9 ms·

Many railway lines in Britain that were closed in the 1960s are re-opening

134 points by edward 11y ago

pieter1976 11y ago
Now, if only the tram lines would be rebuilt things would be a lot smoother (at least from a public transport perspective).
- PaulRobinson 11y ago
  Of course, many cities do have tram lines - Manchester's network is substantial, reuses abandoned railway lines in part, and has received a lot of investment in recent years including a project right now to put a second line across the city centre. Many are surprised to hear London has a tram line (South of the river, near Wimbledon), or that other towns have light rail schemes put back in within the last 20-40 years. Guided bus routes have also started to emerge: smooth, segregated routes that run every few minutes using relatively cheap, replaceable and potentially entirely green vehicles with less up-front planning, consultation and construction than a light or heavy rail solution. It's interesting to me that we seem to be going into an age where people value public transport more and more, but I suspect that's because VED and other costs associated with running a car in the UK have risen so sharply in recent years.
  - vidarh 11y ago
    Only about 11 currently operating, apparently [1]. As for London, Wimbledon is one of four termini. The vast majority of the system is in Croydon, including loops through the town centre. There's regularly proposals for new extensions, but at the moment it looks like all of them are on ice down to lack of funding. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_town_tramway_systems_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_town_tramway_systems_i...
- gsnedders 11y ago
  In Scotland at least the abysmal project management of the (new) Edinburgh trams has likely killed any chance of more new tram lines in Scotland (I don't think any party has new tram lines in their manifesto for next month's elections). For those who don't know, it was budgeted at £375 million, and eventually opened in a cut-back scheme (with about half the route cancelled) at £776 million.
  - pjc50 11y ago
    It was something of an administrative nightmare in that it was paid for by Holyrood and project managed by the local council. There's an inquiry into the causes of the failure which has also run over budget, absurdly. But I don't think it's entirely dead, there are still noises about extending it into Leith sometime in the next decade. Meanwhile the Borders railway appears to have opened successfully - and is immediately full at commuting times. I hope they left enough space to double track it.
    - gsnedders 11y ago
      > Meanwhile the Borders railway appears to have opened successfully - and is immediately full at commuting times. I hope they left enough space to double track it. Not for all of it was — there's certainly provision in places, but there's also parts where doubling would be incredibly expensive (the viaducts especially, where the maximum dimensions of the trains it has been built for are larger than it was originally built for, are inherently single-track now).
      - takno 11y ago
        Several of the completely new bridges were built with single track capacity as well. I suspect the government thought they were being a bit clever forcing Network Rail to shave a few million off the cost this way, but actually just not laying the second set of rails doesn't really save much so actually the savings came in places where they will cause a lot of pain later
      - martinald 11y ago
vixen99 11y ago
Richard Beeching cut 100,000 jobs, closed 2,000 railway stations & 5,000 miles of track built at the cost of untold labourers' lives. Pollution, traffic jams and commuter misery were some of the results. He was a public servant who knew he'd never have to bear the responsibility for his actions which affected millions.
- guard-of-terra 11y ago
  But your society let him do this. Were there a massive uproar, this measure would probably be downsized or cancelled. I think we too should stop letting random public servants assume that kind of decision-making.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  Burdensome taxes to support underutilized rail infrastructure cause misery too. We can call names at public policy, but that's not a good way to manage public policy. Efficiency has to matter too. And, strangely, this article insists there's no central decision-making group for managing rail stations and lines. Then, how did Mr. Beeching manage to close all those lines?
  - makomk 11y ago
    A few decades after Beeching's cuts, British Rail was privatized in a rather half-baked fashion.
    - Jaruzel 11y ago
      And interestingly enough, it now seems to be slowly creeping back the other way: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/tfls-london-overground-is-being-handed-control-over-londons-entire-suburban-rail-network-a6824761.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/tfls-london-o... Normally I'd be against nationalisation, but having been a 'SouthEastern' commuter for over 20 years, I can only hope this will result in an improved service.
      - 11y ago
arethuza 11y ago
"many thought that roads would rule and rail would go the way of canals" Particularly the transport minister who had a background running a construction company that built motorways: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts#The_people_and_the_politics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts#The_people_and_t...
- TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
