As promised some of the images of the sheer variety of freight wagons etc available on the railways in the 1950s. There was no assumption back then that railways were only suitable for certain very specialised loads - the railways could and would carry anything. The idea that railways were some sort of inflexible mode for niche freight was a POLITICAL idea, not an economic one. As Warren Buffet says once you've got your track and equipment in place almost every dollar goes to the bottom line.
From these pics it looks pretty clear that in the 50s this weird politics had not yet infected the railways, and that they were there to do a job.
What happened to all these wagons, and all these jobs? No doubt scrapped, with the traffic, still growing, forced on to ever more crowded roads!
But remember, in Europe and even in the transport backwater of the USA MOST freight, even before the energy crisis, goes by rail. In Switzerland all large lorries in transit have to switch to rail. In the poor old UK the majority of freight is still moved in inefficient, polluting and lifespan-limited lorries, clogging our roads and leading to the ludicrous situation - as at Pensford or on the A34 - of a slow-moving road clogged with lorries running alongside CLOSED railways!!
The deliberate running down of the rail network to favour the pockets of one 'man', Ernest Marples, will soon be seen as the criminal act it was. And soon, in the teeth of severe climate change and the end of cheap oil, the railways will once again be free to do the job they do so well, carrying the nation's freight.
5 comments:
The knock-on to the present day is that we dont have the motive power to move freight on the railways any more. I recently spent 30 minutes waiting for a train at Reading station. This was a place I frequented for many hours in the late 1960s. In those days I might record over 100 diesel locos in my Ian Allen trainspotters book, in a day at the station.
During that recent 30 minutes I didn't see one - not a single locomotive of any description. All the motive power was in multiple units of various shapes and sizes.
The problem of restoring freight is far greater than just building a few wagons and sidings. The whole infrastructure from the motive power downwards has been eradicated.
Looks like they had a wagon for every occasion, which of course they did.
Forced by Government to carry all traffic, even if it lost them money, while road hauliers could cherry pick the most profitable loads, as seen in the published freight rates. No business could survive that sort of interference, along with selling off its own assets to compete against it!
Freight will have to return, along with the wagons to carry it…
The whole idea of creating multiple units was to get rid of locos, but this was done when the railway was seen as first and foremost a passenger service. But doing this may have made operations easier but it was at a huge cost to flexibility.
But there will soon be a huge demand for new locos, and surely the people to do this, other than the current loco builders, are the car and lorry makers who will see their businesses crumble to nothing if they don't start looking to the future rather than the past.
The process may be slow, which perhaps is preferable, but as the demands of the rail network change - new lines, much more freight, a different mix of passenger flows - transport manaufacturing businesses should be able to fill the demand.
Pension funds should even now be looking at locomotive and rolling stock manaufacturers, as well as companies like ours, to invest in for the future.
The freight question is the elephant in the room: Beeching glossed over this inconvenience and left it to the road transport lobby to pick over the choicest pieces of meat. This situation has continued unabated from 1963 until the present day: it is madness sending large HGVs through the Dorset and Somerset countryside. Retention of the freight network should have occurred with integration with other forms of transport. The more inaccessible parts of Britain should have had the same policy: it is not good planning to drive a motorway through rural Hampshire for more than half a dozen reasons.
I will treat Ernest Marples with the respect due to the dead but to me his affairs before and after leaving Britain leave a lot to be desired.
What was going on in 1963 and ever since?
The problem with rail was the inflexibility under BR. they abandoned wagonload freight as too much trouble and the hauliers picked up the easy meat.
Road was cheaper and less prone to trades union action and therefore a much better bet for business.
Hopefully that will change with the private freight operators.
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