87-553: The Wadamisaki Line ( 和田岬線 , Wadamisaki-sen ) is a branch line of the Sanyō Main Line , operated by West Japan Railway Company (JR West) and connecting Hyogo on the main line and Wadamisaki . The 2.7-kilometre (1.7 mi) line has only two stops, and only operates during morning and evening, and mainly serves commuters to the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Mitsubishi Electric factories in
174-621: A "basic railway". 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 . 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
261-497: A Labour government under Prime Minister Harold Wilson after 13 years of Conservative government. 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. Tom Fraser was appointed Minister of Transport, but was replaced by Barbara Castle in December 1965. Castle published a map in 1967, Network for Development , showing
348-510: A common sight along railroads in industrial and rural cities alike. As automobile and roadway technology improved throughout the early and mid-20th century, most low volume industry spurs were abandoned in favor of the greater flexibility and economic savings of trucking. Today, railroads remain the most economical way to ship large quantities of material, a fact that is reflected in industrial spurs. Most modern day spurs serve very large industries that require hundreds, if not thousands, of carloads
435-688: A day and five passengers on average, earning only 25% of costs. 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). The line covered 80% of its operating costs, but he calculated that it could be closed because there was an alternative, albeit less direct, route. Out of 18,000 miles (29,000 km) of railway, Beeching recommended that 6,000 miles (9,700 km)—mostly rural and industrial lines—should be closed entirely, and that some of
522-519: A day, on lines controlled by multiple Victorian era signalboxes (again fully staffed, often throughout the day). Operating costs could have been reduced by reducing staff and removing redundant services on these lines while keeping the stations open. This has since been successfully achieved by British Rail and its successors on lesser-used lines that survived the cuts, such as the East Suffolk Line from Ipswich to Lowestoft, which survives as
609-477: A few lines where they had been removed. Some lines closed under the Beeching cuts have reopened as private heritage railways. Some examples are East Lancs Railway , Great Central Railway (heritage railway) , Mid Hants Railway , North Yorkshire Moors Railway , North Norfolk Railway and West Somerset Railway . Flanders and Swann , writers and performers of satirical songs, wrote a lament for lines closed by
696-648: A further 700 miles (1,100 km) a choice of four. 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. Beeching's secondment from ICI ended early in June 1965 after Harold Wilson 's attempt to get him to produce a transport plan failed. It
783-437: A lack of patronage, leaving large parts of the country with no public transport. The assumption at the time was that car owners would drive to the nearest railhead (which was usually the junction where the closed branch line would otherwise have taken them) and continue their journey onwards by train. In practice, having left home in their cars, people used them for the whole journey. Similarly for freight: without branch lines,
870-464: A mainline, they tend to have lower maintenance and signaling (train control) standards. Before the rise of the long-distance trucking in the early 1930s, railroads were the primary means of transportation around the world. Industries of the era were commonly built along railroad lines specifically to allow for easy access to shipping. Short (under a mile, oftentimes only several hundred yards) industrial spurs with very small (under ten car) capacities were
957-582: A number of issues, but the future size of the railway system was not one of them. For all the suspicion it aroused, the committee had little to say on this and the government was already convinced of the need to reduce the size of the rail network. In spite of questions being asked in Parliament , Sir Ivan's report was not published at the time. In December 1960 questions were asked in the Lords about this "secret" and "under-the-counter" study group, criticising
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#17328010928261044-432: A route profitable: "Similarly, consideration of the cost figures will show that thinning out the trains, or thinning out the stations, would not make a service self-supporting even if it had no adverse effect on revenue". There is little in the Beeching report recommending general economies (in administration costs, working practices and so on). For example, a number of the stations that were closed were fully staffed 18 hours
1131-823: A section of the West Rail line . Discontinued services include the Sha Tau Kok Railway and the Wo Hop Shek Branch . A spur line to Siu Sai Wan has been proposed. Delhi On the Delhi Metro , the Blue Line has a Branch Line with 8 Stations, linking Yamuna Bank to Ghaziabad via Anand Vihar ISBT and terminating at Vaishali. The first section of the Branch opened on 8 January 2010 with Anand Vihar as its terminal with six stations. It