  One of the most shameful episodes in recent British political history. That crook literally killed a strategically viable public transport network just so he could line his own pockets.
  - kitsunedragon 11y ago
    this happened in a lot of major US cities too, such a shame.
  - kitd 11y ago
    For certain values of "viable". The railways were massively loss-making in the 1960s, with ancient Victorian infrastructure and pre-war rolling stock commonplace. They were only being kept afloat by huge government subsidies. TBH Beeching's cuts were probably the most logical way to save the industry with what they knew at that time. Having said that, my preference (with 60-year-old hindsight) would have been to mothball the loss-making routes, rather than tear them up completely.
    - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
      Agreed. And it'll be hard to re-claim right-of-way especially near growing towns. It'll cost billions to rebuild anywhere near the previous height of traffic. And it'll be needed especially as growth creates traffic that clogs roads. Here in Iowa (again) some of our rail right-of-way was repurposed as 'trails on rails' which means they paved an asphalt strip down the middle and called it a trail. Seemed like a good idea- it already goes near/through/between rural towns where folks can use a good trail. They never funded their maintenance(!) so 20 years later most are only a shadow of their original form - rutted shattered asphalt fragments with small trees growing haphazardly everywhere; gopher holes make it dangerous even for equestrian use. But good news! it can be reclaimed for rail again when needed.
darkclarity 11y ago
Our railway system was built by competing railway businesses with lots of inefficiency, it was nationalised, made painfully efficient (Beeching etc) and franchised out to businesses. This is the next stage where demand is catching up with the network and old routes are reopening.
- smcl 11y ago
  There's a little more to the tale - East Coast rail being nationalised when failing and then privatised once it returned to health (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/27/privatising-east-coast-rail-rip-off http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/27/privati...) and the Govt selling off its Eurostar share prior to it becoming more valuable (http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/nov/06/eurostar-sell-off-national-audit-office-report http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/nov/06/eurostar-sel...). Also for some reason TfL remains in public hands - maybe because it's too important for private sector to mess up?
  - gsnedders 11y ago
    > Also for some reason TfL remains in public hands - maybe because it's too important for private sector to mess up? The TfL ultimately has a lot of the same responsibilities as the DfT within Greater London; the actual operations of most TfL routes are contracted out.
  - billybofh 11y ago
    I remember when the bus system was being privatised and watching the transport minister on the news explaining that he'd been 'inspired' by watching multiple double-decker buses crossing in front of parliament - all with no passengers and his feeling that 'something must be done'. Yet London got left alone while the rest of the country got the full 'freedom' of the private sector. It's a tad annoying ;-)
  - darkclarity 11y ago
    The thing that bemuses me about TfL is a similar public run arrangement was recently encouraged and proposed for another part of England. It was blocked at the last minute. London definitely gets special treatment, even when it goes against the narrative.
jameshart 11y ago
Travel between Oxford and Cambridge is a great example of how busted the UK transport network is outside big cities. They're about 80 miles apart, as the crow flies. By road, there's no decent east-west connections so it's a good 2 hour drive. By train, it's even worse - the shortest route is typically going to involve travelling into London, changing stations via tube, then heading back out on another line - probably a three hour train journey with two connections. Reopening the Oxford/Cambridge trainline (and by extension Cambridge/Oxford/Reading) would be a huge boost to the development of the UK tech industry, connecting academic centers to tech hubs.
- spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
  As some one who lives in the area the main problem is they built over the line between Bedford to Cambridge.
  - timthorn 11y ago
    I know! Blasted radio telescopes... :)
- edward 11y ago
  "East West Rail Link is a planned railway route linking the Great Western Main Line, Oxford, Bicester, Milton Keynes, Bedford, Cambridge, Ipswich and Norwich in England using part of the former Varsity Line. The western section from Oxford to Bedford was approved by the Government in November 2011, with completion expected in 2019." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_West_Rail_Link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_West_Rail_Link
  - makomk 11y ago
    It's been obviously necessary for decades yet the Government dragged their feet on it, and they're not even planning on constructing the segment into Cambridge yet. In the meantime, Cambridge house prices have gone through the roof due to a combination of a lack of transport links and programs to encourage new businesses there, and the Government has committed huge amounts of funds to HS2, which is yet another line out of London running in parallel to existing lines. Coincidentally, traveling in and out of London is the main kind of travel our politicians do. Also coincidentally, the Beeching cuts seemed to hit cross-country lines that didn't directly benefit London the hardest too.
