Marples and Beeching

IIRC Serpell was one of the Ministry of Transport civil servants who were in agreement with Marples that road could prove a better transport solution than rail BUT the current concern with fuel economy has highlighted - yet again - that rail is still the optimum long-term transport solution. Sadly the civil service and the Government only work to short term solutions (for immediate results) rather than long term (for best results) hence rail with its basis depending on long term planning will obviously suffer from lack of investment and support - especially with Governments.

 

While there are issues over the relative merits of rail v road that are peculiar to the UK, compared with Europe we seem incapable of the sort of transport (or any other sort of) planning that the Europeans manage and our leaders seem fixated on roads.

 

Define “optimum”. Energy efficiency is just one factor and I’m far from convinced the most important one in determining which mode is “best”


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Agreed that "optimum" is subjective to many but IMHO the long distance movement of goods is best made by rail. As a regular user of motorways I note the presence of many lorries from Europe traversing there M6 heading for Ireland and wonder whether such consignments could be better moved by a freightliner service for the longer distance then transferred to road at a more local distribution point such as exemplified by Daventry. In the case of these foreign movements I presume that the individual consignors calculate which is cheaper for themselves rather than which is better for the economy hence the benefits accrue to the individual rather than to the economy.
Within the UK this is seen by the action of Royal Mail in operating a fleet of road vehicles rather than sending mail by rail yet Tesco has transferred much of its distribution to rail haulage in preference to road operations as a cheaper option; whether this is due to problems with Stobart following the fraud case that has cost the firm its family ownership to a competitor I do not know.

 

You didn't mention freight earlier

My point remains, however. More generally, you make the common mistake of treating "the economy" as a thing, when it is actually no more than the aggregate of all of the different strands of economic activity. That means that if something costs a company more to do for no benefit to the company, it is neither good for it nor "the economy" to follow that course of action.

I share your view that there "ought" to be more of a space for rail in how freight is moved, but any casual read of Modern Railways will show the difficulty that freight has in a very densely packed passenger railway. As for Royal Mail leaving rail, I think you actually have the relationship the wrong way round, and demonstrate the difficulty rail has. Royal Mail were relatively late in leaving rail, as they were faced with needing large scale investment while rail couldn't deliver the punctuality and flexibility that they needed. Moving away from a few trains to many times more lorries reduced their risk significantly because of the reduced chance that all their lorries on a particular route would get caught up in delays. Consolidation and disaggregation at large centres introduces delay which Royal Mail tried to mitigate by combining with necessary sorting - whereas for a single consignor, having a lorry turn up at an agreed time and travel to an agreed location to arrive at an agreed time is much simpler.

Taking that last, a passenger example. A few years ago, the church choir had a residency in York. Instead of hiring a coach, we booked group travel on the train. It worked, and was economic. But for this year's Ely residency, we're reverting to the coach. Why? Because it is actually a lot harder to chaperone 40 kids walking through a strange city than to get the coach there direct.

 

The 1970-94 period of BR was seen by Government through the prism of managed decline. The brilliance of Parker, and particularly Bob Reid I was to make the best of that and to demonstrate the key roles of rail for inter-city and city commuting. Consider how much the ECML and Trans-Pennine improved in that era. Consider the impact of HST. Consider the success in keeping the social railway going in the most pressing of circumstances.

But then the cycle turned. Whatever the ills of privatisation, it completely changed the funding dynamic, and we have seen a lot of growth and investment over the last quarter century. Why haven't we done more? Partly because of the enormous costs and disruption of upgrading existing track --the WCML scheme for example. Partly because of the enormous costs of building new --HS2 and Crossrail for example. Unlike France, we don't live on a relatively empty plain, nor do we vest ultimate ownership of land in the State. But a great deal has been achieved.

Just on freight, it's a myth to think that Tescos have made those decisions on a purely commercial basis. That market has been tweaked by Section 8 grants and public money payments for reductions in sensitive truck miles. Yes you can argue it should go further to take more account of the energy market and the social value of electricity v diesel where demonstrated by the numbers.

