Sabotage ahead of Beeching's cuts?

[Mad McCann]

Absolutely. When BR 'drove away' freight traffic in the 1980s by the 'simple expedient' (so seen by many) of increasing its rates we were under very strict instructions not to reveal the truth of what was happening. In reality what happened was that an instruction from The Treasury changed the calculated rate of return BR was required to make on freight traffic leaving it with the only option, in many cases, of increasing its charges while knowing full well that the higher rates would not be competitive and traffic would be lost.

 

Come privatisation, and freed of theoretical nonsense from The Treasury, some of the lost traffic was quickly, and profitably, regained by what became EWS. Similarly BR's passenger fares were effectively driven as much by The Treasury's requirements as they were by anything else - but again BR got the blame.

That's pretty much the story I heard too Mike.

Do you think, that perhaps at the highest levels there may also have been ministerial pressure with a view to the BRB then being in a position to sell off redundant yards for the benefit of property spivs..., sorry, developers?

 

D4

Edited December 12, 2017 by Mad McCann

[TheSignalEngineer]

That's pretty much the story I heard too Mike.

Do you think, that perhaps at the highest levels there may also have been ministerial pressure with a view to the BRB then being in a position to sell off redundant yards for the benefit of property spivs..., sorry, developers?

 

D4

In the late 1960s I was dealing with a lot of 'Redundant Assets' schemes. We were definitely under pressure from the politicos to declare everything beyond 15 feet from the running lines as Non-operational and hand it over to the Property Board for lease or sale. 

 

A few years later I had to get back a bridge abutment at Leamington to put some signalling equipment on it. I think we paid £1 to take a lease on the top of the structure.

See https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!1m18!1m12!1m3!1d597.6680643845965!2d-1.532176945390603!3d52.28405622891671!2m3!1f0!2f0!3f0!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!3m3!1m2!1s0x0%3A0x0!2zNTLCsDE3JzAyLjYiTiAxwrAzMSc1NC4yIlc!5e1!3m2!1sen!2suk!4v1513111336281

Edited December 12, 2017 by TheSignalEngineer

[chris p bacon]

 There was also a coach service between Oxford and Cambridge, operated jointly by Percivals of Oxford and Premier Travel of Cambridge; Again, still going in the mid-70s and used for spotting at Hitchin and Cambridge. Today there is a half-hourly coach between Oxford and Cambridge, although personally I still hope that the East/West rail link comes to fruition, eventually.

 

The issue with the replacement coach/bus service is that it didn't serve the intermediary stations such as Sandy & Potton,  (Potton for a small station had quite high traffic receipts).

 

East/West still looks to be happening, although the timescale has lengthened somewhat. 

[Mike Storey]

Given that previous threads have highlighted how the Treasury factors in the cost of lost fuel duty and car tax into their BCR/balance sheets of Public Transport vs. Private Road Transport, your point seems entirely logical.

 

It no longer does so, but that certainly was the case for decades, and helped ruin the financial viability of many scheme proposals. 

[Mike Storey]

That was known about at the time and was no secret! That was why several traffics became Railfreight Distribution as it had a lower return on capital than other sectors!

 

Mark Saunders

 

Indeed. It was RfD that managed almost all freight traffic in Kent (apart from coal and clayliner block trains) regardless of ultimate sector owner. Indeed they managed to increase it for a while, such as oil at Canterbury, furniture, bottled water and suchlike at Sittingbourne, new cars, timber, liquid oxygen, steel and scrap along the Sheppey branch, aggregates at Angersteins, and so on. I suspect the costs and revenue splits between the sectors were somewhat complex, and the superior element of market pricing that RfD could manage probably helped.

[roythebus]

There was also a degree of sabotage in the post-Beehing era. I was a driver at Addicombe in 1978-May 1980. The line from Wooside to Sanderstead had 12 car platforms and semaphore signalling as well as a couple of tunnels. It used to have through trains to London. Some time in 1979 the semaphores were either replaced or moved "for sighting reasons" with newer semaphores; stations were painted, sign replaced withe the corporate image. 

 

However, even in those days there was rumour that the whole lot would be closed and turned into a tramway, along with the Spratt & Winkle line. (Wimbledon-West Croydon). there were passenger surveys done by what appeared to be retired gentlemen. The Sanderstead line took 3 units to run each peak, 3 drivers, 3 guards and an extra signalman per shift. Passenger numbers were limited, but why then, when the writing was on the wall did they waste money repainting everything?

