LT1312 Literature Review Project

Historical Development of Railways in the UK: “The Reshaping of British

Railways Report”

By Tom Birch

SUN Number: 096995173

Date of Completion:

28th April 2010

Word Count:

5017

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1 Executive Summary

The railways of Britain post Second World War were in a state of financial decline, with infrastructure that needed heavy investment. With the nationalisation of the network in 1948, it was hoped that these issues would be combated.

But it was not until Dr Richard Beeching was appointed Director of the British Railways Board and the publication of the Reshaping of British Railways Report that serious measures were taken. The report found that one third of passenger lines carried just 1% of passengers and that one third of stations brought in 1% of passenger revenue. The drastic response to this uneconomical system was to close 5000 miles track and around 2100 stations.

Part of the reasons for the poor figures above was duplication of lines to and from major cities, stemming from the competition between railway companies pre-nationalisation. The lines were suffering from overstaffing and the need to cut costs, instead of merely closing lines, was sadly missed by Beeching.

Beeching also managed to miss the social value of many of the rail lines provided by the network and the knock on effect their closure would have on many of the trunk routes. The misplaced assumptions made about the strength of the bus service to replace the rail links only added to the calls for a full transport model, with full cost analysis of the roads.

Positive ideas and proposals concerning freight haulage were undermined by the shock factor of the closure of many depots.

Beeching’s job was to provide a solution to the rail problem for the Conservative government. With the change of power back to Labour a mere year after the report, Beeching’s days were numbered. By the time the Conservatives were back in power, the penny had dropped that the rail network cannot merely be pruned to run profitably. Government subsidies were needed to run the smaller routes, to keep numbers up on the trunk routes. If this had been realised earlier, many lines would have been kept open.

In the sense of restoring the railways to profitability, as was Beeching’s original aim, he failed.

The key issue to emerge from this report is that, although there were many future proof policies concerning rail, and the need for a reduction of costs, the way Beeching, and the government, tried to achieve them was flawed.

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Table of Contents

1 Executive Summary.......................................................................................................................2

2 Introduction...................................................................................................................................5

3 Pre-Beeching..................................................................................................................................5

3.1 World War II..........................................................................................................................5

3.2 Transport Act 1947................................................................................................................5

3.3 New Age of Steam.................................................................................................................5

4 The Beeching Years........................................................................................................................6

4.1 Appointment of Beeching......................................................................................................6

4.2 Beeching and Marples...........................................................................................................6

5 “Reshaping of British Railways”.....................................................................................................7

5.1 Statistical Results and Proposals............................................................................................7

5.2 Buses......................................................................................................................................7

5.3 Controversy...........................................................................................................................7

6 Reasons for Losses.........................................................................................................................8

6.1 Line and Station Duplication..................................................................................................8

6.2 Speculative Routes.................................................................................................................8

7 Cost Reductions.............................................................................................................................9

7.1 Safety.....................................................................................................................................9

7.2 Marginal Services...................................................................................................................9

7.3 The Example of Milton Keynes.............................................................................................10

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8 Social Aspects..............................................................................................................................10

8.1 Cars......................................................................................................................................10

8.2 Buses....................................................................................................................................10

8.3 False Assumptions...............................................................................................................10

9 Reporting into all Transportation................................................................................................11

9.1 Environment........................................................................................................................11

9.2 Road Costs...........................................................................................................................11

10 Freight.....................................................................................................................................11

10.1 Centralised Depots...............................................................................................................11

10.2 Containers............................................................................................................................12

11 Beeching II...............................................................................................................................12

11.1 Change of Tact.....................................................................................................................12

11.2 Further Controversy.............................................................................................................12

12 Government.............................................................................................................................13

12.1 Labour Government.................................................................................................................13

12.2 Transport Act 1968..............................................................................................................13

12.3 Conservative Realisation......................................................................................................13

12.4 Government Policy..............................................................................................................13

13 Conclusion...............................................................................................................................14

14 References...............................................................................................................................15

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2 IntroductionThe history of railway engineering in the United Kingdom went through an intriguing period post Second World War. In this report, particular focus will be given to the period in the 1960s when Dr Beeching was appointed to cut down Britain’s rail network. The feasibility of his proposals and the reaction to them, at the time and in the present day, will be analysed and evaluated. The situation of the British rail network before the 1960s will be addressed, as will the consequential actions and policies of Beeching’s reign.