rwhitman 11y ago
If only politicians in the US were capable of seeing things this way.. So many smaller cities in the US northeast have been isolated from the regional economy by railroad shutdowns, but there's so little interest in rail here anymore that I doubt local leadership even understand the severity of the problem. Great example being the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania. Commuter rail connections to NYC and Philadelphia from Allentown & Bethlehem PA were completely dismantled in the 20th century. There's large highways connecting them but the drive is 2-3 hours, lots of traffic. It's grueling by car. Yet a person could comfortably commute by rail if it was available. So this sizable metro area with tons of charm, walkable town centers and 19th century housing stock almost frozen in time, just sitting economically sluggish as the larger cities prosper around them. Very frustrating.
- ZanyProgrammer 11y ago
  Yep a lot of passenger rail lines were turned into freight only lines in the mid 20th century. Alas even a lot of those freight lines are being abandoned now. Rail infrastructure is the kind of thing that is much easier and cheaper to maintain than it is to get rid of and then build anew.
- Sanddancer 11y ago
  They'll get there. It'll take time for them to realize what a gold mine they abandoned, but they'll get there. In the West Coast, that's happening with a lot of lines. Los Angeles still owns a good amount of the old Red Car right of Way, and many of the transit lines opened over the past 25 years have been built using that land, with a lot of the proposals for the next 25 years doing more of the same. The Bay Area did similar with BART, using a lot of newly abandoned rail right of way, and up here, many of the proposed projects have essentially been to reopen one rail line or another that's been closed for 40-50+ years.
gpvos 11y ago
Roughly the same thing as the Beeching cuts is currently happening to night trains on the European continent. There is demand, but due to a combination of high track access charges, the fact that train operating company management is only interested in high speed trains, and lack of vision by the governments and EU, night trains are being cut drastically in both Germany and France.
- Al-Khwarizmi 11y ago
  And in Spain too.
ascagnel_ 11y ago
Following on from this: access to rail is now seen as a potential boom. In my area, areas with rail access are outgrowing areas without it [0]. http://www.northjersey.com/news/population-rebounds-around-train-stations-in-n-j-1.1546298 http://www.northjersey.com/news/population-rebounds-around-t...
Doctor_Fegg 11y ago
For a map of what we've lost, here's a map I researched and drew, covering Southern England, the Midlands and Wales: http://www.geowiki.com/New_Adlestrop_Railway_Atlas.pdf http://www.geowiki.com/New_Adlestrop_Railway_Atlas.pdf Haven't had time to finish it (paid work gets in the way...) or update it for recent reopenings, but it gives you some idea of the network we used to have.
- akshayn 11y ago
  Great map! Not sure if you are aware of http://www.openrailwaymap.org http://www.openrailwaymap.org - although your project includes interesting snippets ("proposed for reopening", etc)
  - Doctor_Fegg 11y ago
    Thanks! Yes, OpenRailwayMap is fun. I have an OSM rendering database sitting around on my server - one of these days I'm going to sit down and do a railway stylesheet for it...
- duncans 11y ago
  Yes, I remember Adlestrop ... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/10821831/Adlestrop-a-lost-station-but-words-that-still-beguile.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/10821831/Adlestrop-a-lost...
petecooper 11y ago
A propos of nothing, the linked URL set a new record for Ghostery on my browser: 64 trackers found. Yikes.
- astrodust 11y ago
  They really should gamify this and build in a high-score feature for situations like that.
Animats 11y ago
In the 1960s, Britain's railway lines had to either be modernized or closed. There were a lot of small lines still running on old equipment. British Rail had a huge inventory of steam engines. While steam engines are cool in small numbers, they're huge polluters and very high maintenance. (A 1940s steam engine needs about as much maintenance per day as a modern diesel-electric needs in six months, and about once a year or two, a heavily used steam locomotive needs a full rebuild.) Britain had too many trains with small numbers of passengers.
hackuser 11y ago
Does the UK, or other countries, have a political movement similar to the U.S. that opposes government investment in things like transportation, education, etc?
- orf 11y ago
  Kind of, some people think we should reduce the deficit by cutting government spending, others want to spend less on the NHS, but nobody takes it anyway near the level seen in the USA.
- QuantumCookie 11y ago
  Not as strongly. The main issue is, for all the cheap talk that comes out of the government, the fact is that spending (on many things, but especially infrastructure) is divided into London (plenty of money) and the rest ("maybe some of what's left, and you provincials better be grateful").
smegel 11y ago
> Feasibility studies take years. They don't really. Just ask China how it's done.
sbardle 11y ago
Many of the pre-Beeching lines cannot be re-opened, as they have been built over with roads and housing, especially in the South East. The closest you will get to experiencing pre-Beeching railways is the Hogwarts Express in Florida, I'm afraid.