1218-493: A statement to the House later that day confirming that the sale of shares was in hand and would be completed "very soon", noting that as part of the agreement he could be required to buy the shares from the purchaser at the original price after he ceased to hold office, if so desired by the purchaser. While it was reported that he sold the shares to his wife, she denied in a newspaper interview, that any transaction had taken place. It
1305-531: A subsidy for grain transport, and instead allowed railways to absorb branch line subsidies freely without making effort to improve the profitability of the lines. The term "grain-dependent branch lines" began being used as early as 1978 to refer to the special case of these branch lines in agricultural areas whose viability depended on the economics of grain transport. The Western Grain Transportation Act of 1983 addressed this case specifically, but
1392-616: A subsidy to be paid by the Treasury for a three-year period. This was later repealed in the Railways Act 1974. 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 accounts—previously their contribution to the railways' overall loss was hidden in the total deficit. The " bustitution " policy that replaced rail services with buses also failed. In many cases
1479-563: A switch to the now-standard practice of containerisation for rail freight, and the replacement of some services with integrated bus services linked to the remaining railheads. 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. A few of these routes have since reopened. Some short sections have been preserved as heritage railways , while others have been incorporated into
1566-472: A virtual halt by the early 1970s. One of the last major closures was the 98-mile (158 km) Waverley Route between Carlisle , Hawick and Edinburgh in 1969; the reopening of a 35-mile section of this line was approved in 2006 and passenger services resumed in September 2015. Holiday and coastal resorts were severely affected by the closures. The report recommended closing almost all services along
1653-466: A year. There is an international branch line between Italy and Vatican: the 300-metre Vatican Railway , connecting from the Pisa-Rome railway mainline at Roma San Pietro railway station , to Vatican City station . Many British railway branch lines were closed as a result of the " Beeching cuts " in the 1960s, although some have been re-opened as heritage railways . The smallest branch line that
1740-610: Is a matter of debate whether Beeching left by mutual arrangement with the government or if he was sacked. 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. 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
1827-569: Is a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line . A very short branch line may be called a spur line . Branch lines may serve one or more industries, or a city or town not located on a main line. Branch lines may also connect two or more main lines. An industrial spur is a type of secondary track used by railroads to allow customers at a location to load and unload railcars without interfering with other railroad operations. Industrial spurs can vary greatly in length and railcar capacity depending on
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#17328010928261914-419: Is between an excessive and increasingly un-economic system, with a corresponding tendency for the railways as a whole to fall into disrepute and decay, or the selective development and intensive utilisation of a more limited trunk route system". Of the 7,500 miles (12,100 km) of trunk route, 3,700 miles (6,000 km) involves a choice between two routes, 700 miles (1,100 km) a choice of three, and over
2001-567: Is still in operation in the UK is the Stourbridge Town Branch Line from Stourbridge Junction going to Stourbridge Town . Operating on a single track, the journey is 0.8 miles (1.3 kilometres) long and the train takes around two and a half minutes to complete its journey. In North America, little-used branch lines are often sold by large railroads to become new common carrier short-line railroads of their own. Throughout
2088-532: The Bay of Plenty Region , lines were built inland to provide rail access to large logging operations. Today, many of the branch lines have been closed, including almost all of the general-purpose country lines. Those that remain serve ports or industries far from main lines such as coal mines, logging operations, large dairying factories, and steelworks . In Auckland and Wellington , two branch lines in each city exist solely for commuter passenger trains. For more, see
2175-654: The British Railways Board , which took over on 1 January 1963, with Dr Beeching as its first chairman. The Act put in place measures that simplified the process of closing railways by removing the need for the pros and cons of each case to be heard in detail. 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 ". The general election in October 1964 returned
2262-491: The British Transport Commission (BTC) was formed in 1949 with a brief to close the least-used branch lines. This resulted in the loss (or conversion to freight-only operation) of some 3,318 miles (5,340 km) of railway between 1948 and 1962. The most significant closure was that of the former Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway in 1959. In opposition to these cuts, the period also witnessed
