Last Trains
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The ministry had already begun to receive detailed proposals arising out of the Trunk Routes study, by the time the BRB suggested a different approach. Officials realised that these proposals ran counter to their recommendations in existing cases involving east Lincolnshire, Settle–Carlisle and Huddersfield–Manchester. Even the larger network Raymond favoured implied a couple of dozen closures officials identified as doubtful. Some had been rejected by Marples (Middlesbrough–Whitby, for example), others were commuter services (North Berwick, Ashford–Ramsgate and the Tyne electric services), served major holiday routes (York–Scarborough) or were lines whose retention had been integral to other closure consents (Peterborough–Oakham). In June 1966 Skegness was reprieved as the result of a rethink Fraser had imposed on the basis of concern expressed by the Board of Trade, the MHLG, the Ministry of Agriculture, the area TUCC and the Central Electricity Generating Board. In September 1966 Castle announced a batch of decisions on twenty-six closure proposals, some of which involved refusing consent to lines that would have closed under Raymond’s proposals. Despite attempts in the accompanying press release to identify the decisions with Castle personally, these refusals were broadly in line with the policy Marples had followed, in particular the general concern of his officials over holiday lines and commuter services. For example, Castle’s reprieve of St Erth–St Ives and Liskeard–Looe reflected official advice that both carried substantial numbers of holidaymakers and ‘present an intractable road traffic problem for alternative bus services’; but her ‘determination’ to preserve rail links to holiday resorts did not extend to the Bodmin–Wadebridge–Padstow line, where the ministry felt the roads and buses could cope.255 Other refusals on the list had been foreshadowed by the MHLG’s concerns in August 1963. The continuity of the official machine is evident in a draft letter to Philip Noel-Baker, the Labour MP for Swindon and a long-standing opponent of closures, presented to Barbara Castle when she replaced Fraser in December, containing a repetition of an assurance Marples had given Macmillan that ‘our experience is that in fact opposition to closures nearly always peters out once the decision has been made, and the forecast hardship hardly ever materialises’.256
If Castle’s map was largely a reflection of existing policy, both its content and presentation took account of the political difficulties of rail closures, which were brought home to her during the 1966 election campaign. The map portrayed a smaller network than the one existing at the time but the key presentational point was that it was larger than the one Beeching would have put in place. Indeed, under the headline ‘Burying the Beeching Plan’, the Financial Times published a version of the map showing some 3,000 miles of ‘Reprieved Lines’ as thick broken lines. Only 672 miles of these had been proposed for closure in Reshaping, the rest being cuts Beeching’s further studies implied. Visually the effect was a marvellous distraction of the eye from the thin dotted lines representing ‘Possible Closures’. ‘Basically what Mrs Castle has done’, the paper reported, ‘has been to “save” some 3,000 miles of passenger-carrying line.’257 The ministry decided not to publish a list of closure proposals with the map, because it ‘would echo the Beeching method of presentation and impair the different impression of handling railway matters which the minister is trying to create’.258 Crucially the Treasury was willing to allow the map to be published and presented in a positive light because officials believed that it represented the practical limit of what the closure programme could achieve by 1970, irrespective of any ultimate target. This was a reasonable estimate given that in 1967 the network stood at about 13,000 miles in total, of which about 10,000 miles was open to passengers (indeed Network for Development implied a number of closures which did not take place by 1970 – or subsequently. For example, Ashford–Hastings, Leeds–Carnforth, Barrow–Whitehaven and the lines to Uckfield, Sheringham and Pwhelli). Pressure from the Treasury and the DEA obliged Castle to accept privately the possibility of a further contraction after 1970. The two departments also watered down references to halting drastic reductions in the network contained in Castle’s Railway Policy White Paper published some eight months after the map in November 1967. They were anxious to stress that a larger network should not mean a larger investment programme to develop the core network in the intensive way Raymond had envisaged and to this end wanted the original title of ‘Lines for Development’ altered to ‘Lines for Retention’. Replacing ‘Lines’ with ‘Network’ kept both sides content.259