 

Remember too that Beeching did have some Really good Ideas, like Freightliner trains, block trains and the like, moves which probably saved the future of freight on the railways. I recently read the book I think an Ian Allan publication about Beeching. He is shown in a rather more favourable light there than he is given credit for. He also gave us the regular interval services on the WCML post-electrification, and wasn't the Bournemouth electrification done on his watch?

[John_Hughes]

Remember when the NCB took the money donated to the Aberfan families to make good their negligently constructed waste tips.

 

Handed over by the Labour Government of the day with the happy connivance of George Thomas MP, and only finally repaid to the Aberfan Fund after the National Assembly had been created - but still without the due interest for over 30 years of a 'loan' taken by force majeure.

 

And then some people wonder why politicians aren't trusted.

[The Johnster]

There was also a degree of sabotage in the post-Beehing era. I was a driver at Addicombe in 1978-May 1980. The line from Wooside to Sanderstead had 12 car platforms and semaphore signalling as well as a couple of tunnels. It used to have through trains to London. Some time in 1979 the semaphores were either replaced or moved "for sighting reasons" with newer semaphores; stations were painted, sign replaced withe the corporate image. 

 

However, even in those days there was rumour that the whole lot would be closed and turned into a tramway, along with the Spratt & Winkle line. (Wimbledon-West Croydon). there were passenger surveys done by what appeared to be retired gentlemen. The Sanderstead line took 3 units to run each peak, 3 drivers, 3 guards and an extra signalman per shift. Passenger numbers were limited, but why then, when the writing was on the wall did they waste money repainting everything?

 

Remember too that Beeching did have some Really good Ideas, like Freightliner trains, block trains and the like, moves which probably saved the future of freight on the railways. I recently read the book I think an Ian Allan publication about Beeching. He is shown in a rather more favourable light there than he is given credit for. He also gave us the regular interval services on the WCML post-electrification, and wasn't the Bournemouth electrification done on his watch?

 

I think Bournemouth was done post Beeching, but may have been authorised in his time.  

 

I am not personally impressed with the block trains pro-Beeching argumant, as these had been around for many years, and rather than 'invent' the concept he merely promoted it as a type of operation for which railways are superior to road transport (this was definitely not the received wisdom in the early 60s when the road haulage industry was expanding and looked like 'the future' for which the motorway network was being built) at the cost of wagon load or 'smalls' traffic.  Freightliners were an inevitable extension of the conflat traffic that had also been around for years and which BR promoted heavily, if not always successfully (remember the 'Condor', a publicity gift to the road haulage lobby!).

 

Beeching was a bean counter, and sadly bean counter slash and burn culture dominated the railway in those days; costs had to be cut at all, er, costs.  To be fair to him, he was drafted in for a particular job, to stem the increasing and unacceptable losses, and did it in the way bean counters do; he isolated the loss making parts of the business and cut them, without having the holistic awareness that this would hobble the profit making parts, depriving them of traffic, for the next decade and a half.  Losses actually increased post-Beeching, but whether they would have done so to a lesser or greater extent without his efforts is  another argument, which I am not qualified to involve myself in (though I have an opinion).

[Fenman]

I think Bournemouth was done post Beeching, but may have been authorised in his time.

 

I am not personally impressed with the block trains pro-Beeching argumant, as these had been around for many years, and rather than 'invent' the concept he merely promoted it as a type of operation for which railways are superior to road transport (this was definitely not the received wisdom in the early 60s when the road haulage industry was expanding and looked like 'the future' for which the motorway network was being built) at the cost of wagon load or 'smalls' traffic. Freightliners were an inevitable extension of the conflat traffic that had also been around for years and which BR promoted heavily, if not always successfully (remember the 'Condor', a publicity gift to the road haulage lobby!).

 

Beeching was a bean counter, and sadly bean counter slash and burn culture dominated the railway in those days; costs had to be cut at all, er, costs. To be fair to him, he was drafted in for a particular job, to stem the increasing and unacceptable losses, and did it in the way bean counters do; he isolated the loss making parts of the business and cut them, without having the holistic awareness that this would hobble the profit making parts, depriving them of traffic, for the next decade and a half. Losses actually increased post-Beeching, but whether they would have done so to a lesser or greater extent without his efforts is another argument, which I am not qualified to involve myself in (though I have an opinion).

I understand you despise the man, but belittling him as nothing more than a "bean counter" is just nonsense.