3 Pre-Beeching

3.1 World War IIDuring the Second World War, the managements of the “Big Four” railway companies, Great Western Railway (GWR), London and North Eastern Railway (LNER), London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) and the Southern Railway (SR), had merged to cope with the massive strain placed on them by the war. Despite the German bombing during the war, the rail network had suffered little damage. In fact, the main problem for the wartime rail network was the prolonged period of very little investment in the infrastructure. Furthermore, rolling stock had received only the very minimum maintenance to keep operating for the duration of the war. The rail companies were financially exhausted prior to 1939 and this was exasperated by the government’s decision to backtrack on their promise of a decent war time split of revenue (Allen, 1979).

3.2 Transport Act 1947Post-war saw the return to power of the Labour government with a large majority and with it the threat of nationalisation, a well-known policy of the Labour party at the time, which had grown from their strong trade union links (Hall, 2006). The Transport Act of 1947 merged the four major private rail companies into British Rail and under government control. However if there was any hope that this would mean that the railways would receive the investment necessary to restore them to their glory of the turn of the century, this was quickly dashed by the new government. There were higher priorities like setting up the National Health Service. If the railway infrastructure had been destroyed or damaged more heavily in the war, like many European counterparts were, perhaps priorities would have been different. As it was, the rail network had to renovate cheaply and manage in a similar fashion to that of the war-time set up (Allen, 1979). Hall (2006) takes a very dim view of the drafting of the 1947 Transport Act stating:

“It was as though ministry people preferred to live in their ivory tower, insulated against the reality of the outside world in case some of their beliefs turned out to be flawed. Which of course they were.” [p.98]

3.3 New Age of SteamAccording to Beeching’s figures, despite the lack of serious investment, the railways were profitable until around 1954. This happened to coincide with the privatisation of road haulage, bringing to an end the coordination of transport in Britain (Allen, 1979) and the railways ceased to be profitable due to a large amount of freight haulage being transferred from the trains to the roads. The loss of profitability of the system was partly due to a persistent use of steam locomotives post war (Allen,

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1979). Whilst the majority of Europe was introducing new diesel traction trains, the Railway Executive in Britain decided to overrule LNER’s plan to run 25 diesels on the East Coast mainline and begin a fresh chapter of steam locomotives. This decision was the cheapest available to them but would be the most costly in the long term as it prevented Britain from being able to have an unhurried evaluation of diesel trains and design a transition scheme away from steam. Ultimately, the British love affair with steam meant that the rapid development of diesel traction by the Germans and in North America went by unnoticed (Time Shift, 2008). By the mid-1950s, and partly due to the turnaround in the railways profitability, a hastily introduced modernisation plan finally began to see serious investment money back into the railways. It was hoped that quick substitution of the steam engines for electric and diesel traction and introduction of other modern equipment would see a return to profitability and a more equal sharing of the freight service between road and rail. By the end of the 1950s however it had become quite apparent that losses would continue and the attempt at modernisation had not fulfilled its aim. The heavy investment with a lack of return dissuaded the then Conservative government from further investment. Reduction of costs was seen as the way forward, but it was realised that it would have to be a radical plan (Hall, 2006).

4 The Beeching Years

4.1 Appointment of BeechingIn 1962, Dr Richard Beeching was appointed to be the chairman of British Railways and to stop the network’s rapid decline. Beeching’s appointment was a new direction for the government; instead of a business entrepreneur or commercial manager, as had been the norm to this point, Beeching had a strong ability to solve complex engineering problems and was able to look at problems through the eyes of a scientist (Dudley & Richardson, 2000). Indeed, Beeching had gained first class honours in physics from Imperial College and had worked his way up to the board of Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) and the position of technical director. This did not, however, mean that he would be able to solve the multitude of problems that had not been truly addressed to this point. Nevertheless, this man was to change the shape of British railways forever.

4.2 Beeching and MarplesThe man who brought Beeching into the fold was the Minister for Transport at the time, Ernest Marples. According to Dudley and Richardson, Beeching genuinely wanted to devise and apply a plan for a feasible future for the railways and was not merely trying to promote road usage (Dudley & Richardson, 2000). However the same can hardly be said of Marples who, even at the time of being Transport Minister, held 80% of the stock in Marples, Ridgeway and Partners which was a civil engineering firm specialising in road construction. On January 28th 1960, Marples said in Parliament:

“I immediately took steps to effect a sale of my shares. It has taken some time to arrange this as the company is a private one engaged in long-term contracts in civil engineering...the prospective purchasers have required me to undertake to buy the shares back from them at the price they are to pay if they ask me to do so after I have ceased to hold office.”

