected towns and their distance from the rail network, Mr Spaven analysed 15 significant British lines which were lost in the Beeching restructuring. In many cases the replacement bus services were slower and less convenient than the trains they were meant to replace, and so were unpopular. [7], The Marshlink line between Ashford International and Hastings, threatened with closure in the Beeching Report, is now seen as important due to the opening of the Channel Tunnel and High Speed 1. This service is provided on News Group Newspapers' Limited's Standard Terms and Conditions in accordance with our Privacy & Cookie Policy. Prime Minister Harold Macmillan stated in 1960, "the industry must be of a size and pattern suited to modern conditions and prospects. ; Marple featured in a 2010 BBC documentary on Dr Beeching and the effect of axing the railway. For Dr Beeching, commercial viability was central to railway policy in times of unsustainable and mounting losses. "It could have been a crucial freight line because it would have allowed freight to the port of Stranraer to develop rather better than it did subsequently.". I asked Michael Palin, the former Monty Python star who later carved out a career travelling the world, often by train, whether he thought Beeching was a hero or a villain. Although Marples was a crook, I still contend one of the motivation's behind Beeching was an ideological dislike of state enterprises by Conservative administrations and the railways at that time were an easy target. The Times, "The Second Stage of Dr. Beeching's Reorganisation Proposals", 17 February 1965, p. 8. Palin told me: "My father travelled to London regularly on an express called the Master Cutler, which went from Sheffield to Marylebone, well that line suddenly disappeared. Vehicle mileage grew at a sustained annual rate of 10% between 1948 and 1964. His father was Hubert Josiah Beeching, a reporter with the Kent Messenger newspaper, his mother a schoolteacher and his maternal grandfather a dockyard worker. [8] The cut-backs would include the scrapping of a third of a million goods wagons, much as Stedeford had foreseen and fought against. [26], Section 39 of the Transport Act 1968 made provision for grants to be paid in relation to loss-making lines and services,[48] but many of the services and railway lines that would have qualified had already been closed. It was based on a survey carried. The first report identified 2,363 stations and 5,000 miles (8,000 km) of railway line for closure, 55% of stations, 30% of route miles, and 67,700 British. The policeman who tried to stem Seoul Halloween crush, Aboriginal boy's killing puts spotlight on racism, Billions being spent in metaverse land grab. Similarly for freight: without branch lines, the railways' ability to transport goods "door to door" was dramatically reduced. Instigated by British Rail chief Dr Richard Beeching in 1963, the cuts closed more than 2,300 stations and up to 5,000 miles of track across the UK. With a few exceptions, after the early 1970s proposals to close other lines were met with vociferous public opposition and were quietly shelved. Dr Richard Beeching an Imperial Chemical Industries director, was appointed chairman of the new British Railways Board at a salary of 24,000 a year. Two rail lines are to reopen 50 years after they were shut during the Beeching cuts, it was announced on January 28, 2020. . director to be first rail board chairman", 16 March 1961, p. 14. Thousands of stations and hundreds of branch lines were closed between 1964 and 1970 after a report by Dr Beeching. There are doubts over his figures and in the end the railway never did make the savings he promised. [7] Replacement bus services were often run between the (now disused) station sites (some of which were some distance from the population centres they served), thus losing any potential advantage over the closed rail service. Lord Steel, who still lives in the area, also hopes the rail line will improve tourism and thinks Tweedbank station should be renamed Abbotsford to mark its proximity to the former home of Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott. The Times, Obituary, 25 March 1985, p. 12. Meanwhile communities are being invited to pitch other rail restoration proposals. He says: "I think at a very basic level what made the Waverley Line closure such a bad one was the fact it was such a big long chunk of line. Dr Richard Beeching was the much hated Chairman of the British Railways Board who wielded his axe. The report was published on 20 January 1983 and received an immediate backlash from the media. : Lessons from British Transport Policy 194599 Dudley and Richardson, "Britain's most hated civil servant" (BBC website), "16 February 1965: Beeching plans for 'bloated' railways", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Richard_Beeching&oldid=1114942262, There is a pub called 'Lord Beechings' at the end of the, The old station approach in the village of, This page was last edited on 9 October 2022, at 02:24. Seats on each train will be allocated but you can . [32] Traffic on the single-track Golden Valley Line between Kemble and Swindon and the Cotswold Line between Oxford and Worcester has increased significantly, and