Echoes of a Report-5

What is Happening to the Railways?

By D. L. MUNBY No report since Beveridge had such wide press coverage as the Beeching Plan. Supporters and opponents hailed it as masterly. To The Times it was 'of heroic proportions.' The arguments in support of it are so unanswerable that implementation to some extent there must be.' The opposition line was that it was masterly but too narrowly conceived. Thus the Guardian:

`By itself the economic argument is conclusive.

• . . But there is more to it than the economic argument.' Mr. Marples hailed the report on the day of publication with enthusiasm, but gave support to its critics by insisting on his power to veto closures: '1 ball take into account all important factors, including social and defence considerations, the pattern of industrial develop- ment and possible effects on roads and road traffic.'

Further examination showed that both supporters and opponents were misled by what they anticipated would be in the report. Far from Producing 'conclusive' economic arguments, analysis showed that Dr. Beeching had relied too much on accounting procedures which allocated overheads on a full cost basis, and took too little account of escapable costs. The facts produced were not adequate to support all the arguments, and the arguments were not 'unanswerable.' Indeed, critical supporters of Dr. Beeching's strategy were embarrassed by the way the Plan weakened the overall case and gave encourage- ment to the sentimentalists. 'He wrote a large Part of the report in his own small, neat hand- writing, rubbing Olt his mistakes as he went along' wrote the Guardian. 'The nation can only hope tnat no larger errors, such as have disfigured each previous iwttempt at railway reorganisation, Slipped past him.' Larger errors' may be missing, but many small errors crept in. In practice, the railway case is stronger than the Plan suggests.

If the economics were poorly argued, the criticism of the Plan as narrowly commercial and insensitive to the wider social considerations was equally wide of the mark. £100 millions or more of resources could be better spent on other social services than on helping a very small number of People to travel where they are not able or willing to pay the costs, and on subsidising driblets of goods to move about in '‘necon om ic ways. But the Plan went on to say all the right things about commuter services, regional development and Wider social considerations. Responsibility for them was put fairly and squarely where it belongs, on Mr. Marples's lap. That Mr. Marples has no Policy on these points is not a criticism of Dr. Beeching and his Plan.

Let us take the commuter problem. Some of the railway loss arises because commuters nowhere Pay the real economic costs of their journeys. In many cases, railways provide the cheapest and most convenient services, but they do not pay because the motorist is not charged for the congestion he causes, and because public policy has kept down fares in London. This exacerbates the problems of metropolitan planning, because It encourages office employers to believe that the real labour costs of central locations are less than they really are. The problem is well known, as are the rough solutions. Thus a social-benefit alodY (as for the Victoria Line) shows that an

investment may be justifiable on calculations of the value of time-savings, even where the invest- ment would not pay with the present level and structure of fares. But policy in general has not yet caught up with analysis. The railways still want to close commuter lines, such as the Buxton line, which do not pay within the existing frame- work. Similarly, to close the Oxford-Bletchley- Cambridge line makes excellent sense in terms of present-day travel, but raises serious doubts in the light of government policy for the South-East which suggests that the population of Bletchley and the surrounding area may rise by as much as the total population of all the Highland crofting counties together.

Popular comment and concern with the rail- ways has been dominated by the closures. It can- not be too often repeated that freight brings in more revenue than passengers, and that the branch line business is marginal in every sense. Not only is the number of people who travel on a large part of the system very few, but the savings from closing these lines, though impres- sive on the map, are small in money or resources. British Railways will not be made to pay by these much publicised changes. The Report made this clear, but, by giving long lists of lines and stations, it directed undue attention to this marginal issue.

The Plan was unduly rigid about it all. The figures were easy to criticise, and questions about the possibility of running branch lines as light railways with unstaffed halts were unanswered. (The same goes for stopping trains on main lines.) Beeching has been attacked in this matter, not only by railway enthusiasts, but by two reports of the Central Transport Consultative Committee.

Last year he was accused of being too rigid; this year he is again told that 'further consideration' should be given to the matter. Now, at last, con- sideration is being given—as a result of the

Minister's refusal to allow the closure of the central Wales line between Shrewsbury and Llanelly. According to The Times at the end of June, it is expected that the annual losses might

be reduced from £176,000 a year to about £30,000.

If this is the real order of magnitude of what is possible, it makes nonsense of much of what the Plan said about branch lines. The cost savings work out at £1,760 per mile, which is almost exactly the figure given in the Plan for the extra passenger track and station costs where there is freight traffic. (On the central Wales line, freight traffic would be eliminated, so that the circum- stances are quite different, but the important point is that the figures are large, not marginal.)

