dr beeching railway cuts

This service is provided on News Group Newspapers' Limited's Standard Terms and Conditions in accordance with our Privacy & Cookie Policy. On 16 February Beeching introduced the second stage of his reorganisation of the railways. In Craven, routes to be withdrawn were Skipton to Ilkley, Leeds and Bradford; and also between Skipton, Keighley, Leeds and Bradford. [40] Stedeford and Beeching clashed on a number of issues,[42] but the future size of the railway system was not one of them. One is the Ashington-Blyth-Tyne line in Northumberland which will reopen thanks to a 500m funding boost. The Times, "Lord Beeching: 'I Was Not Sacked'", 18 November 1965, p. 12. It has been suggested that by closing almost a third of the network Beeching achieved a saving of just 30 million, whilst overall losses were running in excess of 100 million per year. 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. Dr Richard Beeching was appointed to implement the reorganisation. Advanced Search Cancel Login / Join. British Rail operated a policy of disposing of land that was surplus to requirements. His first post was with the Shell Design Section where he had a rank equivalent to that of army captain. There is little in the Beeching report recommending general economies (in administration costs, working practices and so on). The protest against the closure provoked sabotage attacks and night-time blockades by furious locals. To see all content on The Sun, please use the Site Map. He went for a straightforward profit and loss approach and some claim we are still reeling from that today".[27]. The report was published on 20 January 1983 and received an immediate backlash from the media. Read about our approach to external linking. "Beeching Report Proposes Closing Nearly a Third of Britain's 7,000 Railway Stations." 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. 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. RailwayBlogger. [20], On 21 May 1969, Beeching performed the official opening ceremony for the heritage railway between Totnes and Ashburton, then known as the Dart Valley Railway. 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. [49], After 1970, when the Conservatives were returned to power, serious thought was given to a further programme of closures, but this proved politically impossible. 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 initial report was published in 1963 and it caused much controversy. He is backed up by the man running the railways today, Network Rail boss Sir David Higgins. Luckily he was sacked after his first butcher's job on the railways and before he could do more damage. 2022 BBC. The Possible Projects These are the various projects, shown as an index by area, so you can click to find out more. Video, Jeremy Bowen on reporting from Ukraine's frontline, the line Beeching suggested cutting 50 years ago, French parliament stopped over 'racist' remark, Dutch wolves to be paintballed to scare them away, Why Scholz's trip to China looks out of step for EU, Black Panther stars arrive at European premiere, Donald Trump sues top NY lawyer for 'intimidation', Lapid congratulates Netanyahu on Israel election win, FBI warns of 'threat' to New Jersey synagogues, Twitter to lose 'magic' with 7 blue tick fee. Even today the name Beeching can get some people's blood boiling. In 1953 he went to Canada as vice-president of ICI (Canada) Ltd, and was given overall responsibility for a terylene plant in Ontario. [18] Beeching denied this, pointing out that he had returned early to ICI as he would not have had enough time to undertake an in-depth transport study before the formal end of his secondment. British Rail was losing 140m a year when Dr Beeching took over the commission. David Steel, now Lord Steel of Aikwood, was just 26 when he was elected to parliament in a by-election in 1965 called after the previous Conservative MP, who had backed the Beeching report, died. 27 Mar 2020. The Midland Main Line was planned to close, leaving Leicester and Derby without a rail link, while the East Coast Main Line, part of the key London/Edinburgh link, was intended to be cut north of Newcastle. Dr Richard Beeching, in two reports, The Reshaping of British Railways (1963) and The Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes (1965), identified that 2,363 stations and 5,000 miles (8,000 km . The Liberal MP lobbied ministers and British Railway officials to keep the line open as a branch line serving Borders towns but he says they were "intransigent". This is the place for railway enthusiasts who can't get enough steam, oil and smoke. What is the meaning of Beeching? [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. [7] However, the precise savings from closures are impossible to calculate. Hyperbole will flourish in the springtime as the nation commemorates the 50th anniversary of a butcher wielding his knife; the deeds of a mad axeman. 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. "Then the train got stopped at Newcastleton because the people in the village had closed the level crossing gates and were standing across the line. Dr Richard Beeching sparked uproar in the 1960s when he closed 4,500 miles of railway line and 2,128 stations to save money. In a public information film at the time he said: "On one half of the whole route mileage of British Railways, there is only one 20th of the traffic the real question is whether you, as owners of the railways, want us to go on running these services at very high cost when the demand for them has very largely disappeared.". The new railway, operated by Transport for London, will be fully integrated with London's existing transport network. 