double track has now been reinstated on the Golden Valley Line, partly to facilitate a diversionary route during electrification and other works on the Severn tunnel line. The failure of the modernisation plan to stem BR's losses led the author, Dr Beeching, to propose wholesale route closures in an attempt to concentrate resources on the core routes. "Eventually a compromise was reached and they agreed the sleeper trains would be diverted from Dumfries up and round to Ayr to keep the service to Stranraer. He told me: "Beeching has had a really bad press the reality is he made the tough decisions that anyone in that position would probably have had to make, the shame was it wasn't followed on with investment in the subsequent decades after that.". Beeching would receive the same yearly salary that he was earning at ICI, the controversial sum of 24,000 (over 490,000 in 2016 currency), which was 14,000 more than his predecessor Sir Brian Robertson and two-and-a-half times higher than the salary of any head of a nationalised industry at the time. There is little in the Beeching report recommending general economies (in administration costs, working practices and so on). Lord Steel says the new Borders rail plan is very similar to the one he proposed in the 1960s and it would have been much cheaper if they had not removed the track. View our online Press Pack. [58] It perpetuated the myth that the Beeching cuts were concerned solely with sleepy rural branch lines, but they actually also concerned well-used "industrial" and commuter lines. In particular, the railway system must be modelled to meet current needs, and the modernisation plan must be adapted to this new shape"[note 3] and with the premise that the railways should be run as a profitable business. The 'Beeching Report' is one of the most notorious government reports of the 20th century. There are doubts over his figures and in the end the railway never did make the savings he promised. ; The industry today is very similar to Dr Beeching's vision half a century ago. Passenger services would be withdrawn from around 5,000 route miles accounting for an annual train mileage of 68 million and yielding, according to Beeching, a net saving of 18m per year. Whether these subsidies affected the size of the network is questionable: the criteria for reprieving loss-making lines had not altered, merely the way their costs appeared in the railways accountspreviously their contribution to the railways' overall loss was hidden in the total deficit.[26]. It is a matter of debate whether Beeching left by mutual arrangement with the government or if he was sacked. On 23 December 1964, Transport Minister Tom Fraser informed the House of Commons that Beeching was to return to ICI in June 1965. Others have argued that it was ministers, not Beeching, who were responsible for any shortcomings in assessing the social case for retaining lines and that economies had been tried and largely failed; also that the road lobby was less significant than the Treasury in making policy, and the Labour Party was funded by rail unions. "The Borders is a very attractive place to live but employment is limited and a lot of people work in Edinburgh and more will do so once they see a railway coming into the city.". [2] Some lines had never been profitable and were not subject to loss of traffic in that period. Brought in from ICI to stem the railway's haemorrhaging losses, Richard Beeching's initial proposals emerged . 679215 Registered office: 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF. [7] They went on to be a significant force resisting the Beeching proposals. Hancocks huge Im A Celeb pay cheque revealed & it's one of the largest ever, EastEnders fans fume as The One Show's Alex and Jermaine 'snub' Danielle Harold, I wore a Halloween tattoo & it wont come off, Ill have to go to work like this, I got pregnant three weeks after giving birthpeople think I'm mad but I love it, News Group Newspapers Limited in England No. Here we look at how what became known as the Beeching cuts significantly reduced the UK rail network. He went for a straightforward profit and loss approach and some claim we are still reeling from that today". Then again, his bland-looking booklet, called the Reshaping of British Railways, did change the network forever. Pre Beeching Railway Map Pin on COMMERCE INTERESTS Did Dr Beeching get it wrong with his railway cuts 50 years ago . As demand for rail has grown since the 1990s, the failure to preserve the routes of closed lines (such as the one between Bedford and Cambridge, which was closed despite Beeching recommending its retention) has been criticised. The new railway, operated by Transport for London, will be fully integrated with London's existing transport network. The bids to build or reopen lines and stations in the region are among 50 from across the UK that are . This opposition likely stemmed from the public experience of the many line closures during the cuts in the mid- and late 1960s. Beeching was undeterred and argued that too many lines were running at a loss, and that his charge to shape a profitable railway made cuts a logical starting point. The Board was to be the successor to the British Transport Commission, which