[Brighton] Dr Beeching 50 years on.

[Leekbrookgull]

Picked up in a bookshop in Buxton £10 reduced from £20 and last year's print. Interesting to read one argument against Beeching and the closures is now the recent legal judgement in Surrey i believe of the downstream effect in this case of new build 30,40,50 years down the line. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but on reading this book there are many convincing reasons on why many of these lines/routes should if closed certainly not have been built on.

 

[essbee1]

A man utterly despised in the railway world and more widely.

 

[Machiavelli]

Ahem. 60 years on.

 

[Official Old Man]

Back in the day trains were making huge losses with many of the small country lines hardly being used. His job was to make it profitable, which he done.
Living in Uckfield we still have half our line, one track going to London every hour that takes 1.5 hours to London Bridge. And I'm sure it runs at a loss most of the time with near empty trains.
We should be investing in trains, if only we could do it on the cheap with cheap tickets as well.
In a couple of months I'm off on a Euro trip (as a follow up to our football trips) using TVG trains across France and Spain cheaper than flying.

 

[Bodian]

Back in the day trains were making huge losses with many of the small country lines hardly being used. His job was to make it profitable, which he done.

Except that he didn't! After his cuts they were still so unprofitable that Barbara Castle brought in subsidies - which now underpin the whole industry.

 

[Not Andy Naylor]

Back in the day trains were making huge losses with many of the small country lines hardly being used. His job was to make it profitable, which he done.
Living in Uckfield we still have half our line, one track going to London every hour that takes 1.5 hours to London Bridge. And I'm sure it runs at a loss most of the time with near empty trains.
We should be investing in trains, if only we could do it on the cheap with cheap tickets as well.
In a couple of months I'm off on a Euro trip (as a follow up to our football trips) using TVG trains across France and Spain cheaper than flying.

The closure of the Uckfield to Lewes line wasn't a Beeching cut. East Sussex County council decided it was in the way of a new road they wanted to build in Lewes. They were selective with the figures and said that not many people travelled between Lewes and Uckfield but didn't include people going from, say, Brighton to Tunbridge Wells (which that line allowed you to do) or Crowborough.

 

[Milano]

I think I read recently that his wife's family had links to a major road building company and they personally made millions out of his road building/rail closure policy....... quell my shock/horror for a Tory MP.

UK railways are a disgrace compared to across the channel.

 

[GT49er]

The closure of the Uckfield to Lewes line wasn't a Beeching cut. East Sussex County council decided it was in the way of a new road they wanted to build in Lewes. They were selective with the figures and said that not many people travelled between Lewes and Uckfield but didn't include people going from, say, Brighton to Tunbridge Wells (which that line allowed you to do) or Crowborough.

Being 'selective with the figures' was endemic in the Beeching cuts. On the Isle of Wight, for instance, only internal fares were counted - revenue for fares to and from destinations on the mainland (which was probably the major part of the income, in the summer months anyway) was not included.

 

[GT49er]

I think I read recently that his wife's family had links to a major road building company and they personally made millions out of his road building/rail closure policy....... quell my shock/horror for a Tory MP.

UK railways are a disgrace compared to across the channel.

That was Marples, the Minister of Transport, not Beeching. His firm was a major road-building contractor, but he was forced (reasonably enough, it would have been a conflict of interest) to give up his shares when he became the Minister.

So he gave them to his wife.

 

[Milano]

That was Marples, the Minister of Transport, not Beeching. His firm was a major road-building contractor, but he was forced, reasonably enough, it would have been a conflict of interest) to give up his shares when he became the Minister.

So he gave them to his wife.

I stand corrected.
Nothing to see there then.........

 

[Cheshire Cat]

 

[Peteinblack]

Back in the day trains were making huge losses with many of the small country lines hardly being used. His job was to make it profitable, which he done.
Living in Uckfield we still have half our line, one track going to London every hour that takes 1.5 hours to London Bridge. And I'm sure it runs at a loss most of the time with near empty trains.
We should be investing in trains, if only we could do it on the cheap with cheap tickets as well.
In a couple of months I'm off on a Euro trip (as a follow up to our football trips) using TVG trains across France and Spain cheaper than flying.

So why is train travel in Europe so much cheaper than in the UK?

The year before Covid, we travelled 1st Class from Lille to Bordeaux (a distance of 800km/500 miles) for a mere £20 each.