2349-688: The Charnwood Forest Railway , closed to passengers in 1931, and the Harborne Line in Birmingham , closed to passengers in 1934. Some lines had never been profitable and were not subject to loss of traffic in that period. The railways were busy during the Second World War , but at the end of the war they were in a poor state of repair and in 1948 nationalised as British Railways . The Branch Lines Committee of
2436-753: The Gladstone Branch in New Jersey; as well as the New Canaan Branch , Danbury Branch , and Waterbury Branch in Connecticut . The Long Island Rail Road also refers to its services as "branches". In Chile, there are a lot of branch lines on its main line, of only a few remain operational. Most only operating in turistic services (like the Antilhue-Valdivia branch line), others have been taken over by other railways (like
2523-1048: The Grand Trunk , Canadian National , or Canadian Pacific ) which would acquire formerly independent short line railways for use as branch lines, with the short line often continuing to exist as a subsidiary. For example, when the Canadian Pacific acquired the Algoma Eastern Railway (a short line) in 1930, it soon after abandoned much of the Algoma Eastern mainline, but retained sections close to Algoma Eastern–Canadian Pacific junctions as short branch lines or spurs. The National Transportation Act of 1967 provided government subsidies for branch lines. Western railway development in Canada worked in concert with land settlement and cultivation, as pioneers were settled near railway lines, often on land
2610-600: The National Cycle Network or used for road schemes. Others have since been built over, have reverted to farmland, or remain derelict with no plans for any reuse or redevelopment. Some, such as the bulk of the Midland Metro network around Birmingham and Wolverhampton , have since been incorporated into light rail lines. After growing rapidly in the 19th century during the Railway Mania ,
2697-788: The North South Line between Jurong East and Choa Chu Kang stations was operated as a separate line, known as the Branch line . It was merged into the North–South Line with the opening of the Woodlands Extension in 1996. The future Jurong Region Line and Cross Island Line will also have branch lines. New Zealand once had a very extensive network of branch lines, especially in the South Island regions of Canterbury , Otago , and Southland . Many were built in
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2784-704: The South Tseung Kwan O Spur Line to LOHAS Park station , opened in 2009. Earlier, a spur line was built in 1985 on the East Rail line to serve Racecourse station , bypassing Fo Tan station . Also, the Tsim Sha Tsui Extension [ yue ] was built in 2004 on the East Rail line to serve East Tsim Sha Tsui station . However, after the Kowloon Southern Link was completed in 2009, this spur line turns into
2871-694: The West Coast Main Line to Carlisle and Glasgow ; traffic to the north-east of England would be concentrated through the East Coast Main Line as far as Newcastle ; and traffic to Wales and the West Country would go on the Great Western Main Line to Swansea and Plymouth . Underpinning Beeching's proposals was his belief that there was too much duplication in the railway network: "The real choice
2958-630: The list of New Zealand railway lines . Beeching cuts The Beeching cuts , also colloquially referred to as the Beeching Axe , were a major series of route closures and service changes made as part of the restructuring of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain in the 1960s. They are named for Dr. Richard Beeching , then-chair of the British Railways Board and the author of two reports – The Reshaping of British Railways (1963) and The Development of
3045-480: The 1950s but the economic situation steadily deteriorated, with labour costs rising faster than income and fares and freight charges repeatedly frozen by the government to try to control inflation . By 1955, the railways' share of the transport market had dropped from 16% to 5%. 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
3132-636: The Beeching cuts entitled " Slow Train " (1963). Michael Williams' book On the slow train takes its name from the Flanders and Swann song. It celebrates 12 of the most beautiful and historic journeys in Britain, some of which were saved from the Beeching cuts. 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 BBC TV comedy series Oh, Doctor Beeching! , broadcast from 1995 to 1997,
3219-577: The Board of Trade, argued that the country's railways did not have a future without rationalisation and amalgamation. By 1914, the railways had some significant problems, such as a lack of standard rolling stock and too many duplicated routes. 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. Around 1,300 miles (2,100 km) of passenger railways closed between 1923 and 1939. These closures included
