Hastening The End Of Rail Steam Traction?

[amyasleigh]

A conspiracy-theory scenario occasionally floated, concerning a hobby-type passion of mine; would be interested in any thoughts / comments. Many people (myself included) are captivated, on a basically “aesthetic” level, by the steam railway locomotive and the sight / sound / smell of it in action. General “accepted wisdom” holds that steam locos are, however, not a very efficient means for haulage – whereby their replacement by more efficient types of rail motive power, when the moment for same arrived technology-wise and otherwise, was inevitable.

Some steam-loco enthusiasts (basically informed and educated folk, i.e. not totally-naïve loonies) have spoken and written in favour of rail steam traction, suggesting that its rapid and often wasteful total replacement on railways worldwide over the past sixty-odd years by electric and diesel motive power, has owed a lot to the action of vested interests; and has often not made much sense. It would be hard to deny that the oil and internal-combustion-vehicle industries have had strong incentives to try to the maximum, to “sell their wares” to the world’s railways, in respect of diesel-powered vehicles, to the detriment of perceivedly archaic steam-powered ditto.

A different aspect of this perceived scenario, sometimes arises. Namely, the suggestion that in the aftermath of World War II; with the world’s rapid dividing between the Western and Communist blocs, those in charge in the West, put on pressure for – above all else in Western Europe – the railways to maximise and intensify the change from steam traction to more modern motive power, especially diesel. Reason being: in Western Europe the work-forces of the coal-mining industry, and the railways, had long been strongly given to radical / socialist / Communist political views. With the Cold War having arisen: it was seen as a way to counter the coal-miners / railwaymen, liable to obey instructions from Moscow to withhold their labour to make things difficult for their own countries (the two industries closely linked, with the railways needing coal to fire their steam locos); by pushing politically, strongly, for the abolition of steam traction as soon as possible on the railways of Western Europe (including Britain), so as to if possible nullify the threat of the countries concerned, being held to ransom as described.

“Whatever”; steam in genuine commercial service has all but vanished from the world. Would just be interested to know – if can be known – whether there’s any truth in the “Cold War connection” thing as above; or whether it’s nonsense dreamed up by wishful-thinking puffer-nutters.

 

[Cavynaut]

I think it was more that the railways wanted to be perceived as modern in the face of competition from private transport. The acceleration in the withdrawal of steam in the late 1950's and early 1960's coincides neatly with the consumer boom and Wilson's 'White heat of technology'.

Must agree that it was very wasteful though...the 9F's were expected to last until the early 80's as far as I recall. And the rush to dieselisation meant that much money was wasted on untried and badly designed locomotives such as the Class 28, the Class 22/29.

Edit: There was also a brief flirtation with using oil to fire steam locomotives just after the war when coal was in short supply. That came to nothing either. No, I think that steam was simply seen as an out dated technology which had no place in the modern world.....sadly.

 

[Cavynaut]

Just remembered this..

The 1950's and 60's were also a time of almost full employment, and the steam railway was very labour intensive. British Railways found it hard to attract staff to work in a very dirty industry, and the rapid dieselisation should be seen in that context as well. Do you remember the saying that drivers had?

"All I want is a new Type 2,
Derby built and painted blue."

 

[Paul_Exeter]

In the early 1950's, the Government was pushing through the Clean Air Act that would see the introduction of smokeless fuel zones in all British cities.

This came about as a result of the infamous smogs i.e. the Great Smog of 1952, which cost many lives.

The Act was passed in 1956, but didn't tackle the thousands of coal-burning steam locomotives belching smoke into city skies. The huge sheds which serviced these locos were all situated in built-up areas, not to mention the freight yards etc.

Today, we can be nostalgic about a lovingly restored heritage steam loco chuffing through the countryside, but, as already stated above, they were dirty, oily things.

