Posted in News/interest Thursday, December 22nd, 2011
My brother recently wrote a paper for one of the local historical transport societies where he lives in Ipswich Suffolk about the history of Britain’s railways. He kindly sent me a copy of the paper and I felt the blog readers on this web site would find it interesting.
Brief Biography of Barry Moore.
Barry has had a long interest in transport, particularly railways. His first employment was as an experimental officer at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough Hampshire working on heat resistant plastic materials. I remember at the time that he used some this material to make himself some brake blocks for his bicycle, They worked brilliantly, to improve the braking in wet weather compared with the standard rubber blocks, but were so hard they wore away the metal on his bicycle wheels.
He moved into transport in 1965 as a management trainee with the council run bus services at Leicester City Transport, moving to Plymouth in the west of England as the Deputy Transport Manager in 1974, and retiring as Managing Director of Ipswich Buses in 1996. His connection with the railways involved membership of the Rail Passenger Committee for Eastern England for 9 years up till its abolition in 2005. He was a founding member of the local group of the Campaign for Better Transport ( formerly known as Transport 2000) and is still involved with that group.
Our railways; their development and treatment by government.
Part 1 - The beginning and rapid growth.
When one reads the history of Britain’s railways, it becomes clear that compared with our continental neighbours, wartime invasions excepted, our railways have been subjected to more changes of government approach than most. Even the advocates of the 1990’s privatisation process now admit that they had got it wrong! What follows is a ‘potted’ view of our rich railway history focussing on the main events and this will not even scratch the surface of the involvement of the railway in social changes such as nationwide standard time, fish eating, development of national newspapers or even the adoption of the bar in pubs which resulted from its invention as a means of serving meals quickly to train passengers at places such as Swindon, Crewe and Normanton before the days of gangwayed carriages and restaurant cars. Similarly the major involvement of our railways in shipping, docks, canals, hotels, buses and internal air services is not covered.
Going back to the earliest days of railways in the 1820’s and 30’s, there was a mixture of promotion of local lines (eg the Stockton and Darlington, Canterbury and Whitstable) and major lines such as the Great Western (GWR), London and Birmingham and London and Southampton Railways. It was the latter railway that first raised the spectre of competition with a proposal for a second main line from near Basingstoke via Devizes to Bristol. This proposal was defeated but the GWR and London and South Western Railway (LSWR) continued to provoke each other territorially right into the early 20th century culminating in the construction of the LSWR’s Basingstoke-Alton and Meon Valley lines to block the GWR’s proposals for a Basingstoke – Portsmouth line.
Early calls for a planned system of railways as happened to a large extent on the continent fell on deaf ears. Some towns such as Northampton and Stamford were originally anti- railway but were to regret this attitude within a few years and still suffer now from being on secondary lines. Some then locally important market towns ended up on short branch lines from junction stations in the ‘middle of nowhere’ (eg Abingdon, Eye, Malmesbury, Richmond, Uppingham) resulting in those towns shrinking in importance and often in population and inevitably becoming rail-less by the 1960’s. Contrarywise new ‘railway towns’ grew where there were workshops and or junctions, some became large towns such as Swindon, Ashford and Crewe, others remained small with the railway remaining the dominant employer- Melton Constable and Woodford Halse are examples, both now rail-less. Landowners were powerful and we still today have relics of their influence such the Metropolitan Railway not being able to reach Watford Junction (for which we shall be paying over £100m for such a link in 2015!), unnecessary tunnels north of Audley End to hide the trains and ‘Lord Harborough’s curve’ east of Melton Mowbray creating a dogleg in the Midland Railway’s then Nottingham main line.
The Railway Mania years up to the mid 1840’s led to a plethora of proposals often in rivalry to other schemes. This resulted in Parliament enacting greater control through the Railway Regulation Act of 1844 which amongst other matters specified minimum conditions for third class passengers including roofs and seats! The Gauge Act of 1846 sealed the long term fate of Brunel’s 7 feet broad gauge on GWR lines but also prevented further nonsenses such as the Eastern Counties Railway’s fortunately brief adoption of a 5 feet gauge for their main line out of London and some 5’6” gauge lines in Scotland. The situation in Ireland was chaotic and 5’3” was in reality a compromise gauge specified in the Act.
