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Marples and Beeching

Discussion in 'Steam Traction' started by GWR4707, Jan 8, 2020.

  1. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    Thank God our politicians have moved on from those tim … oh, hang on a bit …

    Tom
     
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  2. daveannjon

    daveannjon Well-Known Member

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    Lord Denning sent the female stenographer out of the room when taking evidence in the Stephen Ward inquiry on Marples dealings with prostitutes as he thought them too depraved for her ears.
     
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  3. Fred Kerr

    Fred Kerr Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    I would also point out that the first Inter City DMU trainsets were the Swindon-built Edinburgh - Glasgow 79xxx-series trainsets built in 1955. Whilst based on the experience of the GWR railcars I doubt if the latter could be described as Inter City as they were more of a secondary level service even if running between cities such as Birmingham - Cardiff.
     
  4. Monkey Magic

    Monkey Magic Part of the furniture

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    Surely the finger of blame ought to go to the railways management post 1945. For sure they inherited a bad hand of under-investment, antiquated equipment, poor staff relations, excessive capacity etc but they did not play their hand very well ie BTC, the steam modernisation followed by diesel and electric modernisation which wasted huge amounts of money. Would you trust railway managements to invest money well after the experience with the railways 1948-1960?

    Just out of interest - how do the numbers stack up in terms of amounts spent on railways vs roads?
     
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  5. Cartman

    Cartman Well-Known Member Account Suspended

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    Good point on the modernisation plan. The Railway wasted a lot of money on this and it probably resulted in the treasury not trusting BR with large amounts of public money again.
     
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  6. Fred Kerr

    Fred Kerr Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    The eternal problem in this discussion is always that the final decision is geared to the "make do and mend" mindset of the source of finance. This applies equally to Industry as well as Government although Government "invests" for the quick return with its current Parliamentary lifetime. As one who worked in the steel industry in the 1960s I recall that Corby needed re-investment to replace life-expired equipment but - having been nationalised - the Government decided to switch that investment to Lackenby where coastal access meant cheaper transport costs to produce the steel BUT additional transport costs to reach its intended market(s). Whilst Lackenby received the investment to Corby, the loss to the latter included not only employment of 10,000 employees but also the community which depended on the steelworks as a major employer. Yet only a few years previously the Government refused planning permission to a Canadian company wishing to develop a major site in the town -to offer alternative long term employment - on the grounds that "the steelworks would provide long term employment for the town".

    Referring this back to Gresley and the LNER note that the LNER was always alert to costs hence its decision to replace the Shildon scheme with steam traction because - at the time - the cost of replacing infrastructure was much greater than using existing steam traction resources hence saving funds that the LNER didn't have. Once the Government provided funds as a response to unemployment the LNER was quick to capitalise by initiating the Woodhead electrification BUT its post WWII decision to order 25 diesel locomotives (of the 10000/1 type) was also taken on the realisation that (1) diesel traction was a temporary expedient until the high initial costs of implementation could be met and (b) the Government would not meet the high initial costs of implementation. Unfortunately at that time no-one had experienced the "electrification gain" in which increased revenue from electrified services more than covered the high implementation costs hence justifying the electrification process. Whilst Gresley - and his board - were keen to upgrade services their shortage of funds forced their decisions to base progress on steam traction which was both a known and trusted element in the company's operations.

    But the discussion is about Marples and Beeching and I venture to suggest that Beeching was simply the "scapegoat" to take responsibility for a decision already made. It is well known within Government that you don't start a public enquiry until you know the answer hence Beeching's role and results were known before he even accepted the post. In fairness to Beeching he pointed out areas where rail could improve its services (e.g. freightliner and mgr services) but miscalculated the consequence of branch closures on main line services; his work in identifying "duplicated" routes was already under way with unknown results which the Beeching "closures" superseded. Sadly it appears that at the time Beeching became the villain that hid the true villainy of Marples and history is now - belatedly - both giving credit to Beeching for what he prevented Marples from closing whilst identifying the true "villain of the piece". Interestingly the Wilson Government was elected - partially - on the promise of cancelling the Beeching cuts but Barbara Castle - as Transport Minister - was unable to prevent the civil servants at the Department of Transport from continuing with the cuts. This makes one wonder how much influence the civil service has on both Government policies and actions; are the villains even more hidden than suspected ?
     
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  7. Monkey Magic

    Monkey Magic Part of the furniture

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    I think a legacy of that remains today. You can see that the Treasury simply does not trust the railways as a good thing to invest in. When there is investment it is the minimum amount possible hence things get done on the cheap.
     
  8. Miff

    Miff Part of the furniture Friend

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    I’m not sure how you’d go about comparing since the total mileage of roads has always been considerably higher.
     
  9. 30854

    30854 Resident of Nat Pres

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    Possibly as much convenient excuse as valid reason? Going back to @Monkey Magic's chronology, the lack of any coherent national strategy from day one seems as valid a starting point. How much capital was wasted on re-gauging? Over or under provision (or total absence) of routes? Or needing to equip lines with bespoke stock for limited loading gauges?
     