Also. road coach competition was eating into rail passenger traffic, especially amongst the female demographic. This was a direct result of the 'smuts' of soot that would get drawn into passenger compartments during journeys, landing on clothes and hair.

Finally, the US was pushing ahead with diesel power. Let's face it, whatever America does, we follow.

 

[amyasleigh]

I don't know how to multi-quote: making shift to do replies as best can, not in the smoothest, most economical way possible.

Must agree that it was very wasteful though...the 9F's were expected to last until the early 80's as far as I recall.

Indeed, the incredible wastefulness of the process, 1950s to late 1960s. No continental Western European country went on building steam for itrs public railways, for anything like so long as Britain did. Expectation of at least some "new-build" lasting till the 80s: I do gather that steam would indeed have lasted longer, had it not been for the line closures en masse, mid-1960s onward, basically in line with the Beeching Report's recommendations. These moves were not foreseen during BR's building-steam-new programme -- there came to be, rather rapidly, far less mileage needing motive power (of any kind) to work it.

Edit: There was also a brief flirtation with using oil to fire steam locomotives just after the war when coal was in short supply. That came to nothing either. No, I think that steam was simply seen as an out dated technology which had no place in the modern world.....sadly.

In some parts of the world, oil-firing was prolongedly used for some or all of their steam loco fleets -- but nowhere did that save steam up to anywhere near the present day.

Cavynaut also writes: "The 1950's and '60's were also a time of almost full employment, and the steam railway was very labour intensive. British Railways found it hard to attract staff to work in a very dirty industry..."

Yes, the sheer dirtiiness, and hard physical work, not for spectacularly high pay -- difficulty of getting staff: that played a part in the decline of steam, not only in Britain.

 

[amyasleigh]

Today, we can be nostalgic about a lovingly restored heritage steam loco chuffing through the countryside, but, as already stated above, they were dirty, oily things.

One has to concur: coal-burning steam locos, as well as being an inefficient way of turning fossil fuel into traction, are filthy -- especially en masse.

Also. road coach competition was eating into rail passenger traffic, especially amongst the female demographic. This was a direct result of the 'smuts' of soot that would get drawn into passenger compartments during journeys, landing on clothes and hair.

I recall reading a comment from 1950, by a British female author with a sharp eye on the contemporary scene -- I'm pretty sure it was Nancy Mitford -- to the effect that even as early as 1950, Britain's railways were regarded as in a poor state, and that enormous numbers of long-distance travellers had deserted them in favour of road coaches.

Re this, from quite that long ago, I'm inclined to think -- a point of view, but maybe overstated, and from a biased source: I see Nancy as liable to have been extremely contemptuous of trainspotters of any age, and of anything that they might like.

 

[amyasleigh]

More on these matters, generated by Cavynaut's thoughts here:

The 1950's and 60's were also a time of almost full employment, and the steam railway was very labour intensive. British Railways found it hard to attract staff to work in a very dirty industry, and the rapid dieselisation should be seen in that context as well.

A part of the world where this factor applied in an idiosyncratic way, was South Africa. That country long retained steam traction in strength on its railways, in a large measure because of its circumstances in the apartheid era. South Africa having effectively no oil, and enormous reserves of coal, and a potentially enormous non-costly labour force; with trade with much of the rest of the world hampered by the country’s “pariah” status, it made sense to hold on to coal-burning steam on the railways, for longer than would likely have happened, in the absence of this particular political factor.

There was an individual twist to the South African steam traction scene. The system that long prevailed there, endeavoured to protect the less-educated-and-sophisticated elements of the white population, by strictly reserving certain areas of employment, for whites. Work on the railways, was such an area: blacks were allowed into the lowliest of railway jobs, but that was all. So on the South African steam scene, the “grunt work” of cleaning-out, cleaning-up, and replenishing, locos, was basically done by blacks; who could never graduate to becoming footplate crew – that was reserved strictly for whites. Around the 1970s / earlier 80s, difficulties for the railways arose on this front: not enough white guys could be found, willing to work as steam loco firemen – dirty, backbreaking labour, not outstandingly well-paid, many easier employment opportunities. Plenty of blacks, desperate for any kind of work, would have been eager to do this sort; but the political / ideological consideration forbade it.

