Half a century has passed since the infamous ‘Beeching Cuts’ which saw many small and some big railway stations close. Neil Hudson looks at the legacy of the cuts in Leeds.
The ‘Beeching Cuts’ are a reference to the Beeching Report, published on March 27, 1963, which has gone down in history as one of the most brutal and systematic attacks on a national industry.
The report was authored by Dr Richard Beeching, a former technical director at ICI, who was appointed by the then Minister of Transport, Ernest Marples, to the Stedeford Committee which was set up to look into modern management practices for the railways.
So impressed was Marples with Beeching’s ideas about drastically pruning the railway network that he asked him, unsurprisingly, in 1961 to join the British Transport Commission as chairman designate of the new British Railways Board – his brief was to ‘reshape’ Britain’s railway system.
His report led to the closure of hundreds of smaller branch lines across the country, including many in Leeds. It also co-incided with an increase in the use of diesel trains and chimed also with a more general post-war sense of wanting to get rid of anything which did not seem modern.
Rail author Peter Tuffrey, who has written four books on bygone stations, most of which met their fate as a result of the Beeching Report, is in no doubt about its legacy.
He said: “You just have to look at our main roads today, they are full of lorries, endless lines of them. All of that could have, and used to, go by rail but there just isn’t the capacity today.
“The Beeching Cuts had an enormous impact on the whole country. They left many smaller communities stranded and that’s not to mention the loss of architecture - many of the stations which closed were so beautiful but they just went to ruin.
“When you look back at how the stations were, with their steam engines and the army of staff, it’s a lost way of life. It’s very sad from that point of view.
“It’s true to say it did co-incide with a greater use of diesel trains, the irony being it was not an uncommon sight to see a steam engine pulling a broken down diesel.
“Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying there wasn’t a need for some kind of rationalisation but in my view the ‘Beeching Cuts’ went too far and while there are now plans to build some new stations, including one at Kirkstall, they won’t have the same character as the old ones, nor the army of staff.”
He added: “Back in the 1950s and even the 1960s, there were a lot of people who wanted to get rid of things from before the war but in trying to solve one problem they created another – we see that today with all the traffic we have on the roads.
“The smaller branch lines were so useful for businesses and farmers in terms of them being able to transport goods and cattle and now most of that has to go by road.”
In Leeds, the cuts led to the rationalisation of stations in the centre of Leeds - Leeds Central Station (on Wellington Road) closed and services all went to an expanded Leeds City Station.
Many suburban stations closed in and around the city, including Armley (which had two stations: Canal Road and Armley Moor), Bramley (since reopened), Stanningley, two Pudsey stations (Lowtown and Fartown), Kirststall, Newlay (near Horsforth), Calverley, Rodley... the list goes on.
Bestselling railway author Julian Holland said: “The 1955 ‘Modernisation and Re-equipment of British Railways’ was a worthy attempt to bring Britain’s railways into the modern age but the implementation of it left a lot to be desired – untried diesels being hurriedly introduced while modern and efficient steam locomotives, sometimes no more than five years old, were sent to the scrapheap.
“Buried in the report was the fact that all information was gathered during just one week: April 17-23, 1961. According to these figures, a third of the route mileage carried only one per cent of passenger and freight traffic. The fate of our railways was sealed.
“Britain’s railways had been a steady drain on the taxpayer since nationalization in 1948 but so had the armed forces, the police and the NHS but we don’t expect them to make a profit, let alone break even. Some 4,500 route miles, 2,500 stations and 67,700 jobs were lost.”
Julian Holland’s latest book, Dr Beeching’s Axe: 50 Years On is published by David & Charles and is available from all good bookshops and online from Amazon, from February 22 priced £18.99. Peter Tuffrey is the author of several books on railways, including West Yorkshire Railway Stations: From Aberford to Yeadon (Amberley Publishing, 2011), priced £14.99.
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