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So although Marples was to sell his shares, he would probably see them returned to him at a later date. Marples would always be associated with road construction so it was little surprise how radical the Reshaping Report was.

5 “Reshaping of British Railways” Around two years after his appointment British Railways Board published the report, “The Reshaping of British Railways”. This went on to be known infamously as the Beeching Report. The data for the study had been collected over one week, ending April 23rd 1961. It was said in the report that research did not extend beyond that week because it was “impossible to continue the massive recording effort involved for a longer period of time” (Reshaping of British Railways, 1963). This may have been true but by today’s standards it would be deemed foolish, if not reckless, to make judgements without repeating the experiment.

5.1 Statistical Results and ProposalsFrom the data gathered in that one week in 1961, the statistics were dramatic, with one third of the lines carrying 1% of passengers and a half of the route carrying only 4% of passengers. It was little better for the stations, with one third bringing in only 1% of passenger revenue and half producing only 2% (Reshaping report, 1963). Armed with these statistics, the report proposed that around 5000 miles (36.5%) of passenger track be closed, from a total of 13700 miles in 1961, and that around 2100 stations be closed, from the 1961 total of around 7000. The public and even “hardened railwaymen” were shocked (Hall, 2006). Beeching reasoned that routes which often operated such a low density service were costing so much merely to operate the train, let alone maintain the line and stations.

5.2 BusesPart of the reasoning was the fact that bus services served as much of the country as the rail network did and they had a much lower maintenance cost than the railways. The costs of maintaining bus stops and buses are always going to be much lower than the cost of station, signalling, track and rolling stock, a few of the costs British Rail had to pick up (Dudley & Richardson, 2000).

5.3 ControversyThis policy of shutting down lines and stations, which caused so much public uproar, was not a new one. In fact this had been going on since nationalisation in 1948. As Hall (2006) mentions of the list of closures:

“The Beeching Report merely accelerated the process, but most of the obvious candidates had already been dealt with. Some of the ones listed for closure now were very marginal.”

Almost 3000 miles of line were shut between 1948 and 1963 but because they were not all announced at one time in one national report, the public and rail personal accepted it as a necessary modernisation process of the railways. The report would potentially have been received more positively if Beeching had not included in the report a 20 page list of the stations to be closed which many saw to be ruthless and unnecessary (Dudley & Richardson, 2000).

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Hibbs (2003) though disagrees and points out that, if no action had been taken by Beeching, the railways would have fallen into a state similar to that in the United States, where the services are little used and unreliable.

6 Reasons for Losses

6.1 Line and Station DuplicationIn some cases it was fairly obvious (admittedly with the benefit of hindsight) why some lines were running at such a loss. Due to the private firms and the competition between them, lines were being built up round the country and sometimes duplicated between major and principle cities, as well as multiple stations within those cities. With the railways nationalised again after the war, there was no point in having competing lines for the same business. The Reshaping Report mentions Leeds and Bradford as two cities with two major stations each, which at the time of publishing was already at an advanced stage of resolving. One example of duplicating of routes is shown with the fact that, the lines of three companies intertwined through Bulwell, Hucknell and Kirby-in-Ashfield (Garrod, 1983). Beeching also recognised that Glasgow in fact had four major terminals when it was possible to provide a much more efficient service with one station, as through trains could be run as one service saving the expense of running another line. Station running costs could also be cut down too. The major routes which were duplicated are shown below:

1. Between London and Edinburgh/Glasgow (three routes)

2. Between London and Manchester/Liverpool (three routes)

3. Between London and Birmingham (two routes)

4. Between London and Exeter/Plymouth (two routes)

5. Between Birmingham and Bristol (two routes)

6. Trans-Pennine (five routes)

These routes highlight the legacy of the pre-war rail system and the duplicate lines had to be examined, as concentration of the traffic on fewer routes would produce savings whilst also making the remaining routes more profitable (Hall, 2006).

Six of the seventeen routes were proposed to be closed and four others were planned to be retained but downsized. Whilst the principle of having fewer routes between major cities seems to be a sound one, the loss of intermediate stations on the closed or downsized lines had the effect of reducing the coverage of the main routes and also sending consumers on a more indirect journey. Hall (2006) argues though that a more indirect service via Sheffield from East Anglia to the North West actually improved the quality and frequency of Sheffield services.

