But first let's do a "before and after" comparison of the extent of Britain's railway network -- before and after the "Beeching Cuts", when unremunerative branch lines were closed down (along with some possibly remunerative ones, such was the fever to get rid of old-fashioned railways):
Back to happier times -- and the rest of the maps in this post will cover roughly the same area of East Anglia. This next one shows, in red, the network of the Great Eastern Railway company, which held a near-monopoly on East Anglian traffic. The interloper was the M&GN, seen stretching from east to west in grey:
Let's make it easier to spot the M&GN by putting that system in red, now:
After Nationalisation in 1948, all the railways were put together into a single system and, here in 1956, you can still see the M&GN route, most of it now a solidly reassuring thick red line (to indicate a mainline), with a few skinny branches off it:
It was the M&GN mainline which formed the railway spine across Norfolk, the GER's routes being the skinny branches and secondary routes.
Now compare that with 1961, after the mass cull of M&GN routes which happened in 1959.
The skinny GER lines mostly survive, while most of the M&GN mainlines and branches have gone. There is now just a solitary skinny line zig-zagging east and west across Norfolk.
But worse was to come. Here's the final shape of East Anglia's railways, in the 1980s:
It's now possible to make the journey from King's Lynn to Norwich, a distance of about 45 miles (or roughly 60km) in something around three hours depending on connections. A car would take under an hour, a decent M&GN direct train could have been considerably less.
For me there's something rather mournful about the story told in those last three maps. I wonder how much, in future, we may regret the decisions to scrap so many of these lines.
Then again, there is always the risk that I am romanticising things, and that none of these M&GN lines could have survived in our hardened economic age when the car is king.
9 comments:
Interesting post.
Especially the comparison between the network of 1963 and 1984. The loss of the most of the mineral traffic with the closure of the collieries in Wales and in the North East, the onslaught of the trucks. In comparison with some of our continental networks the map of 1963 seems to be very dense south of the Humber; caused by the early development of the railways w/o any competitor, and the rivalry among some private companies?
Let me allow to express some personal opinion: the Midland Moguls spoil the post ;-)
If i want to see utilitarian steam locos, i go for the originals in the US or Canada (and i like those). But the Midland or Standard Moguls are dreadful. LNWR, GCR, NER, HR steam locos, and yes GWR steam locos too, adhere to my personal prejudice regarding how an english/british steam loco should look like ;-)
The Ivatt 4 MTs were controversial in the 1950s, too, and their nicknames (which included Mucky Ducks and Flying Pigs) bear testimony to that. They were apparently extremely effective machines: very forgiving, powerful (much more powerful than was needed on the low-speed M&GN), and comfortable for the crews.
But, I have to say, I do agree with you: I'm much more of a fan of the ex-GER Claud Hamiltons and B12s that they replaced.
Equally, by the mid-1950s the M&GN lines had a higher degree of locomotive standardisation than almost anywhere else in the country, and the 4MTs were near-ubiquitous. It's hard to find late M&GN photos which don't feature them!
I should have said something about your density comment, too. You are right, the UK (especially south of the Humber) has a higher density of railway lines than anywhere in Europe other than Belgium.
And it was a direct result of the British government's laissez faire approach: whereas the French government decided where it wanted railway lines to be built and then invited tenders from concessionaires, in the UK anyone could propose a railway anywhere. Provided they could raise the cash and get an Act through Parliament, they could build.
Competition was seen as a good thing in itself, so numerous duplicate lines were built, and any medium-sized town had two or more railway stations. Many of these lines were awkward and lacked proper interconnections, but the sheer volume of them meant that, in the Second World War, when a line was bombed by the Germans communications could usually be maintained by using other lines. Redundancy often has unpredictable advantages.
Later in the history of the development of the railways, governments became more exercised about pointless competition: it became harder to get an Act for a line that was seen as duplicating an existing line (especially since the incumbent would usually hire expensive lawyers to argue against the new line). By then, most of the network was in place.
The B12s are interesting locos, either in original form with Belpaire firebox or in rebuilt form with round top firebox and valances removed from the splashers (and still with the inside cylinders).
You are right; i forgot Belgium (hope i'm still entitled to relish their cookies) with their one year record as of now, which brings us back to the failing nations. Let me allow a personal remark (which anyone will notice ;-): Belgians, get a grip on this! Nobody cares about the doom of some flemish or walloon outposts. Don't you dare to seperate the SNCB into two regional halves!
I forgot to ask: do you have any explaination why the funding for new railway lines was limited by the Acts? I fail to see why the society/state limits the funding of a private undertaking.
Actually I'm not aware of any funding limits on private railways; I think most Bills required the railway company to raise specified minimum amounts of cash (through shares and loans -- the proportions of these were also strictly controlled).
Although I can see how, in the largely unregulated world of early nineteenth century capitalism, it might have been considered prudent to prevent companies raising too much money - shareholders were already very vulnerable to fraud (George Hudson, anyone?), but that doesn't chime very well with the general attitude of the times which was very much caveat emptor.
Annoyingly, the main blog page says there are 8 comments here, but there are obviously only 6.
The "edit posts" bit of my behind-the-scenes gubbins also claims there are 8 comments here.
Is Blogger having a brain attack?
Mine seems to have got lost - I commented on the wide variety of ferrovial special interests and wished you Happy Easter if such a wish is acceptable - if not Happy Holidays! But it hasn't appeared...
Anonymous: I am mortified. I pass every comment that is not spam but, alas, your words of wisdom never appeared for me. Maybe Blogger ate them? Apologies...
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