 

As far as short to medium distance passenger travel was concerned, it was largely the British public rather than Beeching who made that decision. By the 60s, cars were becoming cheaper and more reliable and would always win out on the 'personal comfort' front. I'm not disputing that Marples may have had a vested interest, but the decision was much wider than that. Given a limited amount of money to spend, was it better from the Government's point of view to spend it on maintaining the branch lines that people were deserting, or improving the roads that they were staring to use. The latter would certainly be more popular with the car-owning and voting public. You have to ask would any other Tory minister have done it differently. Or indeed any Labour minister; Barbara Castle continued to close railways and build roads.

I fully agree that Government of both colours are prone to short term decisions, but I don't think the 1960s closures should have been stopped on the basis that there would be a fuel crisis nearly 60 years in the future.

Your subsequent point on freight is noted, but what was left after the 60's closures (both pre- and post-Beeching) was much of the long-distance backbone which should have continued to support that.

 

I think it's part of the "British way". Endless complaints about how poor our railways are compared with Japan's bullet trains and the French TGV's and so on. The UK belatedly decides to build something similar (HS2). Instant outcry that it's not needed, its too expensive, it destroys the countryside, demands for public enquiries…

 

But just to note that the French ran into pretty much the same difficulties as us when they reached the Cote d'Azur section. I'm not sure it's the British culture as much as the physical environment we live in.

 

At this Eastertide, can I also just point out the differences between reactions to Jesus on Palm Sunday and later that week. Not to compare the railways with Easter, or Christ, but to focus on how "the people" are actually often different groups at different times.

 

On high speed rail: the UK is a very different country from France - much higher population density. Put bluntly, our centres of population are much closer together. I’m not convinced that high-speed rail makes much sense in that scenario relative to what we have, which is numerous towns of tens of thousands population sitting at distances of only 15 - 25 miles distance.

Between such towns, you can’t have high speed and a frequent service; and in my eyes frequency wins hands down. What's the point of cutting fifteen minutes off a journey if I have to wait thirty minutes longer to catch the train in the first place?

As an example - on my local line, you have Salisbury (population: 45,000); Andover (39,000 and growing rapidly); Basingstoke (87,000); Woking (99,000) all no more than about twenty minutes apart; and significant villages between them. On a line I used to catch with reasonable frequency, after London you had Slough (165,000); Reading (347,000); Didcot (27,000); Oxford (152,000); Banbury (44,000); Leamington Spa (52,000); and Coventry (345,000), again all coming in rapid succession. It's just not terrain conducive to high speed rail, IMHO.

Tom

 

The Swiss approach would probably work a lot better in many parts of the UK. Not the fastest services in the world, but infinitely more reliable than anything over here. Everything is integrated and connects with other modes of transport, even if it means dwell times at stations are longer than we're used to. But it's consistent and reliable, and you know if you're planning to get somewhere by a certain time, 99.9% of the time you'll be there.

And an annual public transport season ticket for Switzerland costs just over £3000 at present, valid on nearly all rail, bus and boat services. Cheaper than a Welwyn Garden City to London rail only season ticket.

 

I get where you're coming from, though be it noted that the current UK population distribution is (a) in no small part the direct result of the rail network and (b) despite all appearances to the contrary, not set in stone.

 

I don’t see that trend moving though in a way that is more, rather than less, conducive to high speed rail. Lots of infill development that is concreting over the South East of England isn’t going to create a series of large centres spaced out an hour or more apart. Any closer and high speed loses its advantage: reliability and frequency are far more important than speed.

Tom

 

Note that a Wiltshire crossroads didn't become the architectural jewel which is today's Swindon in anticipation of the GWR.

The (unarguable) S.E-centric population demographic of the UK surely more reflects the growth of London more than any other single factor. Whilst certain of the factors which brought folks flocking to 'the smoke', before the railway age have gone (e.g. the docks, live animals trade, neighbourly industries like tanning), the growth rate had become largely self-sustaining, with the 'urban sprawl' from the 1850s onwards most directly attributable to rail transport.

On the flipside, how many places have suffered loss of whatever industry initially caused their expansion? Too many places were left languishing in the wake of the collapse of so much UK industry, whilst the (far fewer) new jobs in emerging tech tended to develop alongside today's principle transport arteries, with easy access to today's main international hubs, whilst populations in old engineering towns and mining villages became ever smaller and older, as folk of working age followed Tebbit's advice.