6.2 Speculative RoutesGarrod (1983) also realises that some lines were built largely for speculative reasons and the usage that had been envisaged, or hoped for, never happened. Some locations were thought to be up and

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coming seaside holiday locations, like Allhallows and Mundesley. Allhallows had a double line and Mundesley had a four platform station (Garrod, 1983). Lack of profitability in these cases is quite obvious when maintenance costs for such unnecessary infrastructure would outweigh the lack of public usage. The problem in these cases was that when the development did come to the towns, the rail infrastructure was far too excessive for the amount of traffic. If in the first place a single line and platform had been introduced then perhaps the lines would have returned a profit necessary to further develop the region and then further expansion of the line or stations could have been possible later. Equally, the lines may not necessarily have needed to close if downsizing of the lines and stations, including de-staffing stations and bringing in pay trains had been considered.

7 Cost Reductions A major criticism of Beeching at the time, and still today, was that more custom could have been generated by improving the out-of-date rolling stock and reducing staff numbers (Garrod, 1983). If they were too costly in 1961, the general conclusion would be to close the line and not to look at constructive ways to reduce those costs on a line-by-line basis. The extremely high costs referred to by the report that British Rail paid for maintenance and safety were also not looked into with respect of reducing them.

7.1 SafetyEvery section of the track was fenced at the time and every level crossing was provided by British Rail to protect road users, none of it was subsidised by the motorist. Garrod (1983) points out that at the time, to man every level crossing would have cost at least £8,000 a year (approximately £120,000 by today’s standards): some lines in East Anglia and Lincolnshire have a crossing almost every mile. Massive costs that British Rail also had to meet were the full inquiries and published reports into every rail accident, something that cannot be said of the road network. To that end, it could be argued that protection and safety measures are unnecessarily strict on secondary lines. If a more modest infrastructure could have been bought into place, many of the smaller secondary lines could have survived, especially with level crossings, fencing and stations, following the Continental example. Generally in Europe, stations would be more practical, lines unfenced and crossings open.

7.2 Marginal ServicesAllen (1979) supports the idea of looking at ways to reduce costs of the more marginal of the services, so that they could be kept in operation to continue to feed customers into the major trunk routes. He points out that there was a domino effect with many adjoining lines losing a high portion of their business, as consumers made the entire journey of their own accord from door to door, instead of travelling further by car or bus to a larger station as Beeching had hoped. Only one third of those former users of the closed lines carried on using the mainline, trunk route, after the closures (Hillman & Whalley, 1980). In hindsight then, closing loss making lines could have been avoided by simplifying infrastructure and services so that the custom on the more profitable trunk routes was not reduced.

Hibbs (2003) however points out that many of the marginal lines ran at a loss from the very start and were merely built by the private firms to appease the public, who were convinced firms were in a

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position of huge economic power. By this logic, it is argued that the marginal lines closed by Beeching should never have been built in the first place.

7.3 The Example of Milton KeynesAnother example of the short-sightedness of the Reshaping Report and of the planning authorities was the closing of the Oxford to Bletchley link, in respect of the development of the new city of Milton Keynes on the eastern section of the line. At a later date, Milton Keynes Central station had to be built and added to the West Coast mainline, at a cost which could have been reduced drastically if British Railways and the local planning authority had communicated better and prevented the closure of the line (Garrod, 1983).

8 Social Aspects Social consequences of the spate of closures seemed not to be considered by Beeching or British Rail. Indeed the British Railways Board (1963) states:

“After the post-war growth of competition from road transport, it is no longer socially necessary for railways to cover such a preponderant part of the total variety of internal transport services.”

Undeniably the car and bus had come a long way to rival the train system.

8.1 CarsCar ownership was expanding as costs of vehicles reduced and the public enjoyed the freedom of their own form of transport. However, at this stage, a portion of the population could not afford their own car, or were too old or too young to drive. For them the buses were the only option once the rail culls began, as it had been hoped by Beeching and the government, for buses and trains to each have their own place in providing a national transport system.

