Hindsight - Dr Beeching

[Music] now on BBC four discussing his four years as the chairman of the board for British Railways Eric Robson asks Lord beaching if he'd have done anything differently with the benefit of hindsight [Music] the Beeching plan the future of our railways was published 18 years ago as a result the railway system we fondly imagined to be the best in the world was cut in half by the most drastic reorganization plan in its history for thousands of rail travellers and people who live in out-of-the-way places beaching the ax man became the villain of the piece but with hindsight those lured beaching still think he was right would he do the same again I'll be asking him in a few minutes but first a reminder of how the Beeching plan was received in its day at the end of the fifties British Railways were in a mess a decade before they'd been nationalized out of bankruptcy they briefly paid their way and then began the seemingly inevitable slide towards losses of a hundred million pounds a year all engines and rolling stock were hopelessly out of debt on a network that hadn't changed much since the days of Victorian Rail where mania thousands of miles of branch line lost money on every rare passenger there carried profits should have been restored by Freight but that was already being seduced onto roads that had a price advantage and more important the blessing of government earnest Marple as the Transport Minister was opening a new era of British transport railways like canals were out of debt this was the age of the road now sir this motorway starts a new era in road travel it is in keeping with the bold exciting and scientific age in which we live it is a powerful weapon to add to our transport system but something had to be done with the railways and the man Marples picked to do it was a director of IC i-- dr. richard beaching his appointment wasn't popular with rail women or the opposition Labour Party not least because he insisted on keeping the same salary had a tie see I twenty four thousand pounds a year compared with a ten thousand pounds a year paid to his predecessor at British Rail we soon saw or who are getting for our money an uncompromising new structure for the railways and a boss who refused to pull his punches a year ago only a super micawber could have been optimistic about the possibility of making a widespread national railway system payer game there was no evidence to support such optimism no changes were envisaged that could be expected to bring solvency and even a few months ago although our hopes were growing we still had to be cautious we didn't know how much railway could be made to pay now however we see prospects of operating a system which will carry a greater amount of traffic than the total of present carried and which will flourish financially while doing so they'd been speculation for months about how it achieves such profitability when the details were finally released it still came as a shock there's never been a doomsday book of British Railways like this and if the government approves today's report will shape the future of the system more than 2,000 stations will be closed some are tiny wayside halls some at famous seaside resorts some in big cities like Edinburgh Glasgow and Liverpool wholesale shutdown of passenger services will the huge areas of the country - the buses the annual loss of 140 million a year will not be wiped out but by 1970 most of it should be gone every part of the country is affected but the most dramatic effects are in Scotland remote areas of the highlands will lose their passenger services north of Aberdeen very few will be left and south of Edinburgh too many local passenger services will go in Wales - that drastically reduced many of the country services are doomed leaving only three main links East and West and a shock for the north the holiday coast will have no more stopping trains holiday resorts in the West Country share the fate of many market towns no station no passenger trains and North Devon and North Cornwall resorts are especially hit in the Northeast little more than the main north-south links will remain all this if the plan goes through Britain is going to be a different place a new look for a much reduced system could mean eventually 70,000 fewer jobs some of the cash compensation has already been agreed with the union's but make no mistake about this this is going to be a big upheaval for Britain but particularly for the men of British Railways the UH neck anomic passengers of British Rail faced upheaval - from now on many thousands of them would buying a car or on the buses much of the serious press of the day applauded the Beeching plan as the only way of cutting the railway losses even the cartoonists of punch saw the good doctor as Prime Minister McMillan's most skilful bicycle repairman but he wasn't going to escape quite suit Li as that [Music] mr. Porter what shall I do take away your uniform where's the Daily Mail on Monday and the Daily Herald on Wednesday carried advanced news of dr. beachings latest threat to X the branchlines rural travelers and train spotters wrapping arms again people in fields of shipping not how will they know the time of day should the 12:30 SC strung eight minutes late Don did cut way and all the anguish at the deep hearts call the milk train does not stop here anymore good doctor have you never dawdled where the down train should have been breathed in The Unforgettable unforgotten station smell part dust parts kerosene that your degree your PhD earned in the field of electronics proved to the world man's proper study is viable railway economic Richard beaching wasn't the man to take such jobs lying down he ordered and starred in his own film which taught us the official beaching version now some of you will say that with the public service profitability isn't the only yardstick but it isn't the only measure of value or even of efficiency and of course it isn't so I don't want to argue about that but the real issue is different