3306-598: The British Transport Commission in March 1961. He would receive the same yearly salary that he was earning at ICI, the controversial sum of £24,000 (£675,000 in 2023 terms), £10,000 more than Sir Brian Robertson , the previous chairman of the BTC, £14,000 more than Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, and two-and-a-half times higher than the salary of any head of a nationalised industry at the time. At that time
3393-581: The British railway system reached its height in the years immediately before the First World War , with a network of 23,440 miles (37,720 km). The network had opened up major travel opportunities for the entire country that had never been available before. However, lines were sometimes uneconomic, and several Members of Parliament had direct involvement with railways, creating a conflict of interest. In 1909, Winston Churchill , then President of
3480-547: The Golden Valley Line, partly to facilitate a diversionary route during electrification and other works on the Severn tunnel line. The Conservatives increased their Commons majority in the general election of 8 October 1959 , their first with Harold Macmillan as Prime Minister. Ernest Marples , previously Postmaster General , was made Transport Minister two weeks later in a cabinet reshuffle; Macmillan noted that
3567-493: The Major Railway Trunk Routes (1965) – that outlined the necessity of improving the efficiency of the railways and the plan for achieving this through restructuring. The first report identified 2,363 stations and 5,000 miles (8,000 km) of railway line for closure, amounting to 55% of stations, 30% of route miles, and the loss of 67,700 British Rail jobs, with an objective of stemming
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3654-539: The Northern working-class boy who had won a scholarship to a grammar school was one of only two "self-made men" in his cabinet. Marples had a background with a successful road construction company. When opening the M1 motorway , he said: "This motorway starts a new era in road travel. It is in keeping with the bold scientific age in which we live. It is a powerful weapon to add to our transport system." His association with
3741-543: The Oxford–Cambridge Varsity Line closed despite its strategic location serving Milton Keynes , Britain's largest "new town". Kinross-shire, and Fife especially, suffered closures not included in the Report, including the main line from Edinburgh to Perth. King's Lynn was to have remained at the centre of routes towards Norwich , Hunstanton and Wisbech , all of which closed. With a few exceptions, after
3828-695: The San Rosendo-Talcahuano branch line, which has been taken over by Biotrén and the Laja-Talcahuano train service) however, there is one branch line that still remains as fully operative. The Talca-Constitución branch line, which uses trains with bus motors. Two extensions to the MTR rapid transit network were built as branches of existing lines: the Lok Ma Chau Spur Line to Lok Ma Chau station , which opened in 2007; and
3915-623: The U.S. state of New Jersey . The line is a short branch of the Northeast Corridor Line , running from Princeton Junction northwest to Princeton with no intermediate stops. Also known as the "Dinky Line", at 2.9 mi (4.7 km) it is the shortest scheduled commuter rail line in the United States. The run takes 4 minutes, 47 seconds. Other than the Princeton Line, other surviving branch lines include
4002-499: The US Rail Bank scheme, which holds former railway land for possible future use, was not seen to be practical. Many redundant structures from closed lines remain, such as bridges over other lines and drainage culverts. They often require maintenance as part of the rail infrastructure while providing no benefit. Critics of Beeching argue that the lack of recommendations on the handling of closed railway property demonstrates that
4089-469: The United States and Canada, branch lines link smaller towns too distant from the main line to be served efficiently, or to serve a certain industrial site such as a power station either because of a location away from the main line or to reduce congestion. They were typically built to lower standards, using lighter rail and shallow roadbeds when compared to main lines. Much of Canada's branch line history relates to large rail transport conglomerates (such as
4176-606: The Wadamisaki industrial area of Kobe . Although the line is officially part of the Sanyo Main Line , there is no regular through service between the branch and the main line, and Wadamisaki Branch trains depart from a separate platform at Hyogo. Because the line has no intermediate station and Wadamisaki Station is unmanned, all fare collection is conducted at Hyogo. The line makes just two daily roundtrips on weekends, with additional trips for events at Noevir Stadium ,
4263-459: The axe man, but it was surgery, not mad chopping". On 7 June 2019, former Minister for Transport Andrew Adonis delivered a speech on "Reversing Beeching". Since the Beeching cuts, road traffic levels have grown significantly. As well, since privatisation in the mid-1990s, there have been record levels of passengers on the railways owing to a preference to living in smaller towns and rural areas, and in turn commuting longer distances (although