Technical advances are made steadily through the mid-19th century in locomotive design, signalling, telegraphic communication and importantly the continuous brake for passenger trains. The Railway Clearing House, established in 1842, set agreed standards (eg buffer heights and couplings) to allow through working of trains between railway companies as well as apportioning revenue between companies for tickets and goods. In 1875 the Midland Railway abolished second class with the other companies following slowly, many reluctantly.
By the 1860’s the major pre grouping railway companies had established their basic networks resulting in many towns and cities having more than one railway station. The American example of establishing ‘Union’ stations shared by several rail operators unfortunately had few parallels here, Carlisle, Perth and York being notable examples, even though the last two were owned by a single company. Many companies were very territorial in outlook and managed to keep out competitive lines, eg the London Brighton South Coast (LBSCR) and the North Eastern Railways (NER). Contradictory moves in terms of competition occurred at the end of the 19th Century with the decision of the London Chatham and Dover and South Eastern Railways to form a joint operating committee because of the duplication of their lines in Kent, whilst the Great Central Railway’s (GCR) new main line from Nottinghamshire to London was opened the same year. One cynic summed up this competitive line as providing a new facility ‘by linking Lutterworth to London’; Lutterworth in Leicestershire being the only sizeable place to be added to the railway network by this grand scheme.
In coal mining areas competitive lines were built to serve pits, some larger mines in South Yorkshire and the North Midlands having three railway outlets. In South Wales the huge demand for coal exports in the 1880’s led to the creation of a new railway and dock system based on Barry. As the existing valley routes were already occupied by existing railways, principally the Taff Vale, Rhymney and GWR, the Barry Railway had to cross the valleys on impressive viaducts, most of which had short lives being demolished by the enlarged GWR in the 1920’s. The Hull and Barnsley Railway had a similar history.
Even in the late 19th century hopelessly grandiose schemes still were being promoted. The Potteries, Shrewsbury and North Wales, the Manchester and Milford Haven and the Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast are three such examples. The first named of these opened from Shrewsbury to Blodwell, closed for thirty years and then part became one of Colonel Stephen’s light railways. The second named line ran from Pencader to Strata Florida on the line that the GWR later acquired and completed to Aberystwyth. There was also a section built near Llanidloes in mid Wales which never saw a train. The last example, the LD&ECR, was arguably the most successful, linking Lincoln to Chesterfield (not reaching either the first or last places in its title!) having a reasonable coal traffic and interestingly was supported by the Great Eastern (GER) in order to bring more coal traffic onto their joint line (GER/GNR Doncaster to March and Huntingdon). However it was the GCR that was successful in acquiring this line in 1905.
The Light Railways Act 1896 led to numerous small local lines being promoted. Many were never built but over the country there were a scattering of lines such as the East Kent , the Weston, Clevedon and Portishead and the Shropshire and Montgomery, which were among a dozen lines managed by Colonel Holman Stephens from his head office in Tonbridge. Other light railways were absorbed and operated by the major connecting company (eg the Tollesbury branch by the GER) and the North Devon and Cornwall Junction (Torrington to Halwill) which did not open until 1925 in Southern Railway (SR) days. There were also some other independent lines such as the Bishops Castle, North Sunderland, Derwent Valley and the Easingwold, the latter two remaining independent until their closure in 1981 and 1965. However the cost of promotion and construction of such lines led the major companies to become involved in bus operation, particularly the GWR, linking to places off the rail network such as the Lizard from Helston and our local GER Shotley service, in some cases to test the water for possible later rail construction.
The penetration of ‘foreign’ territory was undertaken in several cases by the acquisition and promotion of jointly owned railways. The largest example was the Cheshire Lines Committee (GCR, GNR and Midland) which operated in competition with the London North Western (LNWR) and Lancashire and Yorkshire Railways in the Liverpool and Manchester areas. Other lengthy joint lines which had quasi independent existences were the Somerset and Dorset Joint closing in 1966, outliving the other major system, the Midland and Great Northern Joint by seven years. On the subject of joint railways, it is of interest to note that the Forth Bridge Railway was a majority (75%) English concern, being owned equally by the GNR, Midland, NER and North British Railways. Newly opened coal mines just before the First World War in South Yorkshire generated a number of short jointly owned lines around Doncaster with a complex pattern of ownerships.