It came to be, that any white male who showed up and was ready to work as a fireman, was eagerly grabbed by the South African Railways. In this era, some British steam-railway enthusiasts, unhappy at steam having ended in their own country, emigrated to South Africa with the object of working as steam loco firemen – they were “snapped up”, even if they proved not hugely good at the job. (A keen but incompetent enthusiast was at any rate, no worse than an apathetic local deadbeat.) Drift generally got, is that some of these guys had ethical objections to the apartheid system, but “held their noses” and emigrated anyway: the prospect of being welcomed, to do their dream job, was just too sweet. I had occasional, fleeting temptations to embarking on this adventure myself, but took the thing no further. With me, not ethical / ideological objections; just timidity, and perception of many ways in which it could go horribly wrong, and awareness that it’s a kind of work for which (daydreams notwithstanding) I have zero aptitude.

All that stuff is over now, anyway. Ultimately – though more slowly than in most countries – South African Railways fell into line with the worldwide trend, and phased steam out in favour of diesel, and ever-increasing electrification. It finished there in commercial service in the early 1990s – pretty well coinciding with the end of apartheid; but not, in the main, because of that development – just, the overwhelming “way of the world” with this matter.

 

[rynner2]

No continental Western European country went on building steam for itrs public railways, for anything like so long as Britain did.

When I lived in Brightlingsea (Essex) in the 1980s, there was a pub nearby called the Evening Star, after the last steam loco built in Britain.

There was a branch line to Brightlingsea from 1866 to 1964, which was another Beeching casualty. Wiki gives details at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brightling ... ay_station

This mentions the Railway public house and micro-brewery, but not the Evening Star. Maybe it was renamed? *

There's also a page on the loco:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evening_Star_(locomotive)


* No: a google search reveals the Evening Star is "Now known as the Smugglers Inn" (presumably it was only the Evening Star from the 60s, when the loco was built). That info came via this website, which many people here might find interesting in its own right:
http://deadpubs.co.uk/

 

[amyasleigh]

I just missed being able to travel on the Brightlingsea branch, damn it. It closed in June 1964, if I remember rightly -- early summer, anyway. In August that year, I spent a week travelling widely on BR's Eastern Region, on an unlimited-travel "railrover" ticket -- just a couple of months too late for Brightlingsea.

The loco "Evening Star" (class 9F 2-10-0, number 92220) ran for a mere five years in commercial service. Even knowing all the reasons and attendant circumstances -- one has to feel about the situation, "that wasn't very clever". At least the locomotive has been preserved.

 

[jacolantern]

I really missed the whole steam train era due to being a mere whippersnapper, but near to where i live is a centre run by volunteers that allows you to go into a preserved station, buy a ticket and travel on a steam train. This i did last summer with the girls and it was wonderful-albeit far too short.
Having travelled on modern trains a bit, to then compare that with the experience of this journey which was over all too soon, i understand the whole steam train bug that keeps these people volunteering their time and probably money aswell to try and keep this going.
Talking to a man after who was working in one of the maintainance sheds he said that it wasn't lack of interest that was making it ever harder to keep going, but reams of legislation that they constantly have to deal with.
S'funny-makes me all nostalgic for something i never experienced.

 

[rynner2]

Another factoid about the Brightlingsea line is that it's demise "was supposedly prompted by the high costs of maintaining the railway swing bridge over Alresford Creek, which was necessary to allow boat traffic to the many sand and gravel pits in the area".