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  10. martin1656

    martin1656 Nat Pres stalwart Friend

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    All the time the treasury has its hands on the finance of the railways, its never going to commit to anything beyond the time that government is in charge Beeching was the face, and scapegoat, the real villain was Marples and civil servants who worked in the transport ministry, who were pro road, even today i dare say there will still be come civil servants who would not blink at funding massive road changes, but would be exclaiming how much!! when a rail scheme is put forward, not because its expensive, but because the have a pro road bias,
     
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  11. Fred Kerr

    Fred Kerr Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    As with the discussion re Gresley v Thompson that Simon has recently investigated one has to study the environment in which those decisions are made.

    (1) After the war the railways were devastated and needed re-equipping fast hence the orders for replacement steam locomotives plus purchases of ex War Department locomotives (e.g. Stanier 8F 2-8-0, Riddles 2-8-0 and 2-10-0 and "Austerity" 0-6-0 (J94)) to fill the gaps.

    (2) In post-WWII the surge of discharged military personnel needed employment hence the railways need for restoration provided suitable facilities.

    (3) The post WWII Governments of all hues elected to use the nationalised industries to control inflation by controlling wages - the major reason for the railway strike of 1955. This led to the Government promising to fund the Modernisation Plan if the railway strike could be ended. BR succeeded in this hence were given funds to undertake the Modernisation Plan BUT it came with the sting in the tail that the monies were given as loan with 8% interest per annum. This immediately caused the operating profit of the railway to become a net loss thus requiring Treasury funding to balance the books.

    (4) The Pilot Scheme of diesel traction had identified the lower operating costs of diesel traction hence the funds were applied to bulk purchases of most Pilot Scheme locomotives. The initial scheme was designed to support British industry which provided either its own designs (e.g. English Electric, Paxman) or designs built within the UK under licence (e.g. Maybach by Bristol Siddeley and Sulzer by Vickers) hence the bulk orders proved to be a policy decision that offered employment during an election campaign.

    The basic problem is epitomised by Riddles dilemma. He supported electrification but accepted that the Government would not fund the initial high infrastructure costs. The diesel developments had only just got under way so needed a period of time to develop by such as the Pilot Scheme hence the decision to build a fleet of "modern" standard locomotives with the intention to develop diesel traction as an interim measure until electrification could be afforded. The intent had been to see diesel traction replace steam over a period of years beginning with the 0-6-0 diesel shunter to replace various locomotives used on shunting duties and extend electrification as funds permitted.

    That scenario failed because the Riddles concept was a long term plan which clashed with the short term needs of a Government needing "successful" policies to win at elections. The development of road transport offered quicker "success" hence resources were directed at that area at the expense of the railways especially where the 2 operations quickly became competitors for traffic rather than complimentary as the original creators of Nationalisation had intended; the law of unintended consequences perchance ?

    There is undoubted concern about railway investment but consider the BR successes - the 1966 WCML electrification; the 1967 Bournemouth electrification; the 1970s extension of WCML to Glasgow; the introduction of the HST fleet; the (finally) 1990s ECML electrification; the GER electrification to Norwich and the ability of BR to succeed despite Government ineptitude shows the strength of ability within BR. Sadly the Government's 1994 privatisation of BR damaged that and history will - I believe - prove that BR should have been properly funded and left to operate without Government / Civil Service interference simply in order to justify a faulty political theory.
     
    Last edited: Jan 3, 2022
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  12. 30567

    30567 Part of the furniture Friend

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    If there is another thread on the 1992 to 1997 era, I would like to contribute to that. In the meantime re 1960 to 68, a few thoughts.

    1. An important part of the jigsaw was the Government's decision to create arms length nationalised industries with a remit of breaking even taking one year with another, investment criteria, the split between policy and delivery. That whole approach covered energy, coal, steel as well as transport.

    2. The BTC itself was not seen to have been a success, no great value added at the holding company level, no great value added between the various bits of the conglomerate. Railway finances had been going badly wrong since around 1955. So the first decision was to break up the BTC and constitute BR on the nationalised industry arms length model.

    3. Then there was the question of how BR was going to break even. It's important to recall that management accounting was relatively underdeveloped, databases on both cost and revenue sides for activity based costing were rudimentary. Answering the question was a huge challenge, never mind carrying the staff and the politicians and the public with you.

    4. Before the Beeching Report, there had been at least two exercises, from memory the Stedeford Committee and the Joint Steering Group of MoT and BR officials trawling over this ground.

    5. At the macro level, the Reshaping Report analysis of where the money was going ---trip working of freight, multiple marshalling, low density passenger services, duplicated routes etc---- was correct. That's not the same as saying that every micro decision was right. For example, probably too much investment went on marshalling yards which were out of date when they opened. But senior BR men like Hardy and Fiennes had a lot of respect for Beeching.

    6. Here's Simon Jenkins, Board Member for ten years in the 80s :

    ' Macmillan took the view that a newly modernised railway should be 'made to pay'. It was a view he did not apply to the new motorway network. At BR, Beeching was duly instructed to this end. He produced a report.........