the real question is whether you as owners of the railways want us to go on running these services at very high cost when the demand for them is very largely disappeared such cool logic cup little ice with people whose trends didn't grow anymore there were dozens of protest campaigns people who suddenly realized what they're going to lose were up in arms in places like the central borders of Scotland [Applause] [Music] was a knock look bombshell for the whole area and when he can say that elects a height these places was about 16,000 population more train service absolutely ridiculous but at that time when we seem to be the point that even didn't feel it was cut out nobody took time to sit down and say well can we make it be there cast him to be more important than human being the protests were noted but the restructuring went ahead as planned the trends stopped and dr. beaching stuck to his guns do you think they should be made to pay like any commercial concern yes I do I think that if it's at all possible they should be made to pay I think it's important from everybody's point of view isn't there something to be said for the railways being run as a service to the nation rather than on the strict profit and loss basis of a private company there is something to be said but I think it's a doubtful argument somebody's got to pay and if a service of this kind is not supported by those who use it then it means attacks on the populace in general but isn't the whole point of nationalization that you don't have to have an ordinary private enterprise sound way of conducting Obispo and yes it is but I think that Kari led to the point where you fossilized some particular form of activity would be absurd yes you're not necessarily fossilized in a particular form of activity if you keep a service running even though it's not technically economic in profit and loss terms that I know but you might still have stagecoaches if you did that what's a peaceful the railways through many of their problems he didn't get all his own way electrification went ahead on the main lines despite his opposition his greatest achievement was undoubtedly his new structure for rail freight the old private sidings and individually shunted wagons were replaced by long-distance container and single product trends there was to be a fast modern intercity passenger network but British Rail never achieved the profitability he prophesied in those early days the crisis of railway finance is well as still as is the phrase doing a beating from what's happened this week to what's gonna happen this summer may government announces new beaching plan for Britain Armed Forces royal family and state schools all found an economic axed replaced by rural bus services Lord beaching does it surprise you after all the hard work you did in your time running British Railways that in the public consciousness you're still remembered as the man who asked a lot of branchlines it doesn't surprise me now I think it's a little unfortunate and from my point of view unjust but it doesn't surprise me it's nice simple idea to fix in one's head and after all most people aren't remembered at all you can't really complain if you're remembered on over simplified basis can you but with hindsight do you wish you hadn't closed those branches oh no not for one moment I'm only sorry that the planning that we did during my period as chairman of the rowers board wasn't carried further to completion so there are lines in existence today that you feels should have gone years ago yes about half or something like half of the so-called trunk root system of the country should disappear it would still leave us with more railway track route than there are trunk roads and the way of motorway is in the country but could you give me an example of a line that's in use today that you feel should have closed well it would be dangerous for me to start talking now because quite frankly I'm out of touch with the loadings on the various lines but there were two lines to Birmingham one of which could certainly close there's an East Coast route to Scotland and was a West Coast through the west coast through carries nearly all the traffic the East Coast route beyond Newcastle could be closed without any hardship to anybody except people in very calm tweed can I take you back to that time when you were plucked out of industry by miss Marples and given the job of running the railways doing something with the railways what were the terms of reference you were given when you went to the British Railways board well of course a lot of people ask this question and while I was in office a lot of MPs used to say well of course we think you're a good chap and you're doing a very good job but your terms of reference are wrong I didn't have any terms of reference in that sense other than the Acts of Parliament by which the railway the National Railway organisation been set up and about which it had been the responsibilities had been modified subsequently the Acts were the terms of reference the word there weren't any special instructions I never received any and I didn't expect to receive any and I wouldn't have thought it was proper that I should have had any but what those MPs are probably getting out is that you did appears but looking at the railways in isolation well they'd be as part of an integrated transport policy like so well this was said to very often but of course it was totally untrue you you can't examine a business you can't see what traffic is likely to be available to the railways what the advantages of the rowers are relative to other forms of conveyance you can't do the job without considering all the alternative forms of transport so the planning was done with a very lively interest and a considerable research into the capacity of the merits of and the loading of the alternatives but the same time you did seem to accept what many people would argue was a bad system and that is the hidden subsidies for Road Transport which actually leaves leaves