134 points by edward 11y ago

pieter1976 11y ago

Now, if only the tram lines would be rebuilt things would be a lot smoother (at least from a public transport perspective).

PaulRobinson 11y ago
Of course, many cities do have tram lines - Manchester's network is substantial, reuses abandoned railway lines in part, and has received a lot of investment in recent years including a project right now to put a second line across the city centre. Many are surprised to hear London has a tram line (South of the river, near Wimbledon), or that other towns have light rail schemes put back in within the last 20-40 years. Guided bus routes have also started to emerge: smooth, segregated routes that run every few minutes using relatively cheap, replaceable and potentially entirely green vehicles with less up-front planning, consultation and construction than a light or heavy rail solution. It's interesting to me that we seem to be going into an age where people value public transport more and more, but I suspect that's because VED and other costs associated with running a car in the UK have risen so sharply in recent years.
- vidarh 11y ago
  Only about 11 currently operating, apparently [1]. As for London, Wimbledon is one of four termini. The vast majority of the system is in Croydon, including loops through the town centre. There's regularly proposals for new extensions, but at the moment it looks like all of them are on ice down to lack of funding. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_town_tramway_systems_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_town_tramway_systems_i...
gsnedders 11y ago
In Scotland at least the abysmal project management of the (new) Edinburgh trams has likely killed any chance of more new tram lines in Scotland (I don't think any party has new tram lines in their manifesto for next month's elections). For those who don't know, it was budgeted at £375 million, and eventually opened in a cut-back scheme (with about half the route cancelled) at £776 million.
- pjc50 11y ago
  It was something of an administrative nightmare in that it was paid for by Holyrood and project managed by the local council. There's an inquiry into the causes of the failure which has also run over budget, absurdly. But I don't think it's entirely dead, there are still noises about extending it into Leith sometime in the next decade. Meanwhile the Borders railway appears to have opened successfully - and is immediately full at commuting times. I hope they left enough space to double track it.
  - gsnedders 11y ago
    > Meanwhile the Borders railway appears to have opened successfully - and is immediately full at commuting times. I hope they left enough space to double track it. Not for all of it was — there's certainly provision in places, but there's also parts where doubling would be incredibly expensive (the viaducts especially, where the maximum dimensions of the trains it has been built for are larger than it was originally built for, are inherently single-track now).
    - takno 11y ago
      Several of the completely new bridges were built with single track capacity as well. I suspect the government thought they were being a bit clever forcing Network Rail to shave a few million off the cost this way, but actually just not laying the second set of rails doesn't really save much so actually the savings came in places where they will cause a lot of pain later
    - martinald 11y ago

vixen99 11y ago

Richard Beeching cut 100,000 jobs, closed 2,000 railway stations & 5,000 miles of track built at the cost of untold labourers' lives. Pollution, traffic jams and commuter misery were some of the results. He was a public servant who knew he'd never have to bear the responsibility for his actions which affected millions.

guard-of-terra 11y ago
But your society let him do this. Were there a massive uproar, this measure would probably be downsized or cancelled. I think we too should stop letting random public servants assume that kind of decision-making.
JoeAltmaier 11y ago
Burdensome taxes to support underutilized rail infrastructure cause misery too. We can call names at public policy, but that's not a good way to manage public policy. Efficiency has to matter too. And, strangely, this article insists there's no central decision-making group for managing rail stations and lines. Then, how did Mr. Beeching manage to close all those lines?
- makomk 11y ago
  A few decades after Beeching's cuts, British Rail was privatized in a rather half-baked fashion.
  - Jaruzel 11y ago
    And interestingly enough, it now seems to be slowly creeping back the other way: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/tfls-london-overground-is-being-handed-control-over-londons-entire-suburban-rail-network-a6824761.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/tfls-london-o... Normally I'd be against nationalisation, but having been a 'SouthEastern' commuter for over 20 years, I can only hope this will result in an improved service.
    - 11y ago

arethuza 11y ago

"many thought that roads would rule and rail would go the way of canals" Particularly the transport minister who had a background running a construction company that built motorways: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts#The_people_and_the_politics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts#The_people_and_t...

TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
One of the most shameful episodes in recent British political history. That crook literally killed a strategically viable public transport network just so he could line his own pockets.
- kitsunedragon 11y ago
  this happened in a lot of major US cities too, such a shame.
- kitd 11y ago
  For certain values of "viable". The railways were massively loss-making in the 1960s, with ancient Victorian infrastructure and pre-war rolling stock commonplace. They were only being kept afloat by huge government subsidies. TBH Beeching's cuts were probably the most logical way to save the industry with what they knew at that time. Having said that, my preference (with 60-year-old hindsight) would have been to mothball the loss-making routes, rather than tear them up completely.
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    Agreed. And it'll be hard to re-claim right-of-way especially near growing towns. It'll cost billions to rebuild anywhere near the previous height of traffic. And it'll be needed especially as growth creates traffic that clogs roads. Here in Iowa (again) some of our rail right-of-way was repurposed as 'trails on rails' which means they paved an asphalt strip down the middle and called it a trail. Seemed like a good idea- it already goes near/through/between rural towns where folks can use a good trail. They never funded their maintenance(!) so 20 years later most are only a shadow of their original form - rutted shattered asphalt fragments with small trees growing haphazardly everywhere; gopher holes make it dangerous even for equestrian use. But good news! it can be reclaimed for rail again when needed.

darkclarity 11y ago

Our railway system was built by competing railway businesses with lots of inefficiency, it was nationalised, made painfully efficient (Beeching etc) and franchised out to businesses. This is the next stage where demand is catching up with the network and old routes are reopening.

smcl 11y ago
There's a little more to the tale - East Coast rail being nationalised when failing and then privatised once it returned to health (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/27/privatising-east-coast-rail-rip-off http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/27/privati...) and the Govt selling off its Eurostar share prior to it becoming more valuable (http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/nov/06/eurostar-sell-off-national-audit-office-report http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/nov/06/eurostar-sel...). Also for some reason TfL remains in public hands - maybe because it's too important for private sector to mess up?
- gsnedders 11y ago
  > Also for some reason TfL remains in public hands - maybe because it's too important for private sector to mess up? The TfL ultimately has a lot of the same responsibilities as the DfT within Greater London; the actual operations of most TfL routes are contracted out.
- billybofh 11y ago
  I remember when the bus system was being privatised and watching the transport minister on the news explaining that he'd been 'inspired' by watching multiple double-decker buses crossing in front of parliament - all with no passengers and his feeling that 'something must be done'. Yet London got left alone while the rest of the country got the full 'freedom' of the private sector. It's a tad annoying ;-)
- darkclarity 11y ago
  The thing that bemuses me about TfL is a similar public run arrangement was recently encouraged and proposed for another part of England. It was blocked at the last minute. London definitely gets special treatment, even when it goes against the narrative.

jameshart 11y ago

Travel between Oxford and Cambridge is a great example of how busted the UK transport network is outside big cities. They're about 80 miles apart, as the crow flies. By road, there's no decent east-west connections so it's a good 2 hour drive. By train, it's even worse - the shortest route is typically going to involve travelling into London, changing stations via tube, then heading back out on another line - probably a three hour train journey with two connections. Reopening the Oxford/Cambridge trainline (and by extension Cambridge/Oxford/Reading) would be a huge boost to the development of the UK tech industry, connecting academic centers to tech hubs.

spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
As some one who lives in the area the main problem is they built over the line between Bedford to Cambridge.
- timthorn 11y ago
  I know! Blasted radio telescopes... :)
edward 11y ago
"East West Rail Link is a planned railway route linking the Great Western Main Line, Oxford, Bicester, Milton Keynes, Bedford, Cambridge, Ipswich and Norwich in England using part of the former Varsity Line. The western section from Oxford to Bedford was approved by the Government in November 2011, with completion expected in 2019." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_West_Rail_Link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_West_Rail_Link
- makomk 11y ago
  It's been obviously necessary for decades yet the Government dragged their feet on it, and they're not even planning on constructing the segment into Cambridge yet. In the meantime, Cambridge house prices have gone through the roof due to a combination of a lack of transport links and programs to encourage new businesses there, and the Government has committed huge amounts of funds to HS2, which is yet another line out of London running in parallel to existing lines. Coincidentally, traveling in and out of London is the main kind of travel our politicians do. Also coincidentally, the Beeching cuts seemed to hit cross-country lines that didn't directly benefit London the hardest too.

rwhitman 11y ago

If only politicians in the US were capable of seeing things this way.. So many smaller cities in the US northeast have been isolated from the regional economy by railroad shutdowns, but there's so little interest in rail here anymore that I doubt local leadership even understand the severity of the problem. Great example being the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania. Commuter rail connections to NYC and Philadelphia from Allentown & Bethlehem PA were completely dismantled in the 20th century. There's large highways connecting them but the drive is 2-3 hours, lots of traffic. It's grueling by car. Yet a person could comfortably commute by rail if it was available. So this sizable metro area with tons of charm, walkable town centers and 19th century housing stock almost frozen in time, just sitting economically sluggish as the larger cities prosper around them. Very frustrating.

