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People talk a lot of nonsense about 'Beeching cuts' without really understanding the history. 'Beeching' has simply become a political buzzword anybody who know

People talk a lot of nonsense about 'Beeching cuts' without really understanding the history. 'Beeching' has simply become a political buzzword anybody who knows even a little about rail likes to bandy about. Lines started closing around the 1930s and after WW2 this continued. Beeching was only working on this topic a short time and produced a report that suggested lots of things. Some of those things were done, others weren't. Cuts happened before Beeching and after him. And they happened during various different railroads organization schemes. That it was strictly about profitability is also false. If anything it was about cost. They believed in future buses (and yes cars) would take car of those communities. At that time bus services were often government run. And Beeching was actually correct in many cases. The British rail system was simply not rationally build. It was basically built by partly speculation driven rush. While this is not a bad and certainly gave Britain a great rail system, once you have centralized control it does actually make sense to reevaluate. Lots of lines didn't make rational sense to continue. Now of course I agree that to many lines were closed that shouldn't have been closed. But that is only a small part of the issue with the rail system. Britain still has a pretty high rail density.

eesmith 2y ago
> Beeching The Beeching report of course cut no lines. It was just a report. By "Beeching cut" I mean the systemic policy of the time of prioritizing roads over rail, using the report as synecdoche. > They believed in future buses (and yes cars) would take car of those communities. That belief is the core of my comment, not the specific details of which lines were cut. Once the lines are torn up, and the land not banked for future possible reuse, it's very hard for a car-centric area to switch away from cars. How much should the sore feelings of those consigned to live in a car-only area affect the decision to promote rail service in order to reduce CO2 emissions? In my opinion, zero. > That it was strictly about profitability is also false. If anything it was about cost. When I wrote 'profitability model' I wasn't saying it was strictly about profitability. The report clearly uses profitability as one of the driving factors, but not the only factor. My point is that the model which lead to statements like "As soon as the required procedure permits, it is desired to withdraw those passenger train services which are clearly uneconomic" was not applied to roads. Outside of a few toll roads and bridges, the direct earnings of a road is zero, resulting in an expected loss in total gross revenue. The environment impact to the cuts clearly wasn't included, but neither was the implied increased demand for new roads, nor the higher road maintenance costs, much less concepts of induced demand that Leeming was just then formulating.

eesmith 2y ago

> Beeching The Beeching report of course cut no lines. It was just a report. By "Beeching cut" I mean the systemic policy of the time of prioritizing roads over rail, using the report as synecdoche. > They believed in future buses (and yes cars) would take car of those communities. That belief is the core of my comment, not the specific details of which lines were cut. Once the lines are torn up, and the land not banked for future possible reuse, it's very hard for a car-centric area to switch away from cars. How much should the sore feelings of those consigned to live in a car-only area affect the decision to promote rail service in order to reduce CO2 emissions? In my opinion, zero. > That it was strictly about profitability is also false. If anything it was about cost. When I wrote 'profitability model' I wasn't saying it was strictly about profitability. The report clearly uses profitability as one of the driving factors, but not the only factor. My point is that the model which lead to statements like "As soon as the required procedure permits, it is desired to withdraw those passenger train services which are clearly uneconomic" was not applied to roads. Outside of a few toll roads and bridges, the direct earnings of a road is zero, resulting in an expected loss in total gross revenue. The environment impact to the cuts clearly wasn't included, but neither was the implied increased demand for new roads, nor the higher road maintenance costs, much less concepts of induced demand that Leeming was just then formulating.