would be abolished by the Transport Act 1962. It is 50 years since Dr Richard Beeching's report on British Railways which led to hundreds of stations and 650 miles of railway line being closed in Scotland. Why did Beeching cut the railways? [note 2], The first Beeching report, titled The Reshaping of British Railways, was published on 27 March 1963. Some have accused him of being part of or even the scapegoat for a conspiracy against the railways involving politicians, civil servants and the road lobby. Traffic to Coventry, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Scotland would be routed through the West Coast Main Line running to Carlisle and Glasgow; traffic to the north-east would be concentrated through the East Coast Main Line which was to be closed north of Newcastle; and traffic to Wales and the West Country would go on the Great Western Main Line, then to Swansea and Plymouth. His association with the high-profile construction company Marples Ridgway became a matter of concern to both the public and politicians. ; Marple featured in a 2010 BBC documentary on Dr Beeching and the effect of axing the railway. And they were right. Some closed stations have reopened, and passenger services have been restored on a few lines where they had been removed. [16], The report starts by quoting the brief provided by the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, from 1960: "First, the industry must be of a size and pattern suited to modern conditions and prospects. (The legal name of the British Railways Board did not change.) "Beeching Report Proposes Closing Nearly a Third of Britain's 7,000 Railway Stations." "It is an amazing achievement and will take the rail route back to what is now the largest town in the Borders. The Times, "I.C.I. Upon returning to ICI, Beeching was appointed liaison director for the agricultural division and organisation and services director. Goodness knows what Dr Beeching would make of it all if he were alive today. Several ex-railway sites have been named after Beeching: Second Beeching Report and creation of British Rail. "The Sun", "Sun", "Sun Online" are registered trademarks or trade names of News Group Newspapers Limited. The Sun website is regulated by the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), Our journalists strive for accuracy but on occasion we make mistakes. What is the meaning of Beeching? His mandate was essentially to make the railways pay. One of the most significant closures was the Great Central Main Line from London Marylebone to Leicester and Sheffield.[21]. From an economic . Flanders and Swann, writers and performers of satirical songs, wrote a lament for lines closed by the Beeching cuts entitled "Slow Train" (1963). He continued in research until 1943, first at the Fuel Research Station in Greenwich in 1936 and then the following year with the Mond Nickel Laboratories in London, where he was appointed senior physicist carrying out research in the fields of physics, metallurgy and mechanical engineering. Beeching forecast that his changes would result in an improvement in British Railway's accounts of between 115M and 147M. [35] While it was reported that he sold the shares to his wife, she denied in a newspaper interview, that any transaction had taken place. On this day in 1963, Dr Richard Beeching produced his infamous report that saw many railway lines closed in favour of bus services. Smith declined but recommended Beeching in his place, a suggestion which Marples accepted. "Beeching has become a handy scapegoat for our frustration at the failings of the transport system and the destruction of 'traditional' branch line England by modern car culture," said Charles Loft, author of Last Trains, Dr Beeching and the Death of Rural England. In particular, the railway system must be modelled to meet current needs". UK (TV listings title) Dr Beeching: The End of Steam. [3], Beeching was born in Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, the second of four brothers. At that time the Government was seeking professional advice from outside the railway industry to improve the financial position of British Railways. Back in 1963, Dr Richard Beeching's plans to cut 5,000 miles of line and some 300 stations were outlined in a British Railways Board report, The Reshaping of British Railways. It had very profound effects in our city," he added. After the war, the railways faced increasing competition from a growing road transport network, which had increased to 8 million tons of freight annually by 1921. The Conservative government welcomed the . He did a traffic survey which found that a quarter of the fare income generated by the railways came from just 34 stations, or 0.5 percent of the total. ", Imran Khan survives deadly Pakistan rally shooting, Jeremy Bowen on reporting from Ukraine's frontline. VideoJeremy Bowen on reporting from Ukraine's frontline, UK faces record two-year recession, Bank warns, The conspiracy theorists who could run US elections, Why the latest UN climate conference matters. Whilst with Armament Design, Beeching worked under the Department's Superintendent and Chief Engineer, Sir Frank Smith, a former Chief Engineer with Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI).