Marples and Beeching

Design a 4 part Flying NeueCastle

 

It's a bit of a pyrrhic victory for steam.

While it might have been the zenith of steam it was also a dead end.

Not just in the long term but the medium term looking at where things are less that 20 years later.

I am constantly reminded of the description of Czechoslovakia in 1989 as having the world's most advanced nineteenth century economy, I think this can be applied to Britain in 1939. At a point in time when the USA, France, Germany etc are all moving towards diesel for shunting and mainline uses and making rapid advances in the technology, British railways are lagging behind.

Even within Britain, the LNER looks like a laggard, because post WW2, the SR, LMS and even the GWR(!) have experiments in mainline non-steam traction ready to go (and designers on their staff who were looking in that direction).

And yet, this lack of interest in diesel is striking when compared to attitudes towards electrification where the LNER is a leader - Woodhead, GE electrification, Tyneside electrics.

To my mind it seems a curious contradiction.

FWIW - the Austrian Railjets which seem to be the model for the Trans Pennine trains are 7 coaches in a semi fixed formation (a bit like the 91 and mk4 sets), and although at the moment when they need to strengthen they just run two sets together, from what I understand they could run as 10 car formations and maintain the schedule. IMO they are the nicest trains to ride on in operation at the moment. One of the pitches that they used is that you can expand/reduce the formation if traffic increases without needing a whole new unit.

 

I would suggest that even if the UK had been awash with money at the time, the answer would have been the same if Marples had had any say in it. I quote from Wikipedia:

"Conflict of interest
Shortly after he became a junior minister in November 1951, Marples resigned as managing director of Marples Ridgway but continued to hold some 80% of the firm's shares.[3][9] When he was made Minister of Transport in October 1959, Marples undertook to sell his shareholding in the company as he was now in clear breach of the House of Commons' rules on conflicts of interest.[9] He had not done so by January 1960, at which time the Evening Standard reported that Marples Ridgway had won the tender to build the Hammersmith Flyover and that the Ministry of Transport's engineers had endorsed the London County Council's rejection of a lower tender.[3][9][10]

Marples' first attempt to sell his shares was blocked by the Attorney-General on the basis that he was using his former business partner, Reg Ridgway, as an agent to ensure that he could buy back the shares upon leaving office.[9] Marples therefore sold his shares to his wife, reserving himself the possibility to reacquire them at the original price after leaving office;[3][11][12][13][14] by this time, his shares had come to be worth between £350,000 and £400,000.[9]

In 1959, shortly after becoming minister, Marples opened the first section of the M1 motorway. It was understood that although his former company was not directly contracted to build the M1, Marples Ridgway was alleged to "certainly had a finger in the pie".[15] Marples Ridgway built the Hammersmith flyover in London at a cost of £1.3 million, immediately followed by building the Chiswick flyover.[8]

Marples Ridgway was also involved in other major road projects in the 1950s and 1960s [16] including the £4.1 million extension of the M1 into London, referred to as the Hendon Urban Motorway at the time.[17]"

It was Marples that appointed Beeching to head BR!

 

So what?

The essentials are the growth in car ownership from around 1955, the decisions around road planning in the early 50s which led to the beginnings of the motorway network, the liberalisation of road freight transport by the 1953 Transport Act, and the mistaken assumption of the 1962 Transport Act that there was a financially viable and socially acceptable BR.

The economic and social forces were just too great. Traffic conditions in the likes of Doncaster, Preston, the A41, A5, A1 etc were unacceptable. If you want the villain of the piece I suggest looking carefully at Harold Watkinson. He was Minister of Transport when many crucial decisions were taken such as the decision not to go for tolled motorways which was the original plan. See David Starkie's book, The Motorway Age.

 

I would be more interested in the Civil Service as "villains of the piece" given that most Ministers have little knowledge of their briefs hence are "guided" by the civil servants at their disposal within the relevant departments. Agreed that both Watkinson and Marples were easily "guided" into a more "road" policy to the disadvantage of rail but that that makes them no less complicit in the act (sic). If you want to see the consequences of "Catering to the road lobby" look no further than Birmingham City Centre with its numerous rebuilds since the move to become Britain's first Motoring City in the 1950 / 1960s or attempting to drive through modern day London without restriction.