Castle’s sudden departure left her bemused successor Richard Marsh with three particularly tough decisions: Edinburgh–Hawick–Carlisle (the Waverley line), Shrewsbury–Llanelli and the east Lincolnshire lines (Peterborough–Grimsby and the branches to Skegness and Mablethorpe). These cases indicate the difficulty any minister would have faced in going beyond the closures Network for Development implied. The common factor in all three was the extent to which closure would leave large areas with poor roads far from any rail service. The Waverley line was considered by ministers in spring 1968. Reminding the Prime Minister of recent nationalist electoral successes, the Scottish Secretary put up a very strong, but unsuccessful, fight in favour of at least retaining the northern half (Hawick–Edinburgh) for three years, as it served an area to which the government was attempting to attract industry. However, while the population had decreased by 9.5 per cent during 1964–7, the number of passengers north of Hawick had dropped by 30 per cent and the number of cars had risen by 120 per cent. There was a strong element of symbolism on both sides. Marsh argued that it was more important than ever to reduce the burden of the railway deficit and that rejecting this closure would make it harder to justify others, while the Scottish Secretary pointed to the damage the closure would do to economic confidence in the area. Given that there were only thirty season ticket holders between Hawick and Edinburgh and the subsidy of over £390,000 a year for that section compared with an anticipated annual subsidy of £150 million to the railways, both could be accused of inflating the significance of the case, although the reaction to closure suggests that they were not alone. On the penultimate day of operation two trains were delayed by bomb scares and passengers on an excursion train were jeered by a crowd at Hawick. The final train was stopped by a crowd on the level crossing at Newcastleton and in the ensuing confrontation the minister of the local kirk was arrested. Following mediation involving the local MP, David Steel, an exchange of prisoners was agreed, the minister was released and so was the train. Negotiations for private acquisition failed and the line was eventually dismantled. In 2006 the Scottish Parliament passed an Act paving the way for the reopening of the northern section as far south as Tweedbank.
The Waverley line closure seems particularly hard to defend given the outcome of the proposal to close Shrewsbury–Llanelli, which ministers discussed in the summer of 1969. This too would leave a substantial area without a rail service, but usage had declined significantly since 1964 (when Marples had refused his consent to closure) and the line had only six regular daily passengers. It served no intermediate place of comparable significance to the border towns and required a subsidy of 21d per passenger mile, against the 16.8d which would have made Edinburgh–Carlisle one of the most expensive lines to keep. Nevertheless, the Welsh Secretary, George Thomas, defended it as strongly as his Scottish counterpart had defended the Waverley line the year before. Thomas had warned Wilson of the dangers of being seen to ‘out-Beeching Beeching’ as a result of the treatment of Wales in Network for Development the previous summer.260 The decisive difference between the two cases was that three marginal seats bordered the line, there was a strong nationalist challenge posed in Llanelli and the case had taken on a national significance in Wales. Thomas was strongly supported by Eirene White, the party chairman, who warned Wilson that ‘closure would at once give the Nationalists exactly the rallying cry they need. We should lose Brecon and Radnor and Cardigan and forfeit any hope of defeating Gwynfor Evans in Carmarthen. It could make things more difficult in several o
ther seats.’261
Armed with this warning, the Prime Minister chaired a discussion of the case at which – surprisingly, given their view the previous year that the Waverley line mattered little to the economy of the border towns, but unsurprisingly given White’s warning – ministers decided that the development of Mid-Wales might increase traffic on the line and deferred the decision for review in 1970. The railways grant budget does not appear to have been increased to cover the cost of saving the line, thereby causing other more useful services to close.
The east Lincolnshire proposal, although it had aroused considerable opposition, posed fewer political problems; but its complexity illustrates the difficult territory surrounding really large savings. Essentially the problem was how to maintain services for holidaymakers to Skegness and Mablethorpe, given that they were on the end of separate branches from a duplicate through route between Peterborough and Grimsby, connected to Lincoln by another line, none of which seemed worthy of retention other than as conduits for holidaymakers. Marples had deferred his decision on the Lincoln line in 1963 so that the whole network could be considered together, and Fraser had rejected the proposal to close it all; but it was not until 1969, after detailed consideration of various permutations, that a decision was taken to maintain only the Boston–Skegness service (although closed, the Peterborough–Spalding section was almost immediately restored with a local authority grant). Closure of the line north to Grimsby, Lincoln–Firsby and the Mablethorpe branch has left a significant area, much of which suffers deprivation, cut off from the rail network. Taken together these three cases indicate the political and administrative difficulties that would have faced any attempt to pursue the 8,000-mile objective. Publication of the Waverley line proposal had been deferred in 1964, Shrewsbury–Llanelli was rejected that year and resubmitted, and the east Lincolnshire closure was the outcome of a continuous process dating back to 1963. How long, then, might it have taken to implement the closures implied by the 8,000-mile network?