8.2 BusesAgain buses had the advantage of being direct with the service provided, such that they could travel through town and rural centres and on to housing estates, with the potential to stop as frequently as required (Garrod, 1983). However this advantage was outweighed by the additional time journeys took as a result. This, together with their cramped conditions, rough ride, lack of luggage space and reduced frequency, resulted in the public taking an instant dislike to their replacement service. In fact, according to Hillman and Whalley (1980), these dissatisfying factors led to less than half of the rail users transferred to the alternative bus service. This either means that car usage increased for some travellers or, in the case of many older people, poorer families and those too young to drive, there was a 72% reduction in activity participation by the former rail users (Hillman and Whalley, 1980).

8.3 False AssumptionsThe truth of the matter was that the assumption that buses could cope with the added pressure was misplaced. Dudley and Richardson (2000) state that at the time of the Reshaping Report the bus companies were not able to fulfil the expectations of Beeching, especially in rural areas. The bus service would not begin to perform until into the 1970s. This however rather missed the point of

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Beeching’s plan for a system of interconnecting transport systems, “a total pattern of national transport” (Reshaping of British Railways, 1963).

9 Reporting into all Transportation With such an oversight concerning the capability of the bus services, perhaps a survey into all forms of transport would have been a better route to the best solution. This was spoken about in the House of Lords on 2nd May 1963 by Lord Stonham, stating that:

“He [Lord Hailsham, Minister for Transport] said we had been given the railway end of a total transport policy... my noble friend Lord Morrison of Lambeth for a cast analysis, a full inquiry into the roads on the same lines as we have now had from Dr. Beeching on the railways, he said, "We cannot possibly wait for such an inquiry "...how can you possibly judge a transport system, of which the noble Viscount said we have only one part, if you do not know the other part, particularly the economic facts?”

This seems to be an understandable and logical step to take. Especially as the bus service was clearly not efficient enough to cope with rail replacement services.

9.1 EnvironmentIn the 1960s too there was little thought given to the environmental impact of transferring away from rail and over to the road network. By the 1980s though the concern for future energy needs was acknowledged and the railways were seen to be an area where a significant contribution could be made. The short-sightedness shown in the 1960s is highlighted by Garrod (1983) who suggested that people who suggested that oil reserves were exhaustible were dismissed as cranks. Despite these calls for research into other modes of transport, the government pressed ahead, accepting the majority of Beeching’s proposals and the trimming of the line began.

9.2 Road CostsHondelink (1965) questioned the legitimacy of Beeching’s railway cost argument with the deficit for rail supposedly around £170 million per annum. It is estimated that roads and the road transport sector operate a deficit of between £300 and £600 million per annum. Whether this is factually accurate, or just a demonstration of the point that an equivalent study of the road network would have made decisions on rail closures easier, it highlights the need for a comparison between forms of transport before deciding on an overall nationwide transport policy.

10 Freight

10.1 Centralised DepotsThe Reshaping Report focused on both passenger services and freight services. Whilst the proposals concerning passenger services were mostly unpopular and short-sighted, the freight proposals were greeted much more positively. The main problem with the railways handling of freight was the distribution of coal, the main element of the freight business. The coal would leave the pits in sensible train loads but this ended up being shunted into much smaller sections and being dropped off at local merchants, who generally did not take much coal anyway. Beeching reasoned to build

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new mechanised, strategically placed depots which could be served by large train loads from the pits, and then a coordinated effort to transport the goods the rest of the way by road (Hall, 2006).

10.2 ContainersThe fastest growing freight market at that time was general merchandise, mostly consumer goods. These were originating from new built factories which were not rail connected but very easily served by road haulage. Beeching wished to tap into this market by combining road and rail services to provide a container service (Allen, 1979). This was referred to as the Freightliner concept and led to a network of fixed schedule flat wagon trains with containers, running to newly built depots (Hall, 2006). The freight proposals were generally met with approval and there was a hope that the system could help in the battle with road for haulage domination (Hondelink, 1965). However the raft of smaller depot closures, nearly 900, was less popular, especially as responsibility of the redundancy was passed to the trade unions (Dudley & Richardson, 2000).

11 Beeching II In 1965, “The Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes” was published. This was the follow up to “The Reshaping of British Railways” and became known as Beeching Part Two. It is most certainly the lesser known of the two reports.

