Posted 27th March 2013 | 13 Comments
Protests mark Beeching anniversary
Local services were one of Beeching's principal targets
PROTESTS are taking place at more than 35 stations around the country to mark the 50th anniversary of the Beeching 'reshaping' report, which was followed by widespread closures of lines and stations in a bid to bring railway finances under control.
Now unions are claiming that the modern industry is confronted by 'frightening' staff and service cuts.
The protests have been organised by the TUC’s Action for Rail campaign, which says operators are preparing 'to embark upon a new programme of cost-cutting over the next six years' that could see more than 20,000 jobs put at risk, the closure of 675 ticket offices and a 50 per cent increase in the number of unstaffed stations, in response to the McNulty report.
The protestors say that if the economies go ahead, around one in 10 staff could lose their jobs and 3 out of 4 British stations would become unstaffed.
Action for Rail is claiming that operators are using 'Beeching-style tactics to slim down local services in a bid to make short-term savings'.
Campaigners have been handing out cards with a message about staff and servicing cuts, which urge passengers to tell their local MPs about their concern over what is happening.
TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Rail firms seem intent on resurrecting the ghost of Dr Beeching, by embarking upon a new era of swingeing railway cuts.
“At a time when passengers are being forced to pay the most expensive train fares in Europe, they also face the prospect of unstaffed stations and guardless trains.
“Instead of chomping at the bit to save money, train operating companies should be looking to improve vital services at stations and on trains. There is no fairness in asking commuters to pay more for less.”
ASLEF general secretary Mick Whelan added: “Beeching’s vandalism was the worse example of the malaise of short-term thinking that has beleaguered our industry throughout its history.
"A successful rail network is planned carefully for decades ahead. It isn’t subjected to short-term, utterly-unimaginative sticking-plaster solutions like letting franchises, reducing services, poking up fares and cutting staff,” while his opposite number at the RMT, Bob Crow, said: “Beeching got it badly wrong half a century ago on the future of rail as a popular mode of travel. His butchery of rail services has been matched by more recent generations of politicians in the fragmentation and exploitation of privatisation. Now is the time to right the wrongs of the past and put an expanded, integrated and publicly-owned railway at the heart of future transport policy.”
TSSA general secretary Manual Cortes said: “Our railways are a success story despite the repeated attacks by the government, Beeching 50 years ago, privatisation twenty years ago and now McNulty which will see the closure of hundreds of booking offices and thousands of job losses.
"Further cuts are not the answer, as Beeching proved so comprehensively five decades ago. We need an affordable, socially-owned railway like the rest of Europe where passengers always come first.”
Reader Comments:
Views expressed in submitted comments are that of the author, and not necessarily shared by Railnews.
John Hartshorne, Stafford
Remember the Serpel Report under the Tories. Yet another attempt to enforce further closures to add to the Beeching Cuts of the '60s. No repeats wanted - Britian very much needs a top quality railway. Go to it!
(Actually, Serpell was rather different. Beeching urged closures, but Serpell set out options without making any recommendations.—Editor.)
Ben Walsh, Cambridge
The Beeching Cuts were not justified.
Although I speak as someone who was not alive at the time, I have realised that having all the railway lines, that have been removed from passenger - and frieght - use have been quite wrong - and should never, ever happen again.
Melvyn Windebank, Canvey Island, Essex
John Edwards, Woodford Halse
Beeching was right. Taxpayers cannot be expected to fund lossmaking lines. Had more investment been made into the roads and conversion of lines, even more could have been closed.
Billions in today's money was spent on building motorways with results of more roads = more traffic until grid lock ensued and users were given a free ride with no tolls to pay (unlike on the Continent!). So how do free roads produce a profit?
Imagine if only a fraction of this money had been invested in new railways to replace old windy Victorian ones with restricted loading gauges , by now we could be onto HS5 or 6!
Anyway, roads are the past and with more and more people wanting to work on the move then Rail is the only way to go in fact journeys last year have broken 1.5 Billion mark for first time since 1920s when we had a much bigger network than even Beeching found!
That's why HS2 and indeed HS3 ....Will be needed along. With Crossrail 2 etc..
Soon we might even start converting M Ways to Railways.! Now there is a money saving idea?
Lutz, London
There is an interesting program on the subject on the BBC iPlayer presented by Ian Hislop; link below, if permitted.
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00drtpj/Ian_Hislop_Goes_off_the_Rails/
John Edwards, Woodford Halse
Beeching was right. Taxpayers cannot be expected to fund lossmaking lines. Had more investment been made into the roads and conversion of lines, even more could have been closed.