ZanyProgrammer 11y ago
Yep a lot of passenger rail lines were turned into freight only lines in the mid 20th century. Alas even a lot of those freight lines are being abandoned now. Rail infrastructure is the kind of thing that is much easier and cheaper to maintain than it is to get rid of and then build anew.
Sanddancer 11y ago
They'll get there. It'll take time for them to realize what a gold mine they abandoned, but they'll get there. In the West Coast, that's happening with a lot of lines. Los Angeles still owns a good amount of the old Red Car right of Way, and many of the transit lines opened over the past 25 years have been built using that land, with a lot of the proposals for the next 25 years doing more of the same. The Bay Area did similar with BART, using a lot of newly abandoned rail right of way, and up here, many of the proposed projects have essentially been to reopen one rail line or another that's been closed for 40-50+ years.

gpvos 11y ago

Roughly the same thing as the Beeching cuts is currently happening to night trains on the European continent. There is demand, but due to a combination of high track access charges, the fact that train operating company management is only interested in high speed trains, and lack of vision by the governments and EU, night trains are being cut drastically in both Germany and France.

Al-Khwarizmi 11y ago
And in Spain too.

ascagnel_ 11y ago

Following on from this: access to rail is now seen as a potential boom. In my area, areas with rail access are outgrowing areas without it [0]. http://www.northjersey.com/news/population-rebounds-around-train-stations-in-n-j-1.1546298 http://www.northjersey.com/news/population-rebounds-around-t...

Doctor_Fegg 11y ago

For a map of what we've lost, here's a map I researched and drew, covering Southern England, the Midlands and Wales: http://www.geowiki.com/New_Adlestrop_Railway_Atlas.pdf http://www.geowiki.com/New_Adlestrop_Railway_Atlas.pdf Haven't had time to finish it (paid work gets in the way...) or update it for recent reopenings, but it gives you some idea of the network we used to have.

akshayn 11y ago
Great map! Not sure if you are aware of http://www.openrailwaymap.org http://www.openrailwaymap.org - although your project includes interesting snippets ("proposed for reopening", etc)
- Doctor_Fegg 11y ago
  Thanks! Yes, OpenRailwayMap is fun. I have an OSM rendering database sitting around on my server - one of these days I'm going to sit down and do a railway stylesheet for it...
duncans 11y ago
Yes, I remember Adlestrop ... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/10821831/Adlestrop-a-lost-station-but-words-that-still-beguile.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/10821831/Adlestrop-a-lost...

petecooper 11y ago

A propos of nothing, the linked URL set a new record for Ghostery on my browser: 64 trackers found. Yikes.

astrodust 11y ago
They really should gamify this and build in a high-score feature for situations like that.

Animats 11y ago

In the 1960s, Britain's railway lines had to either be modernized or closed. There were a lot of small lines still running on old equipment. British Rail had a huge inventory of steam engines. While steam engines are cool in small numbers, they're huge polluters and very high maintenance. (A 1940s steam engine needs about as much maintenance per day as a modern diesel-electric needs in six months, and about once a year or two, a heavily used steam locomotive needs a full rebuild.) Britain had too many trains with small numbers of passengers.

hackuser 11y ago

Does the UK, or other countries, have a political movement similar to the U.S. that opposes government investment in things like transportation, education, etc?

orf 11y ago
Kind of, some people think we should reduce the deficit by cutting government spending, others want to spend less on the NHS, but nobody takes it anyway near the level seen in the USA.
QuantumCookie 11y ago
Not as strongly. The main issue is, for all the cheap talk that comes out of the government, the fact is that spending (on many things, but especially infrastructure) is divided into London (plenty of money) and the rest ("maybe some of what's left, and you provincials better be grateful").

smegel 11y ago

> Feasibility studies take years. They don't really. Just ask China how it's done.

sbardle 11y ago

Many of the pre-Beeching lines cannot be re-opened, as they have been built over with roads and housing, especially in the South East. The closest you will get to experiencing pre-Beeching railways is the Hogwarts Express in Florida, I'm afraid.