Castle was a reluctant closer of railway lines,† but she closed quite a lot of them, accepting ninety-one proposals in full or part, affecting just over 600 miles. She had initially hoped to cut out the TUCC procedure to speed up the closure process and accepted the ministry’s hope that Dingwall–Kyle of Lochalsh would close once road improvements were carried out, which had been Marples’s intention when he reprieved the line in 1964. In addition the 1968 Transport Act encouraged the BRB to cut out much apparently surplus capacity – reducing some four-track routes to two and singling some double-tracked routes – which has resulted in capacity constraints today that are arguably as regrettable in hindsight as any closures. The gap between Marples’s enthusiasm and Castle’s reluctance can be seen in his willingness to close Cambridge–St Ives–March in 1964 despite difficulties in providing alternative bus services between Cambridge and St Ives. He was restrained by the committee imposed on him for that very purpose. Castle retained the Cambridge–St Ives section on the advice of officials, although this proved to be only a temporary reprieve. The difference in their attitude was evident but less significant than the consistency of official machinery and advice. However, to dismiss Network for Development as purely a presentational trick with no real impact on the closure programme would be to ignore its symbolic significance. Castle may have been forced to accept the possibility of a new closure programme after 1970 but her legacy was that such a programme would be seen as a departure from existing policy, thus raising the political temperature. It also meant that after 1967 few new closure proposals were being published, so any future government would have to produce major proposals quickly if it wanted to implement them before the next election. Whether or not Castle was thinking this far ahead, this was the position that greeted the Conservatives when they unexpectedly returned to power under Edward Heath in June 1970, apparently with their appetite for rail closures undiminished.
Although some have seen the 1970 Conservative manifesto as a sort of proto-Thatcherite declaration of intent, Edward Heath, who had become Conservative leader in 1965, always rejected such judgements and claimed his aim was a modernisation which would preserve the mixed economy, full employment and the welfare state – as far as possible through consensus. Heath wanted lower taxes, lower spending and a stimulus to economic growth. The railway deficit was an obvious target for cuts, in particular given the Conservatives’ apparent determination not to support ‘lame-duck’ industries. Indeed for Heath the survival of rural railways symbolised the need to modernise. Warning his party of the dangers of failing to do so in 1973, he argued that ‘the alternative to expansion is not, as some occasionally seem to suppose, an England of quiet market towns linked only by trains puffing slowly and peacefully through green meadows’, but poverty and decline.262 By the time Heath’s transport minister, John Peyton, took office within the newly created Department of the Environment, under Secretary of State Peter Walker, his officials had already established a working party to look at a selection of railway scenarios for 1985 or 1990. One involved closing them entirely, although this was probably for comparative purposes rather than a serious suggestion. These studies were given added momentum in September 1970 when the Cabinet examined ways of reducing public spending by £1,000 million by 1974–5. However, in the face of opposition from the Scottish and Welsh secretaries it seemed that the ‘battle will be bloody and the gains small’. Twenty closures a year would be required simply to keep the grant at its existing level and even this would cause ‘very real political trouble’.263 The minister was advised to offer no reduction in the grant beyond agreeing to make the London commuter network self-supporting through fare rises over the next three years (a policy undermined by subsequent price restraint). By early 1971 the Department had a list of 110 lines failing to cover even their short-term marginal costs. Fearing that another Beeching-style list would unite opposition, Peyton and his officials decided to announce only the seventy to eighty cases needed to hold the grant at a consistent level and to do so in batches of twelve, a few months apart. Even this proved impossible as the Scottish Secretary refused point blank to accept closure of the Wick line, proposing commuter services as alternatives. The Welsh Secretary was equally intransigent over the Whitland–Pembroke Dock and Shrewsbury–Llanelli services and Peyton and the Chancellor accepted the political case for postponing any announcement. Although Peyton hoped to take up the case for Scottish and Welsh closures again, the Welsh Secretary warned that the closure programme ‘has now gone as far as it can go without prejudicing the economic and social life of many parts of Wales’ and that he would oppose any further contraction in the next two years, while rumours of a 200-service closure programme had mobilised opposition across Britain.264 As one official remarked, ‘the irrational and sentimental attraction to the retention of particular rail services at a time when so many of the development areas [as the areas of economic decline were now known] are experiencing serious unemployment’ was a significant factor.265 Many people appeared to believe that rail services had a greater transport significance than their traffic suggested. Clearly, maintenance of the Inverness–Wick and Shrewsbury–Llanelli services, at a cost ‘almost absurdly expensive in comparison to the standards we use in England’, had taken on a symbolic significance that far outweighed the impact which closure would have on the average 525 people who used the former and 360 who used the latter each day, or the £600,000 it was believed their closure would save.266 The problem for the government was that if bankruptcies and redundancies were blamed on closures, it was difficult to prove otherwise. Less contentious alternatives could be found, but the case for closing them was more marginal. By the time Peyton had compiled a list of twelve cases acceptable to the Scottish and Welsh Offices, the Treasury Chief Secretary expressed concern that the government would look stupid if it proposed closures that would cost jobs while announcing government spending elsewhere to create jobs, and all but four of the cases on the list were reprieved. By early 1972 mi
nisters had effectively placed a political moratorium on closures; its length remained open to question, but the eventual rundown of rural bus and rail services was still seen as inevitable.
