One of the biggest own goals in history for an industrialized nation, but what else can you expect from this weird island.
"The Branch Lines Committee of the British Transport Commission (BTC) was formed in 1949 with a brief to close the least-used branch lines. This resulted in the loss (or conversion to freight-only operation) of some 3,318 miles (5,340 km) of railway between 1948 and 1962."
And the loss of tens of thousands of unionized jobs... Can't have those.
Transport worker unions have historically been one of the greatest generators of class consciousness and even played a revolutionary role at some points in history. Far too dangerous, gotta crush them. Just like the coal miners needed to be crushed in the 80s.
"Out of 18,000 miles (29,000 km) of railway, Beeching recommended that 6,000 miles (9,700 km)—mostly rural and industrial lines—should be closed entirely, and that some of the remaining lines should be kept open only for freight. A total of 2,363 stations were to close, including 435 already under threat, both on lines that were to close and on lines that were to remain open."
"The first report was accepted by the Conservative government of the day, which argued that many services could be provided more effectively by buses. Most recommendations were subsequently taken forward by the Labour government elected in 1964, but many of the proposed closures sparked protests from communities that would lose their trains, a number of which (especially rural communities) had no other public transport."
"Holiday and coastal resorts were severely affected by the closures."
"The Beeching Report was intended to be the first stage in the rail network's contraction."
"With a few exceptions, after the early 1970s proposals to close other lines were met with vociferous public opposition and were shelved."
Turns out people kind of hate it when you try to destroy their public transportation system...
"Many redundant structures from closed lines remain, such as bridges over other lines and drainage culverts. They often require maintenance as part of the rail infrastructure while providing no benefit."
So you closed the lines down because they weren't making enough money, and now they're making zero money and you still have to pay upkeep costs. What awesome economic geniuses Britain has...
"By 1968, the railways were still losing money and Beeching's approach appeared to many to have failed. It has been suggested that by closing almost a third of the network Beeching achieved a saving of just £30 million, whilst overall losses were running in excess of £100 million per year. However, the precise savings from closures are impossible to calculate."
Lol, so they don't even have any idea if they actually gained anything from doing this.
"Some of the branches closed acted as feeders to the main lines, and that feeder traffic was lost when the branches closed;"
Oh no, you mean to tell me that there are downstream consequences when you take a wrecking ball to a big part of your transportation network?
"Whatever the figures, towards the end of the 1960s it became increasingly clear that rail closures were not bringing the rail system out of deficit and were unlikely ever to do so."
Fail.
"In many cases the replacement bus services were slower and less convenient than the trains they were meant to replace, and so were unpopular. Replacement bus services were often run between the (now disused) station sites (some of which were some distance from the population centres they served), thus losing any potential advantage over the closed rail service. Most replacement bus services lasted less than two years before they were removed due to a lack of patronage, leaving large parts of the country with no public transport."
Oh wow, you mean to tell me rail replacement buses suck compared to trains? No shit! Any German who has had to use the DB's Schienenersatzverkehr can tell you that!
"Many of the closed lines had run at only a small deficit. Some lines such as the Sunderland-to-West Hartlepool line cost only £291 per mile to operate. Closures of such small-scale loss-making lines made little difference to the overall deficit. Possible changes to light railway-type operations were attacked by Beeching, who rejected all proposals for cost savings that would not make a route profitable: [...]"
"Ernest Marples, previously Postmaster General, was made Transport Minister two weeks later in a cabinet reshuffle; [...] Marples had a background with a successful road construction company. [...] As is customary, he resigned as a director of the company in 1951 on becoming a junior minister, but he only disposed of his shares in the company in 1960 [...], when questions were asked both in the media and also in the Commons on 28 January 1960; [...] While it was reported that he sold the shares to his wife, she denied in a newspaper interview, that any transaction had taken place."
Lol, had the term "conflict of interest" not been invented yet?
"The board consisted of senior figures in British businesses, and none of the board had previous knowledge or experience of the railway industry."
"Marples then appointed Beeching as Chairman of the British Transport Commission in March 1961. He would receive the same yearly salary that he was earning at ICI, the controversial sum of £24,000 (£675,000 in 2023 terms) [...] two-and-a-half times higher than the salary of any head of a nationalised industry at the time. [...] this salary, at 35 times that of many railway workers, has been described as a "political disaster"."
Imagine that, destroying your nation's infrastructure and people's jobs and being paid obscene amounts while doing it.
"The Transport Act 1962 dissolved the British Transport Commission (BTC), which had overseen the railways, canals and road freight transport and established the British Railways Board, which took over on 1 January 1963, with Dr Beeching as its first chairman. The Act put in place measures that simplified the process of closing railways by removing the need for the pros and cons of each case to be heard in detail."
"The general election in October 1964 returned a Labour government under Prime Minister Harold Wilson after 13 years of Conservative government. During the election campaign Labour had promised to halt rail closures if elected, but it quickly backtracked, and later oversaw some of the most controversial closures."
So nothing has changed since 1960, huh? Labour still being liars and traitors to the working class, implementing conservative policies that proved too unpopular even for the Tories...
"Section 39 of the Transport Act 1968 made provision for grants to be paid in relation to loss-making lines and services, but many of the services and railway lines that would have qualified had already been closed."
Too little too late, as usual for socdems.
"In 1982, under the government of Margaret Thatcher, Sir David Serpell, a civil servant who had worked with Beeching, compiled the Serpell Report which said that a profitable railway could be achieved only by closing much of what remained. The report's infamous "Option A" proposed greatly increasing fares and reducing the rail network to a mere 1,630 miles (2,620 km), leaving only 22 miles (35 km) of railway in Wales [...] and none in Somerset, Devon or Cornwall."
Fuck it, just make trains illegal at that point!
Rail modal share 1952–2015
Rail passengers in Great Britain 1829–2021
And that's what it was all about! Gutting the entire system so badly to the point where you can justify why you now have no choice but to privatize it! And then private capital can start to really cash in and raise ticket prices to the astronomical levels you have today! It's the same long game they are playing with the NHS.