[2]. The second report identified a small number of major routes for significant investment. [19], The first report was accepted by the Labour government of the day, but many of the closures it recommended sparked protests from communities that would lose their trains, many of which (especially rural communities) had no other public transport. Had that report come into effect in 1965, Cornwall would have . To see all content on The Sun, please use the Site Map. Many bridges, cuttings and embankments have been removed and the land sold for development. I met a famous trainspotter from Sheffield at an event to "celebrate" the 50th anniversary of Beeching's report. On the back of his 1963 report 'The Reshaping of British Railways'', more commonly known as the . [28] Most of the OxfordCambridge Varsity Line closed despite its strategic location serving Milton Keynes, Britain's largest "new town". 09:17 . "The Dumfries-Stranraer line certainly fell into that category. Even in today's more enlightened times, the government is still reluctant to acknowledge that the rail system . [2] The network had opened up major travel opportunities for the entire country that had never been available before. Perfect gift for a fan of branch lines, or other train Millions of unique designs by independent artists. Beeching was brought into British Railways as a businessman and economist at a time when the British railway system was losing 100 million a year. Throughout the country, campaigners want passenger services restored to railway lines like this one, axed in the 1960s by then British Railways chief Dr Richard Beeching. Source: Disused Stations During the 2019 election campaign, Boris Johnson promised a 500 million cash injection into the railways in what he called a 'Beeching Reversal'. 2022 BBC. "The line through from Sheffield to Manchester where we lived and grew up, which had the great Woodhead tunnel, one of the longest tunnels in the world, three miles long, the tunnel was closed while they built a motorway over the Pennines. British Rail was losing 140million a year when Dr Beeching took over as a chairman of the British Transport Commission. Passenger and goods traffic was also declining in the face of increased competition from the roads; by 1960, one in nine households owned or had access to a car. "[10] For his part, Beeching was unrepentant about his role in the closures: "I suppose I'll always be looked upon as the axe man, but it was surgery, not mad chopping."[11]. [17] In Scotland, only the Central Belt routes and the lines via Fife and Perth to Aberdeen were selected for development, and none were selected in Wales, apart from the Great Western Main Line as far as Swansea. Sir Ewart Smith, who retired from ICI in 1959, was asked by the Conservative Minister of Transport, Ernest Marples, to become a member of an advisory group on the financial state of the British Transport Commission to be chaired by Sir Ivan Stedeford. Read about our approach to external linking. [26] In spite of questions being asked in Parliament, Sir Ivan's report was not published at the time. [8] The cut-backs would include the scrapping of a third of a million goods wagons, much as Stedeford had foreseen and fought against. The cuts came amid a rapid growth in car ownership and the opening of the UKs first motorways. But what no-one foresaw was the role railways would play in the modern world. There was something about the scale and the brutality of the attack that I remember at the time made me feel that this is wrong.". The Dart Valley Railway was reopened by Dr Beecham on 21st May 1969 ( . Beeching was recruited by the government from a very successful business career at ICI, to make the railways profitable again. 1963-65 plan to rationalise the British railway system, Replacement buses and proposed alternatives. The 168-mile Inverness-Wick/Thurso line and the 64-mile Inverness-Kyle of Lochalsh route stayed open along with the 76-mile Ayr-Stranraer line. Part of the reason for retaining the Ayr-Stranraer line was a compromise to keep politicians and businessmen in Northern Ireland happy, says Mr Livingston. Studies showed that one half of the network carried 19 times as many passengers as the other half, and the under populated half failed to cover its overheads. Henshaw, David (1994). Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said routed closed 50 years ago could be brought back. News quiz: What was Erling Haaland blamed for this week? Closed station buildings on remaining lines have often been demolished or sold for housing or other purposes. [note 4], Beeching first studied traffic flows on all lines to identify "the good, the bad, and the indifferent". Beeching's plan was based on what seemed like logical analysis at the time. The Beeching Report was an infamously wrong-headed document which led to the closure of a quarter of the rail network and half of Britain's stations. What is the meaning of Beeching? Beeching cuts Wikipedia Tim Dunn on Twitter: "Oh, Dr Beeching! Like Fiennes and Hardy, Terry Gourvish's business history of British Rail sees Beeching as having a positive effect on railway management while not achieving perfection.

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