Meanwhile, in late 1971, the BRB and the Department had completed studies designed to test the viability of various sizes of railway, one of which was as small as 3,800 miles. Nearly two years of wrangling followed over how a network consisting only of profitable passenger services, profitable freight services and grant-aided services (which were inherently profitable as far as the BRB’s accounts were concerned) could still be predicted to lose large sums of money. The only outcome of this discussion was an agreement that no viable railway had been identified and that the search for the right-size railway should continue. A network of 5,450 miles, from which all grant-aided services had been removed except commuter services, was cheaper than the Board’s favoured approach but less cost-effective in terms of the traffic it carried. When a copy of the Department’s report on the BRB’s further studies was leaked to the Sunday Times in October 1972 and the public saw a map on which not only Inverness, Stranraer, Penzance, Aberystwyth and King’s Lynn, but Ayr, Middlesbrough, Canterbury, Stratford-upon-Avon, Hereford, Blackburn, Burnley, Aylesbury, Salisbury and Chichester were removed from the rail network, Peyton faced exactly the problem he had hoped to avoid by publishing closures in small batches. All hell broke loose. As the chairman of the Broad Street Line (Richmond) Committee warned, ‘Beeching caught the country unprepared [but] there is now scarcely one threatened line that is not forearmed with a defence committee’ and many politicians had made promises of support which would now have to be honoured.267 The NUR promised to fight the plan ‘tooth and nail’. In Aberystwyth, which would be left with Shrewsbury as a railhead, the local council unanimously resolved to organise protest meetings to prevent ‘the death knell of Mid-Wales’ and the mayor was quoted as saying ‘[w]e must fight, and fight to the death, even if it means going outside the conventional means at our disposal’.268 According to Richard Marsh, who was now the BRB chairman, the prospect of a closure programme was killed when he showed Peyton a map indicating its impact on Conservative constituencies in rural areas. Walker told officials that he would not accept any significant cuts in the network; Peyton and Marsh fell over themselves to reassure the public that the leaked map was just one of a series of options being studied (as indeed it was). By the start of 1973, the Department saw little point in continuing studies of the viable railway; it was politically impossible. At the Treasury, officials who wanted a closure programme found themselves impotent in the face of what one of them called ‘the overwhelmingly most unsatisfactory part of the whole railway saga … the fundamental refusal of politicians to countenance the possibility of a significant rundown in rail services’.269 That reluctance is not hard to fathom when one considers that in 1974 BR identified eighty-two services on which each train carried an average maximum of twenty passengers and revenue was less than half of operating costs; withdrawing thirty-eight of them would allow 1,000 miles of railway to close and save £3.2 million, but provoke howls of protest. The saving was equivalent to 1 per cent of the public subsidy received by the BRB in 1975.270 A few months later a cross-party consensus had emerged on the need to maintain the network at roughly 11,500 miles, Peyton was claiming credit for the fact that only 135 miles of railway had closed in the last three years compared to 3,430 under Labour and had ruled out large-scale closures to cheers from all sides of the House of Commons. By early 1974 he had announced that even piecemeal closures would generally fail to reduce system costs and several lines whose closure had already been approved were reprieved.