 

Miles away from Gresley, so I won't respond properly but I tend to agree. It all starts from the Abercrombie Plan.

 

Given his evident pecuniary interest in road building, I remain to be convinced Mr Ernest Marples needed much by way of "convincing". In point of fact, the more I've come to understand of the situation in the aftermath of the 1955 modernisation plan, the more convinced I've become that Richard Beeching, a man whose character seems as near beyond reproach as one might reasonably expect to find in the upper echelons of business and government, was employed as a lightening rod by the MacMillan government in general and MoT Marples in particular.

...... at least the UK MoT pursued (slightly) less of a scorched earth policy towards rail than the disgraceful slash and burn approach of the Stormont parliament, leaving fully two thirds of their fiefdom devoid of access to the rump of a once comprehensive rail network.

 

Way off the main topic but “Holding The Line” by Austin & Faulkner is instructive.

 

You seem to have missed the point. Marples was in breach of House of Commons rules on conflict of interest. After unsuccessfully attempting to sell his shares in Marples-Ridgeway to his business partner, it was somehow deemed acceptable that he sell his shares to his wife, both with the intention to "buy" them back after leaving office. So you have a MoT who is effectively (but not legally) the owner of a road building company. Clearly no conflict of interest there!

 

Perhaps this will jog the memory of those who have seemingly forgotten what this thread is supposed to be about.
60007 'Sir Nigel Gresley' Arlesey 27-11-2010 by KING COBRA 92, on Flickr

 

What, mainline electrification?

Tom

 

But you presume the policy was dictated by the pecuniary interest; my view is that it was the other way round, and that the pecuniary interest followed the opportunity presented by the railway industry’s growing failure to meet expectations.

And, returning this (loosely) to Gresley, one of the key factors there was the persistence of steam where movement away from steam was a necessary part of changing perception - and Gresley had in part helped steam stay in the game longer than it might have done.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Some people seem to think so.

 

In this instance, I presume nothing. Events on the railway side weren't the subject of my post, ministerial probity was. His pre-existing shareholdings were transferred into his wife's name, on assuming his role at the MoT. That much is a matter of public record. Were Marples the paragon of virtue you seem to suggest, why then did he feel the need summarily to decamp beyond the reach of plod?

Good luck trying to get those eggs back into the chicken!

 

I make no defence of that spiv. My challenge is to the presumption of guilt regarding motive where a conflict of interest exists.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I may join in on the Marples discussion but I'll wait until it's been moved out of this thread.

 

All this may be true but is there any reason to suppose another, unconflicted, Conservative transport minister would have decided not to build those motorways (regardless of which contractors would have got the job) or have failed to review the railway system; which was already losing 9F trainloads of money by then?

Budgets for both road and rail were set by the Government as a whole, not by the individual minister whose job it was to spend them, or to implement the cuts.

 

How about this one
Marples and Beeching | National Preservation (national-preservation.com)

 

What is fairly clear is that in the inter war period the railways were victims of disinvestment, in effect they were unable to invest enough to significantly update their equiptment and practices.

At the same time the pre WW1 railway promoters had left the nation with significantly more track than was necessary or even viable at the time let alone after WW2.

The railways also suffered from poor management that wasnt aware of the costs of running the network and of course they were subject to Government control which their rivals were not.

After WW2 they were not in a position to provide the service the nation wanted, at the same time there were the wider issues of planning/finance/management that have bedevilled this country/

As a result they lost out to the road lobby.

 

The point is that Marples was as bent as a corkscrew. He was also into a property scam with the slum landlord, Rachman, he had to hurriedly do a runner sometime in the 70s because customs and excise were on his case over tax fiddles, and he was also (allegedly) the "man in the mask" at Stephen Wards, er, adult parties..