My frequent visits to Hayle to watch the new bridge being built also takes me to the old iron swing bridge there.
http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/Detai ... 2&id=70175

It carried a roadway, and a single track railway which descended from the main line just west of Hayle station, and went out to North Quay. The railway part of the bridge is now a footpath. I took many of my photos of the new bridge building (which is taking place just to the right of the iron bridge) from this footpath.

When the new bridge is complete, I hear that the swing bridge will be removed and sent away for renovation work, as it is a listed National Monument.

I was also interested in the references to 'the canal' and the 'lock' in the link given above, as I'd assumed that Copperhouse Creek had always been tidal. So that's something new I've learned! (A photographer in Falmouth has a photo of a sailing regatta in Copperhouse Creek, in about 1947, but I think it's probably too shallow for that nowadays, even for dinghies at high tide.)

More on the spur line shortly.

 

[rynner2]

This shows the swing bridge behind the early stages of the new bridge construction, last September. (Behind the swing bridge is the tide gate.)

The drop from the main line railway to the iron bridge is quite steep at first. The trackway is now another footpath, where you'll find this plaque:

I haven't been able to find out details of this 'sand drag', nor do I know what Barlow rails are (and I don't think they're there now).

North of the swing bridge is another, fixed, bridge, which took the railway over the old North Sluice from Copperhouse Pool:

Most of what remained of the old rails have been removed by all the new construction work, but one small section remains - for now...

...and I expect this will disappear too when they finish the new roadway.
(To help you get your bearings, that's the same parked car in those last two pics.)

 

[amyasleigh]

jacolantern, I find your post heartening. I (born 1948) am from the last generation that – in childhood – knew steam on Britain’s railways as the norm, and in my case fell in love with it. Some railway enthusiasts of my vintage, opine that when our generation dies – or becomes too old and feeble to do practical work – there will be a dreadful dearth of steam-lovers, to carry on as volunteers on preserved steam railways (younger generations not having known the thing for real, thus not having got the bug) – whence the end seen, for most if not all preserved steam railways.

I’ve always felt that “take”, to be too pessimistic – no doubt there are getting to be fewer steam devotees, but “nowhere is it written” that save in very exceptional cases, you had to have known it in its “everyday” form, for it to mean anything to you – your post, j/o/l, reinforces my view. Bureaucratic / legislative nonsense, can be resisted – acute lack of personnel, is a more fundamental problem.

I’ve done little, myself, for steam preservation – combination of being a lazy so-and-so, and “fingers all thumbs”, and fonder of armchair engagement, as opposed to front-line ditto; I do support with an annual subscription, a couple of preservation societies. Kudos from me, though, to all who are active in the preservation movement.

 

[amyasleigh]

rynner2 -- interesting stuff, thanks. Find self a little bit shamefaced re the Hayle Wharf / Quay branch. I did in 1971, a tour in the West Country with some railfan friends, covering various rail lines not yet travelled by us. The tour included a few journeys over freight-only lines (which could be arranged with the relevant division of British Railways, for a fee -- you travelled in the brake van of the goods train).

I was never a red-hot "cover-every-possible-inch-of-the-system geek" (taking this last word as complimentary, not contemptuous) -- if line had never had a passenger service, I usually wasn't interested. In '71, I opted out of the Hayle Wharf branch goods (and the fee for travelling on it), when the rest of the party enthusiastically rode on said train. The impassioned "line-bashers" will just have to call me "Mr. Lukewarm" and spew me out of their mouths...

 

[rynner2]

There's an apparently thriving group restoring part of the old Helston branch line:

http://www.helstonrailway.co.uk/

Most of the route of the line can still be traced on the OS map. It seems to have branched off from the Penzance line a few miles west of Camborne.


One branch line that survived the Beeching era is the Truro-Falmouth one. It just runs one or two-coach deisel passenger trains, but recently it's been upgraded: the line has been doubled at Penryn to allow trains to pass each other, so the service is now much more frequent. But it would be great to see steam trains puffing across the various viaducts!

