Beeching Cuts - Background

Background

See also: History of rail transport in Great Britain

After growing rapidly in the 19th century during a period of Railway Mania, the British railway system reached its height in the years immediately before the First World War, with a network of 23,440 miles (37,720 km) of railway. After the First World war the railways faced increasing competition from a growing road transport network, which led to the closure of some 1,300 miles (2,100 km) miles of passenger railways between 1923 and 1939. It has been noted, however, than some of these lines had never been profitable and were not subject to loss of traffic in that period. The railways were then busy during World War II. At the end of the war they were in a poor state of repair, and were soon nationalised as British Railways.

The 'Branch Lines Committee' of the British Transport Commission (BTC) was formed in 1949 with a brief to close the least used branch lines; a total 3,318 miles (5,340 km) of railway were closed between 1948 and 1962. Closures in this period included: the Charnwood Forest Railway, closed to passengers in 1931, the Harborne Line in Birmingham, closed to passengers in 1934, and the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway, closed in 1959. This period saw the beginning of a closures protest movement led by the Railway Development Association, whose most famous member was the poet John Betjeman. They went on to be a significant force resisting the Beeching proposals.

Economic recovery and the end of petrol rationing led to rapid growth in car ownership and use. Vehicle mileage grew at a sustained compound annual rate of 10% between 1948 to 1964. Railway traffic, by contrast, remained steady during the 1950s but the economics steadily deteriorated, with labour costs rising faster than income and fares and freight charges repeatedly frozen by the government to try to control inflation. By 1955 income no longer covered operating costs, and things got steadily worse.

The 1955 Modernisation Plan promised expenditure of in excess of £1,240 million; steam locomotives would be replaced with diesel and electric locomotives, traffic levels would increase and the system was predicted to be back in profit by 1962. Instead losses mounted, from £68 million in 1960 to £87 million in 1961, and £104 million in 1962. The BTC could no longer pay the interest on its loans. The government lost patience and looked for radical solutions.

By 1961 losses were running at £300,000 a day; since nationalisation in 1948 3,000 miles (4,800 km) of line had been closed, railway staff numbers had fallen 26% from 648,000 to 474,000 and the number of railway wagons from 1,200,000 to 848,000.