 

[Anger]

I was expecting something a bit more ghoulish from the thread title?

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I think I read recently that his wife's family had links to a major road building company and they personally made millions out of his road building/rail closure policy....... quell my shock/horror for a Tory MP.

UK railways are a disgrace compared to across the channel.

I think we paradoxically suffer for being first.

I have commuted to London for the best part of 45 years, There are hundreds of routes but they grew from the independent rail building scramble of the 1800s. The villages surrounding London grew into the available spaces to create the greater London splurge.

So there is no room to create high speed lines into London, unless you tunnel (the so called high speed route to St Pancras). The railway system to London is incontrovertibly f***ed. It cannot be fixed.

Ditto roads. I tried driving into London at one time. Madness.

All of this fossilization of transport was obvious to me 40 years ago. Faster trains won't help. As soon as you hit outer London there are hundreds of trains queuing to navigate limited space.

The only fast train link that has added value is the Ashford to St Pancras connection. And that was apparently the largest civil engineering exercise that Europe has ever seen. It won't be repeated elsewhere.

Meanwhile, Beeching was vandalizing branch lines that were not the main source of financial drain, but their removal did 'justify' road building.

And Thatcher hated trains, so any chance of any reversal of decline was suspended during her tenure at the top.

 

[Leekbrookgull]

Being 'selective with the figures' was endemic in the Beeching cuts. On the Isle of Wight, for instance, only internal fares were counted - revenue for fares to and from destinations on the mainland (which was probably the major part of the income, in the summer months anyway) was not included.

Update on that point is like East Grinstead to Three Bridges and forward travel to Brighton, the T/B to Btn revenue wasn't included.

 

[Skuller]

The closure of the Uckfield to Lewes line wasn't a Beeching cut. East Sussex County council decided it was in the way of a new road they wanted to build in Lewes. They were selective with the figures and said that not many people travelled between Lewes and Uckfield but didn't include people going from, say, Brighton to Tunbridge Wells (which that line allowed you to do) or Crowborough.

And the council were fully supported by the local MP (with the magnificent name of Sir Tufton Beamish) who, despite being a one-nation Tory, got this call horribly wrong. Instead of closing the line for the Phoenix Causeway they should have sent the road over (or under) the line. But the costs would have e been much higher than just shutting the line. That line would have been the answer to the “we need an alternative line from Brighton to London” cry.

 

[Eeyore]

Update on that point is like East Grinstead to Three Bridges and forward travel to Brighton, the T/B to Btn revenue wasn't included.

An old work colleague of mine's father was mayor of East Grinstead and told me that Beeching had cut those lines because he didn't want to be seen as showing favouritism.

Beeching was an East Grinstead resident.

 

[Gwylan]

That was Marples, the Minister of Transport, not Beeching. His firm was a major road-building contractor, but he was forced (reasonably enough, it would have been a conflict of interest) to give up his shares when he became the Minister.

So he gave them to his wife.

He ended up fleeing to Monaco as he was facing prosecution for fiddling his taxes. He was Premier League standard when it comes to dodgy cabinet ministers.

 

[Skuller]

So why is train travel in Europe so much cheaper than in the UK?

The year before Covid, we travelled 1st Class from Lille to Bordeaux (a distance of 800km/500 miles) for a mere £20 each.

Rail travel in this country is both the most expensive and cheapest in Europe. If you turn up at 8:00am to buy a ticket from London Euston to Birmingham you pay the earth. If you go from Marylebone (prepared to be a bit longer on the train), off-peak, bought in advance of the day, with a railcard (and few people don’t qualify for one of them), and use a “splitting” ticket agency you can get ridiculous deals. In Europe they tend to have the same fare for any time bought at any time (but they do have railcards in most places), so commuters do better than here, but leisure travellers do worse.
And, as perverse as it might seem, should your train be late you can claim a lot of the fare back. They do have similar schemes on, for example, Deutsche Bahn.

 

[beorhthelm]

I think I read recently that his wife's family had links to a major road building company and they personally made millions out of his road building/rail closure policy....... quell my shock/horror for a Tory MP.

UK railways are a disgrace compared to across the channel.

are they though? read a couple of threads on the railway forums with much scorn about rail on the continent, apart from price and a few high profile services that get lots of praise. we dont have the space for the high speed lines, then maintaining stations at Upper Wymborne and St Mary on the Weald etc, with 2 trains stopping every hour makes it all more expensive and slow.