 

[amyasleigh]

Would be lovely to have the Helston branch back again / for it never to have been closed. To Great Britain's southernmost station, Helston -- further south than Penzance. Junction off the main line was Gwinear Road station, now closed.

A Cornish line that I always fancied, was the one from Chacewater on the Penzance main line, to Newquay -- served St. Agnes and Perranporth via a wondrously twisting-and-winding course. Abandoned IIRC in 1962 or '63. We had a family holiday in Cornwall, near Redruth, planned for summer 1960 or '61 -- had to be called off, due to illness in family. Had it come to pass, I do hope and trust that when down there, I'd have managed to travel the Chacewater -- Newquay line. A frustrating hobby is this one, for very sure.

 

[Cochise]

The huge waste caused by the interference of successive governments in the railways from 1955 on is an indicator of what happens when governments think they know better how to run things than the people trained in that industry. We now see this in almost every area of Government activity. It's not nationalisation per se that is a problem, its the irresistable (apparently) opportunity it gives the Government of the day to meddle in things thay blatantly don't understand.

The destruction of the network of railways by Beeching and the failure to even preserve the rights of way in case they were needed in the future (as some of them now are) was an absolutely shameful act. We would not need HS2 if the Great Central had not been closed down.

Funnily enough I've been researching the Navy from the ECW until Trafalgar, and on the few occasions Parliament directly set parameters regarding ship design the results were equally unsuccessful, so the temptation goes back a long way.

 

[oldrover]

The huge waste caused by the interference of successive governments in the railways from 1955 on is an indicator of what happens when governments think they know better how to run things than the people trained in that industry.

Like BL for example, although strictly speaking that was a failure to prevent a monopoly, but it's similar.

 

[amyasleigh]

The destruction of the network of railways by Beeching and the failure to even preserve the rights of way in case they were needed in the future (as some of them now are) was an absolutely shameful act. We would not need HS2 if the Great Central had not been closed down.

I'm not heavily into the politics of these matters. Do strongly feel, though, that while short, piddling country branch lines were probably doomed whatever happened; re closed long-distance routes, it has indeed been appallingly short-sighted not to keep the roadbeds unobstructed and in place. As said, am no expert; but I do gather that in some other countries, where routes have closed, this thing has been accomplished better than in the UK.

 

[Jerry_B]

This was repeated by the BBC recently (the link below is for the iPlayer version)

Timeshift - The Last Days of Steam

One wonders if, had rural lines been kept, they could've been adapted to run trains like those used currently by the London Overground. I say this as nowadays it is pretty tricky to get to some places where there once were nearby rural stations. Private bus companies have either stopped running or charge a small fortune for pretty shoddy services - well, that's my experience of things trying to get around bits of south Somerset over the years

 

[amyasleigh]

Jerry B -- link looks most interesting – unfortunately I don’t have equipment that can pick it up.

Rural lines, if retained, coming back into their own for passenger traffic: a thought to entertain. It does come to mind that running passenger trains; and maintaining track in a good enough condition to be safe for passenger operation, especially at better than a snail’s pace; would cost a considerable amount of money. That couldn’t be expected to be covered by passenger fares paid: even at the high point of Britain’s railways about a century ago, many country branch lines never covered their operating costs – they were subsidised out of the railway companies’ big profits from their main-line traffic. Funding for rural local passenger services nowadays, has to / would have to come from somewhere.

Plus, on such services, very great numbers of passengers would not be to be looked for – so many country-dwellers in the present time, do virtually everything by private motor transport. Admittedly there is a chicken-and-egg element here: people’s deserting public transport for private ditto, tends to produce lean times for public transport, with less provision of same (not at all a new phenomenon); but if there were more and better public transport, an appreciable number of travellers might be less eager to resort to private transport.

 

[Cavynaut]

The huge waste caused by the interference of successive governments in the railways from 1955 on is an indicator of what happens when governments think they know better how to run things than the people trained in that industry.