Seven hundred miles of passenger line were eliminated in 1962, the best year yet for closures. The Plan proposed to cut out about 5,000 miles, which would take two and a half years at a rate of 2,000 miles a year. It listed 337 proposals in addition to fifty-five already in the pipeline. Since the new Transport Act became law in September 1962, 231 proposals have come forward up to mid-June, but only seventy-seven had been finally decided by the Minister, with five refusals. Eighty- six cases were waiting for Ministry approval, and another sixty-eight were under consideration by Consultative Committees. The speed of decision- making in the Ministry seems to be increasing. They dealt with twenty-five cases up to the end of 1963, and another fifty-two in the first half of 1964. Some of the biggest cases are still to come, but some critical decisions have been made, notably the central Wales. line and the lines to the Kyle of Lochalsh and Wick in the Highlands.

On all this, the level of public discussion has been poor. Lord Stonham has weakened his case with exaggerated figures and naïve assumptions. In public encounter with Dr. Beeching, the images of both have been tarnished. Dr. Beeching had most to lose, and it will be the British people and the British economy which will suffer from his rigidities. The Plan was a beginning, a first instalment, which left many problems unsolved and many issues undecided, such as duplication of main lines, the future of marshalling yards, and the required investment for modernisation. On these the public has not yet heard what has been decided. Some of the choices ahead are clear, others are not. On them will depend the success of many of the measures out- lined in the first Plan. It is thus rather depressing that in evidence to the Geddes committee on road haulage the railways should advocate 'that any changes in the regulatory framework of the industry, whether fiscal or physical, should be compatible with the concept of rationalised transport outlined in the Reshaping Plan.' What is exciting in the new look on the railways is the adaptation of a tradition-ridden industry to the circumstances of the twentieth century. Libera- tion from shibboleths does not mean idolising a Plan, still less trying to mould government policy to make the Plan work. The implication of the study on 'The Relative True Costs of Rail and Road' are unfortunate in this respect.

If the railways present a public image of rather slavish devotion to the Reshaping Plan, what they are doing in actual fact is more impressive, as the £22 million cut in the 1963 deficit showed. The new management is determined to manage and is Proving effective in many small ways, as well as in the more imaginative and wider fields. Heads have rolled—premature anti-fascists as well as out-and-out reactionaries. Damage has been suffered, but the direction of movement is, on the Whole, right. Young men are given a chance and new men have come in. The commercial side has been toned up. Playing trains is now widely dis- credited. In many small ways the traveller is aware Of a new insistence on service to the customer, though there is still a long way to go. The biggest danger looming ahead is that a new management shuffle and new reorganisation may be imposed no the railways from outside, as was their fate every five years or so in the Fifties.

Dr. Beeching could afford to take the country more into his confidence on the major economic issues—above all on the freight side, where the Major killings are to be made. We have heard enough of closures. We want to hear more about liner trains, coal depots, the pattern of new goods depots, the flows of freight traffic, the future of Marshalling yards, and improved operating methods. We want to hear more about the future of electrification, large goods trains, improved handling, more mechanisation, fitted wagons and Use of computers. Dr. Beeching has, unfortun- ately, cut down the published figures. Too many Were collected, many of them useless; improve- ments have been made, but we want more of the important figures. Fear of competitors is a too easy excuse too generally used in British industry to keep from the public what they are entitled to know. If the result is ill-informed comment, the businessmen are themselves to blame.

Much faith has been pinned on the liner trains, and rightly so. The main customers of the rail- ways (coal and steel) will not greatly expand their demands; merchandise of the right sort must be attracted if the heavy overheads are to be covered. The liner trains are due to begin operation in January 1965, but we still have not had a full economic analysis of these projects and their implications for the whole freight-carrying business. Meantime, management attention is being given to the large customers and the big contracts. Here again the railways are trying to concentrate on the field where they have the real advantages. Too much attention in the past was devoted to marginal bits of traffic, and limited management resources were dissipated. This is one major reason why the railways are right to be impatient of too close analysis of marginal clo- sures; it diverts skilled men from their major job.

Finally, the labour force. Railways are a labour-intensive industry. Even after losing 40,000 workers in 1963, 440,000 were still employed at the end of the year. The target labour-force is some 250,000 by the end of 1970, better-paid, more skilled, better equipped and more efficiently utilised. Most workers are employed in the large depots, and it is here that the major improvements will have to come. All in all, a tremendous problem in labour relations is involved, and it may be in this field that the final test will come for Dr. Beeching, as the liner train incident has suggested. The early omens were not good, but things have much improved since. As over the whole field, things are looking up for British Railways, but they could look up even more.