11.1 Change of TactThere is a noticeable change of tack from the original. The very crude option of either keeping or closing many branch or minor lines was now modified to simplifying signalling and singling lines which were less profitable, to see if they could still provide some service (Dudley & Richardson, 2000). This corrected one of the main arguments that industrialists and the public had with the Reshaping Report but that is not to say that the new report was not as controversial. The main theme was to cut back large chunks of the trunk lines to leave Britain with, what can be best described as, a skeletal system. If the tentative proposals had been followed, much of Wales, Northern Scotland, Yorkshire, East Anglia and the South West of England, would have been left almost totally devoid of railways.

11.2 Further ControversyIn fact, the preliminary report had been so controversial in draft form, many regional managers complained so strongly that many of the proposals were cut back. When the report was finally published it read more like a suggestion and discussion report, as closures were not specifically mentioned; some lines were considered for further investment. It was assumed that lines not mentioned for further investment were intended to be cut back (Allen, 1979). The principle of Beeching’s second report though seems to be more in line with a constructive solution, not just shutting lines which were unprofitable, but looking to invest back into the network. However, the new Labour government were never going to associate with Beeching for too long, after his strong Conservative ties, despite the fact that he had no party convictions and, as it happened, more pro-rail than his popular image lets on (Dudley & Richardson, 2000).

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12 Government

12.1 Labour GovernmentAt the time of its publishing, the report was vigorously opposed by the Labour party and many hoped that they would reverse the raft of closures if they were elected into power. 1964 arrived and with it the Labour Government but they quietly kept the closures going, in spite of their issues with Beeching (Dudley and Richardson, 2000). By the end of May 1965 Beeching was gone from his position and back on the ICI board. His spate of closures would continue however into the early 1970s.

12.2 Transport Act 1968The 1968 Transport Act finally recognised that very few national rail systems pay for themselves. The act in 1968 bought with it the Public Service Obligation grant which is designed to support the running of branch lines that, in Beeching’s era, would have run at a loss but have such a social benefit and contributory effect on the mainline that they should be grant aided (Garrod, 1983).

12.3 Conservative RealisationIn 1972 the man in Beeching’s shoes as Chairman of the British Railways Board, Richard Marsh made this observation in a lecture:

“It used to be believed that all you had to do to make the railways more profitable was to make them smaller...That is being totally disproved. One of the most expensive railway networks we have looked at, was one of the smallest, because the inescapable costs that you cannot get out from under are such that they can swallow up the benefits that you receive from the reduced operating costs.”

This highlights the fundamental flaw in Beeching’s logic; that eliminating individual lines and services without investigating their knock on effect on the rest of the network was foolish and merely worked to the railways disadvantage.

12.4 Government PolicyMuch of the text on this period of the British rail network portrays Beeching as everything from a tight fisted accountant to the pantomime villain. However, Hall (2006) makes the sound point that Beeching was appointed by the government to carry out a policy, a policy that had been going on since 1948. The Beeching report was little different to the previous scheme, just publicised much more and at a much greater rate. Any arguments with the policy should have been directed at the government and not at Beeching.

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13 Conclusion The Reshaping of British Railways report was always going to be controversial. Despite the fact that closures had been occurring since 1948, a major plan was still necessary. Whilst Beeching took much of the attention for this, he was, in the end, working towards a policy the government wanted. Some of his decisions in the handling and publication of the report were questionable and, if handled better, could have provoked a more positive public response to the report. The cost analysis of railways that Beeching implemented was found to be flawed by 1972 and, although some cutbacks were necessary, some of the marginal lines should have been saved.

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14 References

Allan, G, F. (1979) Railways in Britain. London, Marshall Cavendish Publishing.

British Railways Board (1963) The Reshaping of British Railways. London, Stationary Office.

Dudley, G & Richardson, J, J. (2000) Why does policy change? Lessons from British transport policy, 1945-99. London, Routledge.

Garrod, T.J. (ed.) (1983) Bring Back the Trains: The Case for Railway Reopenings. London, Railway Development Society.

Hall, S. (2006) Railway Milestones and Millstones. Surrey, Ian Allan Publishing.

Hibbs, J (2003) Transport Economics & Policy. London, Kogan Page Limited.

Hillman, M & Whalley, A. (1980) The Social Consequences of Rail Closures. London, Policy Studies Institute.

Hondelink, E,R. (1965) Review of Dr. Beeching’s Report The Reshaping of British Railways. Middlesex, The Great Central Association.

Lord Stonham (1963) The Economic and Social Aspects of the Beeching Plan. Presented at the House of Lords. London.

Time Shift. (2008) Last Days of Steam. [Video: DVD] London, BBC, 16th October 2008.

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