To be fair, there was also a lot of resistance to nationalisation from the railway management, many of whom felt a greater degree of loyalty to the pre-1948 companies than they did to British Railways. The ex Great Western management were particularly prone to this, going so far as to insist on using diesel hydraulic locomotives when the rest of the country began to replace steam with diesel electrics. In my view this was a cack handed attempt by the ex GWR management to try and mainitain some kind of separateness from the rest of the system.

The problem with diesel hydraulics was that they were lighter than their diesel electric counterparts, giving them a lack of braking power. This became evident when they were used on goods trains, and as goods trains became heavier and heavier in the 1960's, the diesel hydraulics were found wanting and so began to be replaced, some having had a working life of less than a decade. Millions of pounds wasted because of the stubbornness of the heirs of Brunel.

 

[amyasleigh]

The Great Western Railway and its Western Region successors did, for sure, have a tendency to be individualistic, in various ways. One instance: Great Western steam practice was for the driver’s position on the loco’s footplate – and matched-up with that, the most “key” parts of the controls – to be on the opposite side of the footplate, from what was the convention on the rest of Britain’s railways (I forget which the respective sides, were).

The Great Western had, and continues to have, many impassioned devotees. Those on the rail scene – both professionals and amateurs – who were basically in other camps, often tended to feel, “Bloody GWR ! Think they’re superior to everyone else, and perversely insist on doing things differently, just to make the point...”

 

[Cochise]

The destruction of the network of railways by Beeching and the failure to even preserve the rights of way in case they were needed in the future (as some of them now are) was an absolutely shameful act. We would not need HS2 if the Great Central had not been closed down.

I'm not heavily into the politics of these matters. Do strongly feel, though, that while short, piddling country branch lines were probably doomed whatever happened; re closed long-distance routes, it has indeed been appallingly short-sighted not to keep the roadbeds unobstructed and in place. As said, am no expert; but I do gather that in some other countries, where routes have closed, this thing has been accomplished better than in the UK.

Agree totally. When people consider Beeching, they tend to forget the dmamge he did to the major routes (and to important diversionary routes). They also forget that a program of branch closures and little used intermediate stations was already under way. Beeching's effects are still being felt - many of the bus substitutions on Sundays and Bank Holidays are due to the closures, plus he was of the opinion that the only passenger users of the railways would be weekday commuters.

And don't get me started on privatisation.

What this small packed country needs is integrated mass transport, both for passenger and freight, but the road and anti-union lobbies have conspired over 50 years (Marples!) or more to destroy both the infrastructure and the legal framework for enabling that. So we have far more cars than would otherwise be wanted, and 90+% of our freight is hauled by road with one polluting device to each 30 tons instead of one for each 1000. Against that the relatively small difference in efficiency between steam and diesel doesn't count for a lot. Does anyone remember the days when most freight arrived at a local goods yard and was distributed by little 'Mechanical horses'? What exactly was wrong with that?

And the unions played into their hands - every time they went on strike it was an excuse to shut down more or otherwise take revenge on the members. The ability of governments to bear grudges is in proportion to the amount of resources they can bring to bear - far greater then any union.

And I would never believe any Government that says it is interested in the ecology - what they are interested in is making money for their pals.

 

[Cochise]

The huge waste caused by the interference of successive governments in the railways from 1955 on is an indicator of what happens when governments think they know better how to run things than the people trained in that industry.

To be fair, there was also a lot of resistance to nationalisation from the railway management, many of whom felt a greater degree of loyalty to the pre-1948 companies than they did to British Railways. The ex Great Western management were particularly prone to this, going so far as to insist on using diesel hydraulic locomotives when the rest of the country began to replace steam with diesel electrics. In my view this was a cack handed attempt by the ex GWR management to try and mainitain some kind of separateness from the rest of the system.