4350-527: The beginning of a protest movement led by the Railway Development Association, whose most famous member was the poet John Betjeman . They went on to be a significant force resisting the Beeching proposals. Economic recovery and the end of petrol rationing led to rapid growth in car ownership and use. Vehicle mileage grew at a sustained annual rate of 10% between 1948 and 1964. In contrast, railway traffic remained steady during
4437-473: The cause of this is disputed ). A few of the railway closures have been reversed. 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. Some closed stations have reopened , and passenger services have been restored on
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#17328010928264524-616: The coasts of north Devon, Cornwall and East Anglia aside from Norwich to Great Yarmouth. All services on the Isle of Wight were recommended for closure, as were all branch lines in the Lake District . One of the most significant closures was the Great Central Main Line from London Marylebone to Leicester and Sheffield. Not all the recommended closures were implemented. Reprieved lines include: The Beeching Report
4611-502: The company during his term of office, but it did lead to a sense of unease, not least within the railway sector. In April 1960, Sir Ivan Stedeford established an advisory group known as the Stedeford Committee at the request of Harold Macmillan to report on the state of the British Transport Commission and to make recommendations. Sir Ewart Smith , a retired former Chief Engineer at Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI),
4698-428: The continued withholding of the report and its recommendations. 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". Marples then appointed Beeching as Chairman of
4785-590: The early 1970s proposals to close other lines were met with vociferous public opposition and were shelved. Beeching's reports made no recommendations about the handling of land after closures. British Rail operated a policy of disposing of land that was surplus to requirements. Many bridges, cuttings and embankments have been removed and the land sold for development. Closed station buildings on remaining lines have often been demolished or sold for housing or other purposes. Increasing pressure on land use meant that protection of closed trackbeds, as in other countries, such as
4872-522: The economic costs of having two break-bulk points combined to make long-distance road transport a more viable alternative. Many of the closed lines had run at only a small deficit. Some lines such as the Sunderland -to-West Hartlepool line cost only £291 per mile to operate. Closures of such small-scale loss-making lines made little difference to the overall deficit. Possible changes to light railway -type operations were attacked by Beeching, who rejected all proposals for cost savings that would not make
4959-405: The end of the 1960s it became increasingly clear that rail closures were not bringing the rail system out of deficit and were unlikely ever to do so. Transport minister Barbara Castle decided that some rail services, which could not pay their way but had a valuable social role, should be subsidised. Legislation allowing this was introduced in the Transport Act 1968 . Section 39 made provision for
5046-432: The first president of the Canadian National Railway , said that although most branch lines cannot pay for themselves, they are even essential to make main lines pay. In the United States, abandonment of unproductive branch lines was a byproduct of deregulation of the rail industry through the Staggers Act . The Princeton Branch is a commuter rail line and service owned and operated by New Jersey Transit (NJT) in
5133-613: The formal end of his secondment. The first report was accepted by the Conservative government of the day, which argued that many services could be provided more effectively by buses. Most recommendations were subsequently taken forward by the Labour government elected in 1964, but many of the proposed closures sparked protests from communities that would lose their trains, a number of which (especially rural communities) had no other public transport. Line closures had been running at about 150–300 miles per year between 1950 and 1961. They peaked at 1,000 miles (1,600 km) in 1964 and came to
5220-435: 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 Transport Act 1962 dissolved the British Transport Commission (BTC), which had overseen the railways, canals and road freight transport and established
5307-439: The high-profile construction company Marples Ridgway became a matter of concern to both the public and politicians. As is customary, he resigned as a director of the company in 1951 on becoming a junior minister, but he only disposed of his shares in the company in 1960 after the company won a contract to build the Hammersmith Flyover , when questions were asked both in the media and also in the Commons on 28 January 1960; he made
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#17328010928265394-523: The home stadium of J-League football club Vissel Kobe . The line was opened on 8 July 1890, and electrified in 2001. There is also a spur to the now-defunct Hyōgo Kaigan Line (operated 1910–1984) about 1 km away from Hyōgo Station and a link to the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries shipbuilding facility at Kobe Shipyard just after Wadamisaki Station. 34°39′35.2″N 135°10′5.6″E / 34.659778°N 135.168222°E / 34.659778; 135.168222 Branch line A branch line