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. [20] The government argued that many services could be provided more effectively by buses. [26] As a result, some lines it had not recommended for closure were subsequently shut down, such as the Woodhead Line between Manchester and Sheffield in 1981, after the freight traffic (mostly coal) on which it had relied declined. In particular, the railway system must be modelled to meet current needs". It was described as the "most momentous piece of legislation in the field of railway law to have been enacted since the Railway and Canal Traffic Act 1854". [41] Beeching, with a PhD in Physics, had been appointed to the main board of ICI at the age of 43. [11] Instead losses mounted, from 68 million in 1960 to 87 million in 1961, and 104 million in 1962 (2.36 billion in 2021 terms). Read about our approach to external linking. Age of the train: Dr Beeching's cuts failed to kill off love of rail transport. At that time the government was seeking outside talent to sort out the huge problems of the railway network, and he was confident that he could make the railways pay for themselves, but his salary, at 35 times that of many railway workers, has been described as a "political disaster". The reshaping would also involve the shedding of around 70,000 British Railways jobs over three years. Some closed stations have reopened, and passenger services have been restored on a few lines where they had been removed. Dr Richard Beeching, chairman of the British Railways Board, cuts the tape to open the new 1 million railway station at Plymouth, Devon. True to his nature and previous track record he'd had the railways in his sights for a while, He just needed the official excuse and remit to do his thing. In many cases the replacement bus services were slower and less convenient than the trains they were meant to replace, and so were unpopular. During the election campaign Labour had promised to halt rail closures if elected, but it quickly backtracked, and later oversaw some of the most controversial closures. 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. "It is an amazing achievement and will take the rail route back to what is now the largest town in the Borders. With a few exceptions, after the early 1970s proposals to close other lines were met with vociferous public opposition and were quietly shelved. Imran Khan survives deadly Pakistan rally shooting, Jeremy Bowen on reporting from Ukraine's frontline. Thousands of stations and hundreds of branch lines were closed between 1964 and 1970 after a report by Dr Beeching. [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. Prime Minister Harold Macmillan stated in 1960, "the industry must be of a size and pattern suited to modern conditions and prospects. He returned after two years to become chairman of ICI Metals Division on the recommendation of Sir Ewart Smith. He adds: "It was freezing cold as it was well past midnight in early January but they were minded not to go and police arrested the parish minister, the Reverend Brydon Maben, who was one of the ringleaders of the demonstration, and that made things even more irresolute. 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]. He is often criticised for ignoring the social benefits of having a rail line. 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 bids to build or reopen lines and stations in the region are among 50 from across the UK that are . [3] In 1909, Winston Churchill, then President of the Board of Trade, argued that the country's railways did not have a future without rationalisation and amalgamation. Similarly for freight: without branch lines, the railways' ability to transport goods "door to door" was dramatically reduced. Then again, his bland-looking booklet, called the Reshaping of British Railways, did change the network forever. In the 1965 Birthday Honours[17] it was announced that he would be made a life peer, and he was created Baron Beeching, of East Grinstead in the County of Sussex on 7 July 1965,[18] in the same year he became a director of Lloyds Bank. He called for the closure of one-third of the country's 7,000 railway stations. The fact remains, Beeching and Marples were the architects of the destruction of this country's railway system. This policy would result in traffic through Britain being routed through nine selected lines. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. From the 1920s onward . Once a grand system, it is today just a shadow, being concentrated on certain over stressed corridors. The 1955 Modernisation Plan promised expenditure of over 1,240 million; steam locomotives would be replaced with diesel and electric locomotives, traffic levels would increase, and the system was predicted to be back in profit by 1962. There were also protests at Melrose and Hawick, where they loaded a replica coffin on the train addressed to the transport minister. - the railway axe man. The axing of the 98-mile Waverley Route from Edinburgh to Carlisle was the worst of all the Beeching cuts, according to author and railway expert David Spaven. Dr Beeching was tasked with making the railways profitable again. ; The line closed on 3 October 1966 as part of Dr Beeching's railway cuts. Castle published a map in 1967,[47] Network for Development, showing the railway system "stabilised" at around 11,000 route miles (17,700km). Protests resulted in the saving of some stations and lines, but the majority were closed as planned; Beeching's name remains associated with the mass closure of railways and the loss of many local services in the period that followed. [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. The Times, "Lord Beeching: 'I Was Not Sacked. [9], Unsurprisingly, Beeching's plans were hugely controversial not only with trade unions, but with the Labour opposition and railway-using public. 09:17 . It is a powerful weapon to add to our transport system." Smith declined but recommended Beeching in his place, a suggestion which Marples accepted. His response was the notorious report "The Reshaping of British Railways". Dr Beeching initiated a thorough analysis, including surveys and cost analysis, of the rail system. He went for a straightforward profit and loss approach and some claim we are still reeling from that today". By David Lynch. Economic recovery and the end of petrol rationing led to rapid growth in car ownership and use. Local Galloway historian Alistair Livingston says there was some justification for the closure of the line through south west Scotland. 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. It is a matter of debate whether Beeching left by mutual arrangement with the government or if he was sacked. . Dr. Beeching's silver lining. 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. The Beeching Report - Rail.co.uk looks at the report 50 Years on Beeching rail lines campaigners say should be re opened | Daily . The list below shows over 7,000 miles (11,000km) of closures: After this period, "residual" Beeching closures took place: Bridport to Maiden Newton[note 15] (in 1975), Alston to Haltwhistle[note 16] (in 1976), Woodside to Selsdon[note 17] (in 1983). Beeching continued his work with armaments, particularly anti-aircraft weaponry and small arms. In addition to the Waverley Route, Mr Spaven says the 73-mile Dumfries-Stranraer line and the 43-mile Aberdeen-Fraserburgh route were among the biggest cuts. [note 4], Beeching first studied traffic flows on all lines to identify "the good, the bad, and the indifferent". [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. [14][43] In December 1960 questions were asked in the Lords about this "secret" and "under-the-counter" study group. The policeman who tried to stem Seoul Halloween crush, Aboriginal boy's killing puts spotlight on racism, Billions being spent in metaverse land grab. 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. Several ex-railway sites have been named after Beeching: Second Beeching Report and creation of British Rail. [5] Around 1,300 miles (2,100km) of passenger railways closed between 1923 and 1939. The Times Digital Archive, Gourvish, T. R. (1974), British Rail 1948 1973: A Business History, Loft, Charles (2013) Last Trains Dr Beeching and the Death of Rural England, See list of initial grants awarded and applications rejected in, History of rail transport in Great Britain, Learn how and when to remove this template message, History of rail transport in Great Britain 1995 to date, List of British heritage and private railways, List of closed railway stations in Britain, List of heritage railway stations in the United Kingdom, "The Reshaping of British Railways (maps)", "The Development Of The Major Railway Trunk Routes", "Financial Scandal, Corruption and Censorship: Part 3", "The 1963 Cabinet Papers / British Rail: Beeching branded 'PR disaster', "TRA0101 (also TSGB0701) Road traffic (vehicle miles) by vehicle type in Great Britain, annual from 1949", "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)", "BRITISH TRANSPORT COMMISSION (CHAIRMAN)", "The Reshaping of British Railways Part 1: Report", "All stations on the Stour Line are Doomed Councils to lead massive protest", "Borders to Edinburgh railway: Track laying gets under way", Rail Engineer article - Derailed: The complicity dividend, "East West Rail link second phase plans submitted", "Railway Finances Report of a Committee chaired by Sir David Serpell KCB CMG OBE", "High speed service to run between Ashford and Hastings from London after Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin attends rail summit", "MINISTERS OF THE CROWN (PRIVATE INTERESTS)", "BRITISH TRANSPORT COMMISSION (ADVISORY GROUP)", "REAR WINDOW: FAT CATS The man who was paid pounds 24,000 a year", 1967 Network for Development report and map, "Transport Act 1968 39 Grants for unremunerative passenger services", "The fall and rise of Britain's railways: Part 5", "The 'bad news' report that helped build today's railway", "Andrew Adonis 2019 Speech to the IPPR on Reversing Beeching", "Department for Transport Statistics: Passenger transport: by mode, annual from 1952", Modal comparisons (TSGB01) - Statistical data sets - GOV.UK, "Michael Williams: So much pain in our love of the train", "Beeching The Greatest Train Robber:: The Foundry Group", "A reversal for the great railway robbery", "Great railway revival as Beeching's axed lines open again 50 