The problem with diesel hydraulics was that they were lighter than their diesel electric counterparts, giving them a lack of braking power. This became evident when they were used on goods trains, and as goods trains became heavier and heavier in the 1960's, the diesel hydraulics were found wanting and so began to be replaced, some having had a working life of less than a decade. Millions of pounds wasted because of the stubbornness of the heirs of Brunel.

Have you not heard of continuous brakes, then? Prior to Beeching, there was to be a program of replacing all the unbraked wagons with modern ones - the hydraulics were designed assuming this plan would go ahead. Diesel electrics also needed things called 'brake tenders' because their brakes were insufficient for old-style unbraked freight trains. Should they have been withdrawn and the steamers brought back? Or would it have been better to press ahead with obvious improvements instead of crippling the system with Victorian goods wagons?

The hydraulics were withdrawn not because they failed, but because the Beeching cuts meant that far fewer locos were needed, and smaller classes both hydraulic and diesel electric could be withdrawn - many of them only 8-10 years old.

There is also the possibility Western management were despised because they were often right - they were looking to electrify much of their system in the 1930's but WW2 put a stop to that. And its difficult to become loyal to a management whose policy changes every five years or less when you are responsible for equipment with a 40 or 50 year life. I have no particular axe to grind for the GWR - I come from an LNER family insofar as I have any connections with the rail industry at all, which are minimal - but their main mistake was not to come to terms with the fact that decisions were made (after 1955) on political grounds and not on practicalities.

The main reason they chose hydraulics was because they had decided on a component replacement system for maintaining their new diesels instead of the steam age practice of sending the whole loco back to the main works. Hydraulics had smaller and lighter components that were easy to remove locally and ship back to the works for maintenance while the loco was got back into service with an overhauled component from stock. Guess what the railways (mainly) do now?

The whole program was undermined from the start because the hydraulic technology was German (and metric) and the Government was unhappy with that, insisting that some of the locos were built in te UK to Imperial standards - thus at least partly scuppering the interchangeabiliy concept. Of course now everthing is metric and the main contractor the Government insisted on went bust as a result of the costs of trying to come to terms with unfamiliar technology. (And in any case were responsible for some of the most unreliable locos BR ever owned, both hydraulic and D-E).

 

[amyasleigh]

When people consider Beeching, they tend to forget the dmamge he did to the major routes (and to important diversionary routes). They also forget that a program of branch closures and little used intermediate stations was already under way. Beeching's effects are still being felt - many of the bus substitutions on Sundays and Bank Holidays are due to the closures, plus he was of the opinion that the only passenger users of the railways would be weekday commuters.

While I hate what Beeching recommended, and the fact that his recommendations were largely implemented; he is often loosely referred to as the perpetrator of villainies of which he was not guilty. In the popular mind and popular speech, all railway closures in the first quarter-century of the existence of British Railways, tend to be ascribed to Beeching. As you point out – a lot of service withdrawals happened before his infamous Report appeared in March 1963. In the early 1950s, BR carried out a considerable holocaust of what were seen as hopeless and futureless minor country branch lines; and there were various closures of secondary / tertiary lines covering long distances, and of main-line intermediate stations, around the turn of the 1950s / 60s.

I rather feel that his becoming a popular and not-always-accurate byword, as above, is to some extent because he just sounds so right for his role. “Doctor Beeching” – if one considers that extensive railway closures were basically the right thing to do, then a verb “to beech” – “to remove dead wood” – might be coined. And though his doctorate was not of the medical kind; nonetheless, the “Doctor” part might be figure-of-speeched -- according to whether one agrees with the policies, or not – either as a necessarily cruel-to-be-kind healer, or as an old-style ignorant quack who killed more patients than he cured.

Fifty-odd years ago, as a highly-young-teenage railway enthusiast who heartily cursed the very name of Beeching, I’d not have believed it if told that in 2012, I would occasionally – vis-à-vis implied accusations about stuff which he did not in fact do – feel a bit sorry for the old bastard, and speak up for him on this count. Life changes, though...