5481-448: The large losses being incurred during a period of increasing competition from road transport and reducing the rail subsidies necessary to keep the network running. The second report identified a small number of major routes for significant investment. Such was the scale of these cuts that the programme came to be colloquially referred to as the Beeching Axe, though the 1963 report also recommended some less well-publicised changes; including
5568-427: The late 19th century to open up inland regions for farming and other economic activities. The branches in the South Island regions were often general-purpose lines that carried predominantly agricultural traffic, but lines elsewhere were often built to serve a specific resource: on the West Coast , an extensive network of branch lines was built in rugged terrain to serve coal mines, while in the central North Island and
5655-448: The least-used 50% of stations contributed only 2% of passenger revenue, and that one third of route miles carried just 1% of passengers. By way of example, he noted that the line from Thetford to Swaffham carried five trains each weekday in each direction, carrying an average of nine passengers with only 10% of the costs of operating the line covered by fares; another example was the Gleneagles-Crieff-Comrie line which had ten trains
5742-483: The modernisation plan must be adapted to this new shape" and with the premise that the railways should be run as a profitable business. Beeching first studied traffic flows on all lines to identify "the good, the bad, and the indifferent". His analysis showed that the least-used 1,762 stations had annual passenger receipts of less than £2,500 each (£73,000 as of 2024 ), that over half of the 4,300 stations open to passengers in 1960 had receipts of less than £10,000, that
5829-455: The number of railway wagons had fallen 29% from 1,200,000 to 848,000. The first Beeching report, titled The Reshaping of British Railways , was published on 27 March 1963. 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. In particular, the railway system must be modelled to meet current needs, and
5916-406: The rail network to a mere 1,630 miles (2,620 km), leaving only 22 miles (35 km) of railway in Wales (a section of the South Wales Main Line from the Severn Tunnel to Cardiff Central ) and none in Somerset, Devon or Cornwall. 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,
6003-457: The railway system "stabilised" at around 11,000 route miles (17,700 km). Section 39 of the Transport Act 1968 made provision for grants to be paid in relation to loss-making lines and services, but many of the services and railway lines that would have qualified had already been closed. A number of branch lines and local services were saved by this legislation. After 1970, when the Conservatives were returned to power , serious thought
6090-483: The railways had not been restored to profitability and Beeching's approach appeared to many to have failed. 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. However, the precise savings from closures are impossible to calculate. The Ministry of Transport subsequently estimated that rail operating costs had been cut by over £100 million in
6177-436: The railways had owned. However, by the mid-20th century, railways began neglecting lines in western agricultural regions. This was historically driven by factors such as the Crow Rate , which regulated the price railways could charge for shipping grain. Railways had little incentive to invest in rural Prairie branch lines, but were legally unable to abandon them under the National Transportation Act , which also did not provide
6264-420: The railways' ability to transport goods "door to door" was dramatically reduced. As in the passenger model, it was assumed that lorries would pick up goods and transport them to the nearest railhead, where they would be taken across the country by train, unloaded onto another lorry and taken to their destination. The development of the motorway network, the advent of containerisation , improvements in lorries and
6351-499: The remaining lines should be kept open only for freight. A total of 2,363 stations were to close, including 435 already under threat, both on lines that were to close and on lines that were to remain open. He recommended that freight services should mainly be for bulk commodities such as minerals and coal, and that the freight system make use of new containerised handling systems rather than less efficient and slower wagon-load traffic. The latter recommendation would prove prescient with
6438-440: The replacement bus services were slower and less convenient than the trains they were meant to replace, and so were unpopular. 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. Most replacement bus services lasted less than two years before they were removed due to
6525-440: The report was short-sighted. On the other hand, retaining a railway on these routes, which would obviously have increased maintenance costs, might not have earned enough to justify that greater cost. 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. By 1968,