Although there was extensive competition on main lines with cities such as Manchester, Sheffield and Nottingham having a choice of three railways for travelling to London, a mood of cooperation had started in the early part of the 20th century with freight pooling schemes. There had been linear cooperation on the East and West Coast Main lines from their earliest days and the GCR notably became involved in the inauguration of many cross country trains in Edwardian times such as the ‘Ports to Ports’ (Newcastle to Barry jointly with the NER and GWR) and Newcastle to Bournemouth (jointly with the NER, GWR and LSWR). The Midland Railway was similarly well placed to participate in cross country trains especially with its involvement with the joint lines already mentioned. Inevitably there was more talk of amalgamation between companies. Such acts required Parliamentary approval. Although there continued to be small scale acquisitions (eg the acquisitions by the Midland of the London, Tilbury and Southend in 1912, and the LNWR of the North London Railway in 1909), larger scale mergers such as the 1872 proposal for the Midland – Glasgow and South Western and the 1909 GCR- GNR- GER proposed mergers were opposed in Parliament.
The First World War saw government control of the railways through the Railway Executive Committee chaired by the LSWR manager Herbert Walker. This helped organise the operation of troop and munitions trains and notably the supply of coal for the Royal Navy in places as remote as Scapa Flow. Locomotives were not only loaned to railways which had traffic increases but to the Army as well for which purpose the GCR Robinson 2-8-0 was adopted for construction as a standard war time loco for overseas use. Inevitably after a period of central control, nationalisation of the whole system was advocated especially with the Ministry of Transport being set up in 1921 under Sir Eric Geddes, erstwhile manager of the NER. However even though some preparatory work had been done for this move, reflecting the political mood of the time, the Railways Act 1921 proposed the grouping of companies into the ‘big four’. Anticipatory amalgamations took place in 1922 with the LNWR and Lancashire and Yorkshire, the NER and Hull and Barnsley as well as several South Wales companies with the GWR.
One negative aspect of the railways remaining in private hands was the attitude of government policy through the new Ministry of Transport. Railways were seen as a powerful interest lobby which had to be countered by an effective roads section within the Ministry. This factor combined with the post war release of large numbers of cheap ex-military lorries led to heightened competition for freight traffic. The new LNER suffered particularly relying in many areas on agricultural traffic which originated reasonably close to large centres of population (eg Cambridgeshire to London, Lincolnshire to Leeds etc) and was susceptible to road competition. The railways were hamstrung by the control of published freight rates which any smart road haulier could selectively undercut. This situation lasted until 1962 by which time roads had been improved significantly, lorry maximum speeds, permitted size and weight had expanded several-fold predictably continuing the transfer of freight traffic from rail onto our roads.
The attitude of the four railways to passenger traffic varied. The SR embarked on a massive third rail electrification scheme which was planned ultimately to cover all lines east of Bournemouth and Salisbury, but interrupted by World War II. Frequency was seen as the key to passenger growth and many SR steam operated lines had regular interval services (eg on the Isle of Wight). The other three companies operated prestigious main line trains but provided varying standards of local services. Both the LNER and GWR made efforts to improve local services with the opening of additional halts, steam and internal combustion railcars and auto trains in an effort to reduce costs. The huge LMS company struggled throughout its existence to evolve a satisfactory organisation, probably to some extent as a result of putting the rival LNWR and Midland companies into the same organisation. Possibly also as the LMS derived 60% of its revenue from freight, local passenger services tended to suffer as a result. The steady run down of the former North Staffordshire network around the Potteries was not untypical of the pattern elsewhere. Contrasting with the GWR and SR in station rebuilding, Leeds City station was the LMS’s only major scheme although it was intended to tackle Euston but the war intervened. Although several pre-1923 constituent companies had electrified suburban lines, other than about 10 miles in the Wirral the LMS did not invest further in this form of traction, although considering it for the Tilbury lines out of Fenchurch Street in the 1930’s before deciding to modernise steam traction with a fleet of new 3 cylinder 2-6-4 tank engines.
In 1931 the Weir Report advocated further electrification at 1,500 volts DC overhead as a standard for all new schemes. The GWR prepared a scheme for a Taunton – Penzance electrification but it was the LNER which first converted lines with the Manchester – Sheffield/Wath and Liverpool Street suburban schemes. The GWR and LMS cautiously developed diesel traction in the form of railcars and shunters.
Next time, Barry explains Nationalisation and after on Britain’s Railways.
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