What this small packed country needs is integrated mass transport, both for passenger and freight, but the road and anti-union lobbies have conspired over 50 years (Marples!) or more to destroy both the infrastructure and the legal framework for enabling that. So we have far more cars than would otherwise be wanted, and 90+% of our freight is hauled by road with one polluting device to each 30 tons instead of one for each 1000.

Very sadly, this tends to be "the way of the world" -- in many developed countrues, at any rate. Good sense and environmental responsibility are trumped by greed; and, to be fair, by the (understandable) strong desire of many for car-ownership, because of its convenience (even though that convenience is at times nullified by the sheer number of vehicles).

Pre-the 1990s, in countries where Communism held sway, rail was overwhelmingly used, paticularly for freight haulage; the ideology which obtained, considered that that was how things should be. Since the fall of Communism, some Eastern European countries have gone much the same way as Britain, transport-wise -- far less use of rail for both freight and passenger -- with basically not a good effect on the environment.

 

[Paul_Exeter]

There's an apparently thriving group restoring part of the old Helston branch line:

http://www.helstonrailway.co.uk/

Most of the route of the line can still be traced on the OS map. It seems to have branched off from the Penzance line a few miles west of Camborne.


One branch line that survived the Beeching era is the Truro-Falmouth one. It just runs one or two-coach deisel passenger trains, but recently it's been upgraded: the line has been doubled at Penryn to allow trains to pass each other, so the service is now much more frequent. But it would be great to see steam trains puffing across the various viaducts!

It's great to see that ALL the remaining Devon & Cornwall branch lines are busier than ever and running at full capacity Mon - Sat.

A good source of info is to Google the "First Great Western Coffee Shop", which posts passenger usage figures.

The rural lines to Exmouth, Barnstaple, Gunnislake, Looe, Falmouth, Newquay and St Ives have all seen considerable - and long overdue - investment in recent years, both in track work and facilities. A shortage of rolling stock remains the major barrier to further growth.

 

[Paul_Exeter]

Also, plans are afoot to reopen the line to Tavistock (paid for by housing developers) and to put regular passenger services back on the Okehampton line (county council). So if anything, the number of branch lines in the West will increase in the future.

 

[amyasleigh]

Also, plans are afoot to reopen the line to Tavistock (paid for by housing developers)...

Could I ask: line to Tavistock (I take it, from the Plymouth direction) -- which route is involved? The Great Western one via Yelverton; or the Southern Railway one northward from the still-open line at Bere Alston (reversing-point on the Gunnislake line, mentined in your previous post)?

The line to Gunnislake -- I feel it rather a pity that this branch no longer runs the few miles beyond Gunnislake to Callington, which it did till closure of that section in the mid-1960s. Though the terminal station of Callington was a hell of a way out of Callington town -- the best part of two miles.

 

[Cochise]

There certainly was a case for rationalisation, but the importance of diversionary routes in the event of accident or even planned maintenance was overlooked. as more of the Victorian infrastructure needs major updating the effects can only get worse.

To give just one example - the only route left to Cornwall is along the sea wall at Dawlish - it costs a fortune to maintain and will not be viable if the sea does indeed rise. Not to mention the undesireability of electrifying in a place where the sea regularly sends sale water over the trains. But will they put back any of the alternatives? Not bloomin' likely. The PTB's fight tooth and nail (except in Scotland) to put obstacles in the way of putting any of it back, while squandering huge amounts on 'presteige' projects like HS2.

Also, I'm not anti-car, but currently many people have to run two or three per family because of badly-arranged public transport. I'd hate people to be without access to their car (or whatever personal transport floats your boat) but there has to be a way to reduce our dependency on the car for virtually every journey. I can't imagine most people would spend (as I used to) an hour in a car to go 20 miles - two hours out of my life every weekday - if there was any viable alternative.