rail was in a pretty bad position from the word go we didn't ignore it in fact we published a report drawing attention to the fact that the trunk Holly is on the motorways were not paying their fair whack of the cost of providing those motorways we weren't ignoring it we publicized it and of course it was for the ministry to take action on the basis of the reports when considering the balance between road and rail we certainly didn't ignore it but given that you went for a in rail freight terms you went for a preferred system which was through trains complete trends of freight doing away with you know individual wagon loads you did seem to be giving up the fight in quite a big part of the of the battle and just giving the rest away to the roads no no there wasn't giving up the fight that was recognizing the natural strengths and weaknesses of the railways and exploiting the strengths and withdrawing from those parts of the overall operation of the overall freight movement in the country which was not suited to rail just to give you an example that brings this home very sharply when I went the railways it was an established practice for road haulers to take traffic down to Plymouth and then put it on rail for distribution in Cornwall so they were doing the trunk haul that the railways were suited to and then giving the railway the job of distributing on a fine scale over a large rural area giving the railway all the dirty work to do and taking the natural railway part of the operation to themselves now my proposals were to emphasize and attract as far as possible the trunk movement of Freight in the country and to leave the distribution as one must do two roads all is for the fine-scale collection and delivery of these bulk flows people concerned with road haulage today I think are accepted to be a fairly powerful lobby was that a noticeable lobby in your time was he putting pressure on you it didn't put pressure on me it was a powerful lobby in my time always has been but the pressure wasn't put on me it was put on members of parliament were they putting pressure on you sometimes but not very much no I wasn't a strongly conscious of pressures Road hauliers I was quite aware of their point of view of course and I had quite a viewable relations with and generally while agreeing to differ from with quite a few matters did you have political support I mean did you did you find that the cabinet generally back to you during your time van large yes I had spoke from the prime minister who was responsible for appointing me I had support of course from Miss Marples who was behind the prime minister's appointment of me I had general support from the cabinet as a result of cabinet decision to accept the planning that we've done of course that didn't stop MPs from reverting to rather more troublesome view if some issue arose in their own constituency even ministers could be troublesome if they ran into an unpopular action in their own constituency so didn't they try to lean on you from time to time when I leaned back but looking at some of the effects of it sticking with fright for a minute of so much Freight being on the roads now I'm sure anyone who's sat in a traffic jam on the m1 behind all those heavy lorries must ask if it doesn't stem from some of the things you did that all that stuff is on the motorways I mean couldn't solving beyond the railways if he hadn't been fed dr. beaching oh no none of it is on the road because of me because I didn't diminish in any way the capacity of the railways to trunk haul Freight could I tend to a couple of things that have happened since your time our railways are very economic and energy compared with red transport would it have made a difference to you in in the sort of Freight you'd have carrot there's the number of lines you'd have left open had you been able to forsake that we were going to go to an energy crisis in 1974 well it would certainly have made some difference but not a dramatic difference I think you say the rowers are very cheap in energy compared with road transport well let's say they are more economical but when you take energy into account with other factors the only common measure is cost and we would have had to treat it in their way if we were doing the sums now and it would have had some effect in swinging the balance in favor of roadways but not a great effect it would have cut down the break-even distance at which beyond which always cheaper Fortran college than Road from say a hundred and twenty miles to a hundred but it wouldn't have you see there aren't many distances in this country where Freight is Hall for much more than three vowels so that it wouldn't have transformed the whole equation the other effect which stays people were stays with people of many things you did is the the social need of Railways I mean many people in places like the central borders would feel today that they are still deprived because they lost their railway line as a result of the Beeching cuts do you not feel that railways should be treated more as a social service than you treated them in your day not more as a social service than they were treated in my day you see you're talking about rural lines where the total traffic on them was very small where a comparable level of service could be provided by buses for about a tenth of the cost and you must realize that even the buses now in those areas are in trouble costing as they do a tenth as much that's done being closed and being closed so that it's difficult under those circumstances to suppose that we closed the railways prematurely there isn't a great sense of hardship in the country the it will be silly to pretend that nobody anywhere suffered hardship but there was very little hardship as a result of these railway closures and there's never been any evidence of a widespread degree of hardship as a result so it's a sort of sentimentality you say which makes people hanker after the rail railway well of course they weren't using them when they were there do you