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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 an

by 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.
    - agent008t 11y ago
      I wish the UK had a high-speed rail network like the Shinkansen in Japan.
      - MLR 11y ago
        We're in the middle of trying to establish a high speed corridor at the moment, I'm all for it personally but honestly it's been a ludicrously expensive project so far and the opposition to it is huge and mounting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Speed_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Speed_2
    - gsnedders 11y ago
      TfL doesn't actually run the TfL Rail services—the big difference is their operator receives a fixed sum for operating them, compared with the other operators where they pay a fixed amount to the DfT and pocket any profit they get beyond that. Arguably, the big difference is that it means TfL Rail will only get investment if TfL decides, because there's no motivation for the operator to do so. At the same time, TfL Rail isn't in competition with the Underground, etc. so better inter-modal connectivity becomes more worth investment.
      - njs12345 11y ago
        The operator also has no control over fares and branding, I'd argue that's a big difference too.
      - makomk 11y ago
        In practice, other British rail companies only seem to make improvements if the government pays for them most of the time too. There's very little actual private-sector investment in the railways; it basically just seems to be a license to print money.
        twic 11y ago
        Mostly, yes. One honourable exception is Chiltern's Project Evergreen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiltern_Railways#Project_Evergreen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiltern_Railways#Project_Ever... But then, Chiltern wasn't run by a bus company, but by a group of British Rail managers who knew exactly what they were doing: http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/business/profiles/8227427.History_of_Chiltern_Railways/ http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/business/profiles/8227427.Histo... I suppose it also helped that it was a line with potential to steal traffic from already overloaded intercity services to Oxford and Birmingham.
- codeulike 11y ago
  how did Mr. Beeching manage to close all those lines? In the 60s, it was all centralised.
- thrownaway2424 11y ago
  Does efficiency also matter for roads? Has anyone ever produced a list of all the unprofitable roads in the country?
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    Sure. I'm in the US. Iowa's DOT has constantly reevaluated the use of roads as land-use and rural residences change. Bridges de-commissioned; road maintenance turned to 'class B' which means no maintenance. In fact they recently re-committed their budget 100% to maintenance and 0% to new roads. Mostly because global weather instability has been really rough on our huge, vulnerable road network. Agriculture is important to us; every field has to have access to roads and markets.
    - thrownaway2424 11y ago
      That's great, but it puts Iowa in a tiny class of rational D's of T. Most governments find roads, streets, and parking to be obviously desirable.
- a_humean 11y ago
  When Beeching wrote the report the stations, carriages, services, and rail were publicly owned and centralised under one public company: British Rail. In the mid-90s the services, carriages, and the stations were sold off as 14-year franchises to the private firms (most of which are actually public rail companies from other countries such as Germany and France), but the rail itself kept in a weird thing called National Rail that has an odd public/private structure that I don't understand. Ownership and responsibility for the network is somewhat unclear in many cases. I think at this point there is a political consensus that its been a complete mess and a botched privatisation that either need to be redone or just be re-nationalised, though Conservatives try to not talk about it if they can (they implemented it). There was an awkward period in recent years in which one of the private companies abandoned a major line as unprofitable and it was temporarily nationalised - it ended up becoming the most popular and profitable line while under public management. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Coast_(train_operating_company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Coast_(train_operating_co...
  - gsnedders 11y ago
    > the rail itself kept in a weird thing called National Rail that has an odd public/private structure that I don't understand No, it wasn't. The rail itself was sold off as Railtrack. Following on from the Hatfield crash, after which it spent £580 million on repairing similar track faults as which caused the Hatfield crash, and a few hundred million more on compensation, which led to the failure of the company and it entered "railway administration" (essentially a special form of administration created along with the privatisation of the railways to avoid the railway ceasing operating when in administration). Network Rail then bought Railtrack in 2002, bringing the railway infrastructure back into public hands. Railtrack was then subsequently liquidated.
    - a_humean 11y ago
      Oh sorry, I forgot that part of the history. I was a little young at the time so the Hatfield crash is not something I remember in much detail.
  - takno 11y ago
- tome 11y ago
  Point of information: it was Dr Beeching (PhD).
iam-TJ 11y ago
As the Beeching Report [0] itself states on page 6, in 1963 on gross revenues of £474.7m the total deficit was 33%; £-159.3m (net receipts £-86.9m, interest and charges £49m, capital interest £23.4m), which is 1.3% of the 1963-64 Public Spending of £12,000m. [0] "The Reshaping of British Railways" http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/BRB_Beech001a.pdf http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/BRB_Beech001a.pdf
lmm 11y ago
This was in the context of British Rail having just wasted a huge amount of public money: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_rail_transport_in_Great_Britain_1948%E2%80%931994#The_Modernisation_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_rail_transport_in_G... . Beeching did the job he was hired for and did it well: he wrote a report that identified which lines were profitable and which weren't. The politicians who took action based on these facts are the ones who bear the responsibility for those actions.
- takno 11y ago
  To be fair his analysis would be better described as nearly competent than "done well". Government ministers were responsible for approving the cuts he recommended (and a few he didn't), but they did so based on partial and often completely inaccurate figures and without any challenge to closure as the only option. Alternatives like de-staffing and removal of common carrier obligations could have transformed the economic case for a lot of lines, as indeed could the faster roll-out of diesels.
Doctor_Fegg 11y ago
Don't stress the "public servant" overmuch. He was a buccaneering captain of private industry who was given five years' leave from his employer (ICI, Imperial Chemical Industries) to come and sort out the railways.