6612-507: The requirements of the customer the spur is serving. In heavily industrialized areas, it is not uncommon for one industrial spur to have multiple sidings to several different customers. Typically, spurs are serviced by local trains responsible for collecting small numbers of railcars and delivering them to a larger yard, where these railcars are sorted and dispatched in larger trains with other cars destined to similar locations. Because industrial spurs generally have less capacity and traffic than
6699-599: The rise of intermodal freight transport in the following decades. On 16 February 1965, Beeching introduced the second stage of his reorganisation of the railways. In his report, The Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes , he set out his conclusion that of the 7,500 miles (12,100 km) of trunk railway only 3,000 miles (4,800 km) "should be selected for future development" and invested in. This policy would result in long-distance traffic being routed along nine lines. Traffic to Coventry , Birmingham , Manchester , Liverpool and Scotland would be routed through
6786-467: The system was predicted to be back in profit by 1962. Instead losses mounted, from £68 million in 1960 to £87 million in 1961, and £104 million in 1962 (£2.8 billion in 2023 terms). The BTC could no longer pay the interest on its loans. By 1961, losses were running at £300,000 a day, despite the fact that since nationalisation in 1948, 3,000 miles (4,800 km) of line had been closed, railway staff numbers had fallen 26% from 648,000 to 474,000, and
6873-402: The wake of the Beeching Report but that much of this had been swallowed up by increased wages. Some of the branches closed acted as feeders to the main lines, and that feeder traffic was lost when the branches closed; the financial significance of this is debatable, for over 90% of the railways' 1960 traffic was carried on lines which remained open ten years later. Whatever the figures, towards
6960-448: Was asked by Ernest Marples to become a member of an advisory group; Smith declined but recommended Richard Beeching in his place, a suggestion that Marples accepted. Beeching, who held a PhD in physics, had been appointed to the main board of ICI at the age of 43. The board consisted of senior figures in British businesses, and none of the board had previous knowledge or experience of the railway industry. Stedeford and Beeching clashed on
7047-504: Was further extended to Vaishali in 2011. The line is planned to be extended from Vaishali to Mohan Nagar via Sahibabad Station to link with the main line. The East West Line of the MRT system in Singapore has a two-station branch to Changi Airport . The first station, Expo , opened in 2001. It was extended to Changi Airport station the next year. From 1990 to 1996, the section of
7134-476: Was given to a further programme of closures, but this proved politically impossible. In 1982, under the government of Margaret Thatcher , Sir David Serpell , a civil servant who had worked with Beeching, compiled the Serpell Report which said that a profitable railway could be achieved only by closing much of what remained. The report's infamous "Option A" proposed greatly increasing fares and reducing
7221-423: Was intended to be cut north of Newcastle. The report was published on 20 January 1983 and received an immediate backlash from the media. It was quietly shelved in the run up to the 1983 election . Ian Hislop comments that history has been somewhat unkind to "Britain's most hated civil servant", by forgetting that Beeching proposed a much better bus service that ministers never delivered, and that in some ways he
7308-479: Was intended to be the first stage in the rail network's contraction. 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 decline of the freight traffic (mostly coal) on which it had relied. Many surviving lines were rationalised, including reduction to single track and consolidation of signals. Most of
7395-502: Was repealed in 1994 in the wake of the North American Free Trade Agreement and budget-balancing initiatives in favour of a one-time payout by the federal government directly to farmers, to arrange transport of grain themselves. From the mid-1970s to the late 2010s, more than 9,300 kilometres (5,800 mi) of Prairie branch lines were abandoned or had a discontinuance of service. David Blyth Hanna ,
7482-502: Was reported that he had transferred his shares into an Overseas Trust. In July 1964, Marples Ridgway and Partners Limited were awarded a £4.1 million contract for the "Hendon Urban Motorway" extension of the M1, in the same year that the company was taken over by the Bath and Portland Group. There was no evidence of any wrongdoing on anyone's part in this or any of the other contracts awarded to
7569-443: Was used to do their "dirty work for them". Hislop describes him as "a technocrat [who] wasn't open to argument to romantic notions of rural England or the warp and weft of the train in our national identity. He didn't buy any of that. He went for a straightforward profit and loss approach and some claim we are still reeling from that today". Beeching was unrepentant about his role in the closures: "I suppose I'll always be looked upon as
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