think they're that much of the work that you did many of the savings you made have these things been fretted away since your time well that would be unkind wouldn't it let's say that some of the excellent planning that we did in my day has not been pursued to a conclusion with the vigor that I would have liked would we be nearer to the age of the Train if it had we'd be nearer to the age when we had a railway properly match to the traffic pattern or the country you see when we put forward these proposals for the rationalization of the trunk routes we did this market survey and we looked into the future for 10 and 20 years and we forecast what the traffic patterns in the country were likely to be in 74 and 84 and which part of that pattern was of such a nature that it would be favorable for the railways and as far as I know well I do know that the 74 figures were very close to the truth and as far as one can foresee the 84 figures are very close to the truth certainly as far as the overall pattern is concerned though on the favorable side because we've had quite a degree of recession that wasn't allowed for in our forward look and when also they're pretty good in the assessment of the proportion of the total traffic that's suitable for rail and we have still several times the capacity in British Railways that is necessary to deal with the flows of traffic that are likely to be with us in the future so is this the edge of the trend we say it isn't because my successor is saying but Dad for yourself well what do you think about some of the developments that they're planning with British Railways advanced passenger trains for example well I think technically the advanced passenger train is a great achievement and of course if you're going to read is obsolete stock and all the while you continue to operate the root system that we've got you must do that I think this is an excellent form of train to substitute for the old stock but I see very little likelihood that it will make a great difference to the commercial success of the railways because so long as you're fast enough you compete effectively with the air and track and Road alternative and being half as fast again won't necessarily give you a corresponding increase in revenue because you pay a high price for speed of course so you wouldn't have put the money up for that sort of but well I might or I might not in the case of specific routes I can't tell it's only if you are fully familiar with the current situation that you make judgments of that sort what about electrification well electrification is a very questionable change of the railway system once you've electrified of course you can operate the system more cheaply but the capital costs of changing is high proper return on the capital invested is a severe cost element in the balance and the dislocation caused during several years of electrification can be very damaging it was a great handicap to us did you enjoy your years with British Railways well yes I did I wouldn't have missed it for elves I I didn't want to do it it wasn't a job that any sensible man could have rushed at but I did enjoy yes was it boring going back to industry again afterwards it was pretty flat yes so now do you ever sit that hoping the phone will ring I mean for example would you have liked the government to have come to you and said the British Steel's in an awful mess will you come back and sort it out well I would have been interested I don't know what my answer would have been I feel I'm on the old side it's a physical strain and a mental strain and I don't know what my reaction would have been but I do feel I'm a bit on the old side was this train made worse at the time by the the press opposition well the press opposition it was it wasn't just straight press opposition I had a very troublesome period when I started because the press seemed to be anxious to prove that it was an important impertinence on my part to presume to run the railways of the country what does this man know about the railways and so on they were digging up any little tidbits they could find to diminish my qualification to do the job but that win that was over and of course there was a great deal of fast about my salary which was merely a continuation of my Icee Icee salary but that got me into the public eye in a way that served me in good stead thereafter I was almost instantaneously transfer transformed into somebody the public knew about so that when I wanted to say something I had a pretty good platform from which to say it we began by talking about the fact that you are remembered for certain things mainly for being a mad axe man I suspect well of course I don't like me ex man I just wasn't mad like that it was not a case of swinging an axe and chopping off anything that got in the way it was a very carefully considered surgical operation the reshaping planned operation of cutting out the branch lines equally thoughtful were the proposals for rationalizing the trunk roots so I certainly don't like being thought of as a wild x-man so you believe that people picked up the wrong end of the stick when they chose to look on doing a be checked in that way I don't know that people have you see I don't know to what extent people use the term with understanding some certainly do understand it I had a lot of correspondence at the time and have had correspondence since which show that a lot of people know what it was all about but I don't know how many of them do picking our way through some of the UK's fascinating network of disused railway lines next on bz4 with Julia Bradbury railway walks I used to be the man Express 40 years ago a controversial report wiped out 1/3 of our railway network [Music] Ian Hislop goes off the rails to find out why [Music] so nights at Marina on bbc4

Channel: Chris Ogilvie

Views: 24,337

Keywords: Dr Beeching, Eric Robson, railway closures, hindsight, beeching closures

Id: GUHUwSGN7rA

Length: 30min 42sec (1842 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 29 2017