OT - North Norfolk Railway gets reconnected to National Rail

claims the crossing has 300 yards of new rails. It looked more like

Poor old Beeching gets it in the neck again. Marples was very shrewd to hand him the smoking gun and run for cover. Guy

>claims the crossing has 300 yards of new rails. It looked more like

If there had been an extradition treaty with Spain at the time, Marples would have been tried for corruption.

ed

'POOR old Beeching' ? he got paid the same salary as his former post at ICI. He was the forerunner of today's management style i.e. bring someone in who knows nothing about the details or heritage of the industry. Mr Beeching may have got a poor press but he did VERY well for himself.

Could the same thing happen again in today's world ? Some of our local bus's only carry about 6 to 7 passengers for example. When successive governments have put most of the haulage companies out of business then railways may get better thought of .... but don't hold ya breath !

Chris

Nonetheless, it is he who in the popular mind is demonised for Ernest marples' evisceration of the rail network in favour of roads, at great profit to Marples Ridgeway Construction.

I suppose he "voss only following orders". And now I shall have to play The Slow Train to get it out of my head. Guy

The message from "Just zis Guy, you know?" contains these words:

Don't forget that it was Barbara Castle who closed more lines/stations than Dr Beeching, although I take your point about Ernie Marples - in fact I took it way back in the 60s when I saw the builders' signs by the new motorways.

Just so. There is, I think, a difference in character between the attitude of Labour and Conservative governments to railway issues. Understandably, of course. For example, the Beeching/Marples closures were accompanied by the dynamiting of bridges and sale of strategic parcels of land to effectively prevent the routes being reopened by a successor government, and when the railways were privatised the way it was done seemed to me specifically designed to make it as difficult as possible to renationalise any part of it, rather than to preserve any form of utility.

Incidentally, I don't vote for either of the two parties mentioned above :-) Guy

"David Jackson" wrote

Only because she inherited the previous government's closure plans which in many instances were extremely well advanced. It's difficult to reprieve a line when the contract has already been let for the replacment bus service for instance.

John.

I know this is not really the right forum for this discussion but I have to wade in here on the subject of replacement bus services. I'm doing some research with a view to writing a book about the real impact of the Beeching cuts. Recently I read a paper written about the impact of the closing of the Withernsea and Hornsea branches. Both had existing parallel bus routes, these bus routes changed hardley at all when the railway closed. The frequency of the buses did not change, there was one extra bus put on, on each route, if I remember correctly for the school children. Car ownership rose and house building stagnated for a while.

Pretty much in the long term there were no extra or replacement buses, once a railway closed, within a few years public transport got worse, and, ofcourse there are many things you could take on a train that you could not take on a bus.

Once the railway was lost that was it.

Paul

East Coast?

Though it does perhaps mean fewer people have to go to Withernsea.

People who moan about the economic and environmental effects of overseas holidays have never spent a day in Withernsea.

There is a saying in the US "I spent a week one night in Philadelphia."

And "First Prize in the contest is a Weekend in Philadelphia, second prize is a Week in Philadelphia."

The only bits that are truly privatised are Freightliner, the ROSCOs and infrastructure renewal companies. As Network Rail is owned by the government the franchises are really concessions to operate the passenger services and the former EWS is owned by DB. It would be quite easy to recreate Inter City, Network South East and Regional Railways by not re-letting the franchises. The only complication is the EU separation of infrastructure from operations.

AKA The Last Resort.

A few miles south of here was the famous military railway from Kilnsea to Spurn Head, built during WWI and also used in WWII. It was dismantled in 1951-52. The track is still visible in places, such as in this Google Street Level view right beside the lighthouse at Spurn Point:

Amazingly, the body of a coach used on the line still exists in the grounds of a bungalow in Kilnsea, and one of the locomotives used in the construction, 1893-built Manning-Wardle "Lord Mayor", has resided on the Worth Valley Railway since 1968. In the 1920s and 1930s, unique sail- propelled trolleys ran on this line.

Scroll down to the Addendum to see a "sail bogie".

Why have extra bus's when no one was using them ... that was idea behind the Beeching cuts !

OK car / bus / lorry is more flexible but for mass transport the train is still No 1

In the new issue of Hornby mag good article on 'Motorail'

Chris

Sail bogies have occasionally been used elsewhere (did someone once take one on LGV Nord as a publicity stunt?)

I once built a (non working) 00 model of a Spurn one, and a 4mm/ft Kilnsea sound mirror.