    The report led to an explosion of opposition and vilification ---which strictly speaking should have been directed at Macmillan. On taking power in 1964, a new Labour Government sacked Beeching but significantly did not throw out his report. The proposals were largely implemented, including the closure of almost all the condemned lines and most of the stations. For all the abuse he received, Beeching's four years in charge of the railway were seismic................. There was almost no labour unrest or service disruption and neither Beeching nor anyone else could have foreseen that a generation later, at least some of his closed lines might have a commercial future. '

    7. Actually I think what was not foreseen in the 60s was that society would be willing to stump up billions per year for 'the social railway'. It took until the Serpell Report in 1982 for that to become apparent, after which BR really found its feet in running the mixed social and commercial enterprise society wanted.

    8. So, would it have made any difference if Marples had been a person of the highest moral and financial probity? I think not.
     
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  13. 30854

    30854 Resident of Nat Pres

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    To well considered posts from both @Fred Kerr and @30567, I'd also highlight Beeching's identification of costs involved of operating both steam and diesel fleets. Much as us lot may lament the demise of steam, he made a very valid point. Evidence, if it were needed, of a political dimension to the 'Restructuring' report comes in the form of the failure to carry through several of the Doctor's positive recommendations to enhance prospects for rail.

    From @30567's post specifically, the definition of the UK nationalisation model as 'arms length' brought a wry smile. Remembing all too well the political football BR had become, I'd contend that both the French and German models better fit that description.
     
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  14. Jimc

    Jimc Part of the furniture

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    I submit that not only is it not the point, its irrelevant. The decisions would have been exactly or at best very nearly the same no matter who the figurehead at the ministry had been.
     
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  15. Robin

    Robin Well-Known Member Friend

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    Two quick thoughts. One, as alluded to above, the BTC's closure programme was in full swing well before Beeching was brought in. For example in my own neck of the woods, the Wyre Forest Line, the Much Wenlock branch and the Severn Valley Branch itself were all closed or scheduled for closure before Beeching. The other, also as alluded to above, is that Marples is often condemned as having a conflict of interest between railway closures and his road building interests. How many of Beeching's closures actually resulted in significant road building programmes from which Marples would have benefitted (and which were not already necessary regardless of whether railways were closed or not)?
     
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  16. Jimc

    Jimc Part of the furniture

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    A very fair point. I bet most branch line closures hardly registered in terms of extra vehicles on the roads. There were, as posted above, already so many more journeys by car than by rail. One may also consider how many road schemes were made simpler and cheaper because there was no longer a railway in the way. Ashburton being an obvious example.
     
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  17. 30854

    30854 Resident of Nat Pres

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    Respectfully, whilst agreeing concerning overall policy, I see nothing conclusive to support any assertion or 'irrelevance'. In the case of Marples, the question seems less one of policy decisions at the macro level, than concerns surrounding the commercial minutiae consequent on those decisions.

    The statement "UK transport policy in general and that pertaining to British Railways in particular were in need of both updating and rationalisation" does not in and of itself contradict or in any way invalidate the statement "Ernest Marples was a crook".

    Such systemic weaknesses in the rail industry as existed from the period either side of the Beeching report (for our purposes, does 'from the Modernisation Plan to Serpell' seem a reasonable timeframe?) will by no means all have Marples' fingerprints on them, but the fact remains that his tenure at the MoT, smack bang at the pivotal point in the sequence of events, leaves a bad taste in the mouths of many. How could it not?
     
  18. Cartman

    Cartman Well-Known Member Account Suspended

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    it's not irrelevant at all. The fact that Marples was bent enabled him to manipulate policy to enrich himself by awarding himself road building contracts. He should have been in Parkhurst or The Scrubs.
     
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  19. Herald

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    Railway closures actually started very early as better alternatives became available following the invention of cars and lorries offering convenience and particularly after the first world war skilled ex military personnel looking to develop these new transport modes. Inevitably these would lead to calls for better roads, in turn making them even better competition for inflexible and infrequent rail services. Ultimately any Government would only be elected by providing what voters wanted and any treasury would see the income from fuel duty as preferable to subsidy demands from railways.

    Enthusiasts for steam often forget customers actually want cheap, clean, reliable, transport and have little of no concern for how it's delivered. The inherent flexibility of buses, lorries and cars was always bound to win except for situations where rail has technical advantage such as certain bulk flows and potentially high speed services although these still need to consider door to door times where connection or security concerns may still make alternatives preferable from a customer's perspective.
     
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  20. Monkey Magic

    Monkey Magic Part of the furniture

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    Surely the obvious place to look would be anywhere where roads gained funding at the expense of railways. For example was electrification north of Crewe delayed but M6 expansion funded, were roads between Manchester and Sheffield improved at the expense of the Woodhead?

    When it comes to some areas ie Wales, West of England I see very little evidence of roads being developed in place of railways. Those areas just seem to get starved of infrastructure investment full stop.
     
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