 

Paul

[The Stationmaster]

That's pretty much the story I heard too Mike.

Do you think, that perhaps at the highest levels there may also have been ministerial pressure with a view to the BRB then being in a position to sell off redundant yards for the benefit of property spivs..., sorry, developers?

 

D4

 

The sale of redundant land was pretty carefully thought about.  first of all it had to be declared 'non-operational' which meant there were lots of internal consultations and generally we operators tended to have the final say but if we didn't want it and couldn't think of even a flimsy reason to keep it than non-operational would be agreed to.

 

The good thing about sales of land back then was that BR kept the money and used it for investment.  OK so no doubt in some respects The Treasury offset it against money it might have let BR have for investment but no matter - the money raised by land sales stayed with BR.  Very different from the situation today with NR where the money from anything they sell off now has tp go to The treasury to help the reduction of the state's deficit.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

I can only think that typical fares (and freight rates) must have been much higher relative to average wages in the "heyday" of railways, if the railway was to pay all those staff, make an operating profit and even pay a dividend as many did at the time.  But the railways are always said to have made travel possible for the masses, so they couldn't have been that unaffordable.  Does anyone have any data on this? 

 I don't have the data but can offer you some thoughts on the context.

 

The railways were constructed and operated for their first near century in a country subsidised by an empire both producing cheap food and other goods, and purchasing UK manufactures in a UK controlled export market, and in which there was little social provision beyond what local bodies provided. The money to invest in railway construction was largely from elsewhere as aa result, and was cheap capital. Coal and other essential materials to operate industries were economically won in good quality: as an example none of the expense of digging and operating a deep mine, when an eight  foot seam of high grade 'steam coal' could be accessed from an outcrop on the side of a hill!

 

And the labour cost was low too. People moving to urban centres with all their filth and inadequate housing did so because the countryside was frequently a picturesque slum with tiny wages where you could easily die of starvation and disease. Emptying the countryside of population took a long time, ensuring a steady stream of recruits. In an urban environment you still often got to die, but with more money and a better chance of advancement by practical education for yourself and your kids, freed from an effective caste system in the countryside, where you were expected to 'know your place'. (A late friend from our congregation who died having passed her century what is now thirty years ago, would often recall that she was whipped as a child by an estate servant for failing to curtsy to 'her ladyship'. Standards clearly had to be maintained in C19th Sussex to keep the revolutionary potential damped down.)

 

Then look at the constructio of the railway and its equipment. It was very simple in most respects. Just in terms of basic passenger accomodation, once the use of open vehicles had been banned necessitating the expense of a roof, it still remained just a shelter on wheels with wooden benches, no w.c. or any other provision for comfort. (I have seen some data in which it was estimated that a pre-1850 wagon could repay its construction from the profit of its first two months carrying freight. This sort of thing led some railways into trouble as they failed to appreciate that the accruing maintenance and eventual replacement would have to be funded from the income. Nonetheless, the railways were able to build locomotives from the revenue account as late as early C20th, no need to pester the board for capital allocation...)

 

The railway was a premium employer on top of all that, and not always very scrupulous either. Working hours could be elastic and employee capability could be marginal, so too most likely the wages. The glorious description in Red for Danger of a Somerset and Dorset signalman not strong enough to pull the signal levers, nor able to 'read good', and one of the local supervisory staff who had finally finished work after putting in something like a seventeen hour day - oh, and then there was an accident which was how all this was detected - you may bet was not unique to that location.

 

As for the fares, the infant GNR's achievement was to discover that offering low price fares for the Great Exhibition was a winner. The parliamentary trains for a start had to operate. Jamming the dogboxes full of the poor attracted by the cheap fare brought in money with little incremental expense and effectively advertised the railway's potential to those who had travelled.

[Coryton]

The sale of redundant land was pretty carefully thought about.  first of all it had to be declared 'non-operational' which meant there were lots of internal consultations and generally we operators tended to have the final say but if we didn't want it and couldn't think of even a flimsy reason to keep it than non-operational would be agreed to.

 

The good thing about sales of land back then was that BR kept the money and used it for investment.  OK so no doubt in some respects The Treasury offset it against money it might have let BR have for investment but no matter - the money raised by land sales stayed with BR.  Very different from the situation today with NR where the money from anything they sell off now has tp go to The treasury to help the reduction of the state's deficit.

 

With Railtrack didn't they also get to keep the income, supposedly to re-invest but in practise just to end up in the shareholders' pockets?