Much of the currently collapsing raft of socio-economic assumptions is going to need revisiting, unless the desire to snuggle into rose-tinted torpor is the desired outcome. I'd agree with certain of your points from the standpoint that bolting on whatever's left of whichever half-cocked plan after someone asks valid but awkward questions doesn't equate to sensible policymaking.

Neither the UK's electors nor elected seem currently to have too much grasp of any route out of the rut in which we've been mired since gunboat diplomacy went out of fashion.

 

Disappointed Never anticipated rather reactionary thoughts from this quarter

 

I don't have a sensible route out, but I know some roads I'd eliminate straight away! (i.e. I know what I wouldn't do, just not what I would). High speed rail is one of them. All the evidence I have seen is that when you connect a relatively wealthier area to a relatively poorer one, wealth flows from poorer to richer, not the other way round - precisely the opposite of what you want to happen. In other words, build a fast transport link from Little Snoring to Metrocity, and you just make it easier for people to leave Little Snoring to go and work in Metrocity - not the other way round.

Tom

 

I'm not anti-rail in that regard, I just happen to think that given the density of population in the UK, frequency and reliability are far more important than speed - particularly because the real time that matters is door-to-door, not just the rail journey itself: if your rail journey is short, the ability for higher speed to make a significant difference to that is rather limited, whereas the ability of greater frequency to affect it is profound.

Tom

 

What you & almost everyone else forgets is that there really was a ‘Beeching II’ – it was his second report issued in February 1965 entitled ‘The Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes’. It identified those lines the BRB thought justified investment to meet the potential demand over the following 20 or so years. Exactly what should happen to those lines not identified he didn’t say – Beeching had grown politically wiser since the publication of his first report with its infamous lists of closures. The BR Board declared that the report was not ‘a prelude to closures on a grand scale: it is, rather, a basis for more definitive, stepwise planning of route rationalisation’. Quite! Needless to say it was widely recognised (outside the BRB) that it might be used as a basis for further rail closures.

The mileage of the lines identified for development totalled circa 3000 miles – less than half of the then existing 7500 miles of trunk routes. There were large areas of the country that were denied development:

· No lines in Wales beyond Swansea (not even that to Holyhead);

· No lines in Scotland north of Glasgow, Perth, Dundee, & Aberdeen & west of the WCML;

· No lines in East Anglia save the GE line to Norwich (not even to Cambridge);

· No lines in the West Country beyond Plymouth;

· No lines in in SE England apart from the main lines out of London to Southampton, Bournemouth, Portsmouth, Brighton, & Dover. (However the report did admit that commuter lines, especially those in the SE, would require ‘Special Consideration’, requiring yet another report).

Specific lines denied development were:

· The MML out of St Pancras;

· The ECML north of Newcastle (but Newcastle to Carlisle was identified for development);

· Reading to Taunton;

· Basingstoke to Exeter;

· Swindon to Gloucester;

· Oxford to Worcester.

By the time the report was issued the Labour Party with its hopes for ‘transport co-ordination’ was in power. Beeching left BRB a few months after its publication. Transport Secretaries Tom Fraser (remember him?) & especially Barbara Castle (from December 1965) developed a policy that recognised socially necessary lines that would need to be supported by subsidy. In 1967 Barbara Castle published a map ‘Network for Development’ which showed a stabilised railway system of about 11,000 miles & Beeching II was quietly shelved.

 

Oddly, though I'm four square against the Southwoldisation of UKPlc, in the specific case of HS2 as planned, I tend to agree. TBH, from first announcement I've not been convinced high-speed 'conventional rail' is the optimal solution. Nor do I think we've collectively been honest with ourselves concerning how much pre-existing infrastructure retains a useful function, once effectively replaced.

Looking to what's happening regarding infrastructure in China, it's impossible to conclude other than that too much in 'the west' appears confused and downright doddery. I'll quickly mention your earlier point about the bery different situation in France, where legal, as much as social considerations are very different. Once a decision is made, it's all but impossible for any NIMBY faction to stymie either detailed planning or execution.

So far as not having a route out goes, nor do I, though that's something which would be rendered simpler were the issues being widely identified and sensibly discussed. With a couple of honourable exceptions, much of the indolent and increasingly useless mainstream media seems to prefer indulging in hatchet jobs on individuals and companies, in pursuit of some corrupt, long bankrupt agenda, to actually doing what they claim as the reason they enjoy certain prerogatives in the free society they're doing their best to wreck.