by vixen99 11y ago

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.
  - agent008t 11y ago
    I wish the UK had a high-speed rail network like the Shinkansen in Japan.
    - MLR 11y ago
      We're in the middle of trying to establish a high speed corridor at the moment, I'm all for it personally but honestly it's been a ludicrously expensive project so far and the opposition to it is huge and mounting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Speed_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Speed_2
  - gsnedders 11y ago
    TfL doesn't actually run the TfL Rail services—the big difference is their operator receives a fixed sum for operating them, compared with the other operators where they pay a fixed amount to the DfT and pocket any profit they get beyond that. Arguably, the big difference is that it means TfL Rail will only get investment if TfL decides, because there's no motivation for the operator to do so. At the same time, TfL Rail isn't in competition with the Underground, etc. so better inter-modal connectivity becomes more worth investment.
    - njs12345 11y ago
      The operator also has no control over fares and branding, I'd argue that's a big difference too.
    - makomk 11y ago
      In practice, other British rail companies only seem to make improvements if the government pays for them most of the time too. There's very little actual private-sector investment in the railways; it basically just seems to be a license to print money.
      - twic 11y ago
        Mostly, yes. One honourable exception is Chiltern's Project Evergreen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiltern_Railways#Project_Evergreen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiltern_Railways#Project_Ever... But then, Chiltern wasn't run by a bus company, but by a group of British Rail managers who knew exactly what they were doing: http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/business/profiles/8227427.History_of_Chiltern_Railways/ http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/business/profiles/8227427.Histo... I suppose it also helped that it was a line with potential to steal traffic from already overloaded intercity services to Oxford and Birmingham.
codeulike 11y ago
how did Mr. Beeching manage to close all those lines? In the 60s, it was all centralised.
thrownaway2424 11y ago
Does efficiency also matter for roads? Has anyone ever produced a list of all the unprofitable roads in the country?
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  Sure. I'm in the US. Iowa's DOT has constantly reevaluated the use of roads as land-use and rural residences change. Bridges de-commissioned; road maintenance turned to 'class B' which means no maintenance. In fact they recently re-committed their budget 100% to maintenance and 0% to new roads. Mostly because global weather instability has been really rough on our huge, vulnerable road network. Agriculture is important to us; every field has to have access to roads and markets.
  - thrownaway2424 11y ago
    That's great, but it puts Iowa in a tiny class of rational D's of T. Most governments find roads, streets, and parking to be obviously desirable.
a_humean 11y ago
When Beeching wrote the report the stations, carriages, services, and rail were publicly owned and centralised under one public company: British Rail. In the mid-90s the services, carriages, and the stations were sold off as 14-year franchises to the private firms (most of which are actually public rail companies from other countries such as Germany and France), but the rail itself kept in a weird thing called National Rail that has an odd public/private structure that I don't understand. Ownership and responsibility for the network is somewhat unclear in many cases. I think at this point there is a political consensus that its been a complete mess and a botched privatisation that either need to be redone or just be re-nationalised, though Conservatives try to not talk about it if they can (they implemented it). There was an awkward period in recent years in which one of the private companies abandoned a major line as unprofitable and it was temporarily nationalised - it ended up becoming the most popular and profitable line while under public management. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Coast_(train_operating_company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Coast_(train_operating_co...
- gsnedders 11y ago
  > the rail itself kept in a weird thing called National Rail that has an odd public/private structure that I don't understand No, it wasn't. The rail itself was sold off as Railtrack. Following on from the Hatfield crash, after which it spent £580 million on repairing similar track faults as which caused the Hatfield crash, and a few hundred million more on compensation, which led to the failure of the company and it entered "railway administration" (essentially a special form of administration created along with the privatisation of the railways to avoid the railway ceasing operating when in administration). Network Rail then bought Railtrack in 2002, bringing the railway infrastructure back into public hands. Railtrack was then subsequently liquidated.
  - a_humean 11y ago
    Oh sorry, I forgot that part of the history. I was a little young at the time so the Hatfield crash is not something I remember in much detail.
- takno 11y ago
tome 11y ago
Point of information: it was Dr Beeching (PhD).

iam-TJ 11y ago

As the Beeching Report [0] itself states on page 6, in 1963 on gross revenues of £474.7m the total deficit was 33%; £-159.3m (net receipts £-86.9m, interest and charges £49m, capital interest £23.4m), which is 1.3% of the 1963-64 Public Spending of £12,000m. [0] "The Reshaping of British Railways" http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/BRB_Beech001a.pdf http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/BRB_Beech001a.pdf

lmm 11y ago

This was in the context of British Rail having just wasted a huge amount of public money: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_rail_transport_in_Great_Britain_1948%E2%80%931994#The_Modernisation_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_rail_transport_in_G... . Beeching did the job he was hired for and did it well: he wrote a report that identified which lines were profitable and which weren't. The politicians who took action based on these facts are the ones who bear the responsibility for those actions.

takno 11y ago
To be fair his analysis would be better described as nearly competent than "done well". Government ministers were responsible for approving the cuts he recommended (and a few he didn't), but they did so based on partial and often completely inaccurate figures and without any challenge to closure as the only option. Alternatives like de-staffing and removal of common carrier obligations could have transformed the economic case for a lot of lines, as indeed could the faster roll-out of diesels.

Doctor_Fegg 11y ago

Don't stress the "public servant" overmuch. He was a buccaneering captain of private industry who was given five years' leave from his employer (ICI, Imperial Chemical Industries) to come and sort out the railways.