Re: Dr Beeching

[anthony@nospam.united-general.demon.co.uk (Anthony Zachary)]

On Thu, 7 Jan 1999 14:32:54 +0000, "Clive D.W. Feather"
<clive@on-the-train.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>In article <915706252.6496.0.nnrp-04.c2de42f8@news.demon.co.uk>, E.D.
>Wivens <news@largeprefer.co.uk> writes
>>The first task he undertook was a survey of the British railways
>>network designed to find out which parts were profitable and where the
>>losses were being made.
>>
>>His report "The Reshaping of British Railways" was published in 1963
>>and gave an accurate description of the state of the network for the
>>first time.
>>
>>It had been suspected a lot of the rail network was under used and
>>therefore uneconomic. The report revealed that only half the routes
>>covered the cost of operating them, and that half the stations
>>produced about 95% of all the revenue.
>
>However ...
>
>Consider a station such as Sunshine-on-Sea at the end of a branch line.
>The town is a major holiday resort and the branch is operated at
>capacity on summer Saturdays. Beeching accounting:
>
>200,000 return tickets London to S-o-S credited to London stations
>3 annual S-o-S seasons credited to Sunshine-on-Sea
>10 locos used for banking summer Saturday workings have their entire
>  maintenance costs allocated to the branch
>8 miles of branch line designated as "needs reballasting and relaying
>  next year"
>
>Result: the branch makes a thumping great loss and is closed. 200,000
>holidaymakers drive in future.
>
>I exaggerate a bit, but it appears that in many cases:
>- fares were credited to the purchase station only
>- asset renewal dates were often moved to just after the scheduled
>  closure date, so if the line stayed open it would make a big loss
>- no allowance made for costs that would remain even if the line
>  closed (e.g. upkeep of overbridges)
>- no attempt was made to bring down running costs (e.g. by using single
>  car DMUs instead of loco+3 on quiet services, or running branches as
>  one-engine-in-steam outside good traffic hours, saving a signalman).

This is very true. Also, he fell for the accounting fallacy that if
you removed, say, the unprofitable line from Hemel Hempstead to
Harpenden, it would have no effect on the profitable line from Hemel
Hempstead to Bletchley. Whereas in fact what happens is that all the
people who need to go to Harpenden buy cars, and then drive everywhere
- including places still served by the suddenly not-profitable
railways.

What makes me really sad as a resident of inner London, and therefore
used to pollution, is that so much of it could have been avoided if
Governments over the years had not been fascinated with the car. We
had a great railway network, which had already been built and paid
for. Now we need to build large parts of it again. Duh.

(And this, incidentally, is why I never trusted nationalised BR, and
rejoiced at privatisation. For all their uselessnesses, the TOCs are a
little farther away from the dangerous effects of Government faddism).

AZ