John Gilbert, Cradley, Herefordshire
Always interesting that all the blame is heaped on Beeching when those really responsible were - as ever - the politicians (remember Ernie Marples and his road construction business?) and civil servants; Beeching was merely carrying out a brief.Let's also remember that a very large programme of Beeching closures was CONTINUED by Labour after the general election which brought Wilson to power! (having promised to reverse the cuts if he won power!! Exactly as did the Labour party in 1997 as regards privatisation. No change there then!!)
Tony Pearce, Reading
One of Beechings big ideas (as already mentioned) was 'Liner Trains'. I used to work opposite the Dudley Freightliner Terminal for several years and watch what I thought was a very successful operation with mainly 1000s of kegs of beer being shipped out on every train. It was meant to be the 'star' in the Freightliner system but in 1989 it was closed and all business transfered to the relatively unsuccessful Birmingham Depot. I never ever knew why, and I couldn't reckon either why Freightliner wasn't successful as a whole until much later on. It is only in very recent years that 'containerisation' seems to be expanding.
Lutz, London
The Beeching cuts were right in principle, and were generally successful in achieving the objectives of matching resources to demand at that time. They failed in part due to issues around the data collection, but from the numbers it would not have made a significant difference to the outcome. The problem was, from inception, that Britain had more railways than the market could make use of. Even today, most of the lines that were closed are not in the right places to serve the current growth in demand.
The rail unions' comments are as always disingenuous. The railways are evolving, and there is no need, nor demand, for ticketing staff as new technologies become available. What is the big difference between an unmanned railway station and a bus stop? With modern technology, not much.
Also rail operators are not slimming down services, they are in fact actively increasing the number and scope of services. The unions are also apparently in denial about all the long term planning that is being carried out, on a far greater scale than British Rail was capable of contemplating.
The railway unions are solely concerned with is protecting the interests of their own leaders and members, which is not wholly wrong, but there is no substance to their current arguments. If the railway unions were really interested in their members, they would stop acting like Luddites. As to public ownership, we have clear seen in recent events how the public sector is utterly incapable of managing any sort of organasation.
@Tony Pearce, Reading
Overall, the subsidy requirement is high, but the London South East, and Intercity sectors (as such) are close to being self-financing; the RPI+3% increases were aimed at achieving this. Rail fares into London are not cheap, instead they are close to yield pricing to reduce demand on some routes. They are more an inhibitor of employment growth in London. UK rail fares are amongst the highest in Europe, and receive less subsidy than elsewhere. Most organisations already do, and have been doing so for decades, pay a premium to London workers.
Tony Pearce, Reading
Passenger receipts only cover 60 per cent of the cost of Rail Travel. The country can't afford to subsidise passengers that much. It also distorts the economy of the country by sucking all the jobs into London with its cheap commuter costs. Firms in London should factor a realistic amount into their pay structures to cover the real cost of London commuting.
jack99, Oxford
Chris Greene as Network South East MD wanted to reopen Luton - Dunstable back in the 1980's as part of Thameslink but the enlightened politicians of Bedfordshire refused to contribute 5M Pounds to help electrify the branch. Now the Knowledgable Jobsworths of Bedfordshire Council (and Luton--ed.) have ripped up the tracks and dumped a Busway at a cost of 80M Pounds that no local people wanted. So instead of being able to get on a train at Dunstable to get to London on Thameslink you still have to go to Luton to change and get the train . Progress !!!! Exactly the same scenario as the Cambridge St Ives misguided busway.
Melvyn Windebank, Canvey Island, Essex
Tony Pearce "potholes in roads" Well when road users pay the same percentage of costs of roads directly like rail users do in FARES then they can complain but given how yet another fuel duty increase has been cancelled well get to to pot holes as that is what road budget has !
As for Beeching well who could predict that Half a century after Beeching that rail would be Carrying as many passengers as half a century before!
In fact some Beeching cuts have been reversed and its time to look again at towns like Dunstable and Malden to see if closed lines could be re-opened, just think re-open and electrify branch to Dunstable and it would become part of Thameslink with direct through London services!
In addition, some closed lines have become heritage railways and again these could provide rail services linking to main line network,
Bob Grundy, Lancing
Mick Whelan talks airily about "vandalism", but lines were closing long before Beeching took office, and carried on long after he left. He was far from being the only one who believed it was necessary.
Had the unions co-operated with efficiency improvements, instead of clinging to restrictive practices, we'd have had fewer closures. They heap blame on Dr B to divert it from themselves.
Tony Pearce, Reading
Why should the railways receive special treatment. Local Buses and Care Homes, potholes in roads and housing could all claim to be a higher priority. Belching like everything got some things right and some wrong. In his time like now there was a shortage of money, and Governments have to decide priorities. UK railways are about the only service that is receiving massive investment during these rough times. Witness the improvements to electrification, Reading Station and Crossrail.