years on", A further Commons debate on Beeching Report, Colour film of one of the closed "branch" lines in operation, Website about Beeching cuts in more detail, Before and after photo collection of closed stations, with commentaries, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Beeching_cuts&oldid=1112026756, History of rail transport in the United Kingdom, Articles with failed verification from March 2015, Articles with unsourced statements from February 2021, Articles needing additional references from August 2016, All articles needing additional references, Articles with unsourced statements from May 2010, Articles with unsourced statements from April 2022, Articles with unsourced statements from June 2020, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Other routes (or parts of routes) planned for closure that survived include the, This page was last edited on 24 September 2022, at 08:09. RAIL services axed as part of a costing-cutting initiative named after British Rail chief Dr RichardBeeching who proposed it could now be reinstated. On the other hand, Hardy points out Beeching's political navete, and Fiennes notes that because a passenger service was producing a loss did not mean that it would continue to do so in the future. 30 Oct 2022 06:27:17 What is the meaning of Beeching? ; Marple featured in a 2010 BBC documentary on Dr Beeching and the effect of axing the railway. 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. Jeremy Bowen on reporting from Ukraine's frontline. 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. ; The station fell victim to Dr Beeching's cuts and was closed in the 1960s. HUGE interactive historic . From an economic . [26] In spite of questions being asked in Parliament, Sir Ivan's report was not published at the time. He adds: "I think Scotland suffered particularly in the Beeching era from the loss of some important quite long-distance routes which could have fulfilled a more strategic role than perhaps they did at the time. Beeching is an English surname. Read more. 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.". [citation needed] In July 1964, Marples Ridgway and Partners Limited[36] were awarded a 4.1 million contract for the "Hendon Urban Motorway" extension of the M1,[37] in the same year that the company was taken over by the Bath and Portland Group. [28] Most of the OxfordCambridge Varsity Line closed despite its strategic location serving Milton Keynes, Britain's largest "new town". The BBC TV comedy series Oh, Doctor Beeching!, broadcast from 1995 to 1997, was set at a small fictional branch-line railway station threatened with closure under the Beeching cuts. 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. The development of the motorway network, the advent of containerisation, improvements in lorries and the economic costs of having two break-bulk points combined to make long-distance road transport a more viable alternative. 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]. Some lines closed under the Beeching cuts have reopened as private heritage railways. The findings come as the Government has launched a 500 million project to roll back the swingeing cuts overseen by the former head of British Railways, Dr Richard Beeching, which led to the . "[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]. They initially set up home in Solihull, and remained married for the rest of his life. 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. 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. Read about our approach to external linking. All services on the Isle of Wight were recommended for closure, as were all branch lines in the Lake District. [citation needed]. On 16 February 1965, Beeching introduced the second stage of his reorganisation of the railways. In 1948 he joined ICI, as Personal Technical Assistant to Sir Frank Smith; he remained for around 18 months, working on the production lines for various products such as zip fasteners, paints and leathercloth with a view to improving efficiency and reducing production costs. 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. [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. [44] It was later suggested that Stedeford had recommended that the government should set up another body "to consider the size and pattern of the railway system required to meet current and foreseeable needs, in the light of developments and trends in other forms of transport and other relevant considerations". Beeching and his elder brother Geoffrey attended Imperial College of Science & Technology in London, where both read physics and took First Class honours degrees. [2] Closures of such small-scale loss-making lines made little difference to the overall deficit. True, he took a clinical, bean-counting approach to the problem. "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.". 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. In 1965, he produced a second report, "The Development of Major Railway Trunk Routes", outlining a future railway . Mr Spaven says: "We have to recognise the achievement of getting the railway back to Galashiels and Tweedbank. It had very profound effects in our city," he added. Beeching forecast that his changes would result in an improvement in British Railway's accounts of between 115M and 147M.

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