The Slow Train................perhaps no train.

The Slow Train is the title of a song written and performed by the musical partnership of Michael Flanders and Donald Swann. The song is a nostalgic look at some of the railway stations on the lines scheduled for closure as part of the ‘Beeching Axe’ of 1963 and is also the passing of a way of life.

At the end of World War 2 the countries railway system was in a very poor condition due to a lack of sufficient investment [mainly owing to the war] and so in 1948 it was decided to nationalise the whole railway system and invest from a central government transport department and so British Railways came into being. In 1949 the British Transport Commission [BTC] was formed with a brief to indentify and if necessary reduce or close down the least used or unprofitable branch lines that had been inherited from the various private railway companies after nationalisation. Up until 1962 the BTC closed more than a total of 3,000 miles of branch lines.

After an on off affair with petrol rationing between June 1945 and June 1948 petrol rationing was finally ended on the 26 May 1950 and vehicle ownership increased at a sustained rate as did the mileage driven during this period of economic recovery, so much so that in 1957 the Prime Minister Harold Macmillan told us all that ‘we have never had it so good’.  In December 1954 a report with the snappy title of Modernisation and Re-Equipment of the British Railways, known colloquially as The Modernisation Plan, was published recommending that the railway system be brought up to date. This was followed in 1956 with a government white paper laying out the plans for improvements and financial deficient reduction by increasing speed, reliability, safety and line capacity and so hoping to make the service more attractive to passengers and freight operators and hopefully recovering traffic that was being lost to the roads.

By 1961 it became clear that The Modernisation Plan was not working, debts were mounting, the BTC were unable to repay the interest on its loans, staff numbers had fallen and the long term cost of phasing out steam locomotives and introducing both electric and diesel had all but spiralled out of control. The government [via the taxpayer] were consistently bailing out the BTC and enough was enough, the government now had to look at other alternatives or options for a solution.

Alfred Ernest Marples, later Baron Marples of Wallasey, became Minister of Transport on the 14 October 1959 after a cabinet re-shuffle under the conservative government of Harold Macmillan and was to remain in that post until 16 October 1964 when the conservatives lost the General Election. As Minister for Transport Marples oversaw two parliamentary acts; The Road Traffic Act 1960 that introduced the MOT, single and double yellow lines and traffic wardens and the Transport Act 1962 that dissolved the BTC. The Macmillan government were seeking outside talent and fresh blood to sort out the huge problems of the railway network and so after a recommendation to Marples by Sir Frank Smith Dr Richard Beeching, later Baron Beeching of East Grinstead, was approached and agreed at first to become a member of an advisory group dealing with the financial state of the railways but later as announced by Marples to Parliament that as from 1 June 1961 Beeching was to become the first chairman of the newly founded British Railways Board.

The brief from Marples to Beeching was simple; return the rail industry to profitability as soon as possible, by any reasonable means, and it is here with that brief to Beeching that we see the first conflict of interest between rail and road. Richard Beeching unknown to himself then, and it might be argued he never really saw the plot in full, was being set up by Marples to become the harbinger of doom to the nation’s railway network, something that Marples did not really care about anyway.

Ernest  Marples had other interests. 

In the late 1940s Marples was a director of a company called Kirk & Kirk, which was a contractor in the construction of Brunswick Wharf Power Station. Marples met civil engineer Reginald Ridgway who was working as a contractor for Kirk & Kirk. In 1948 the two men founded Marples, Ridgway and Partners, a civil engineering company, the new partnership took over Kirk & Kirk's contract at Brunswick Wharf and in 1950 Marples severed his links with Kirk & Kirk. Marples, Ridgway's subsequent contracts included building power stations in England, a hydro-electric station in Scotland, roads in Ethiopia and England and a port in Jamaica. The Bath and Portland Group took over Marples, Ridgway in 1964.

Shortly after he became a junior minister in November 1951, Marples resigned as Managing Director of Marples Ridgway but continued to hold some 80% of the firm's shares. When he was made Minister of Transport in October 1959, Marples undertook to sell his shareholding in the company as he was now in clear breach of the House of Commons' rules on conflicts of interest. He had not done so by January 1960 when the Evening Standard reported that Marples Ridgeway had won the tender to build the Hammersmith Flyover and that the Ministry of Transport's engineers had endorsed the London County Council’s rejection of a lower tender. Marples first attempt to sell his shares was blocked by the Attorney-General on the basis that he was using his former business partner, Reg Ridgeway, as an agent to ensure that he could buy back the shares upon leaving office. Marples therefore sold his shares to his wife, reserving himself the possibility to reacquire them at the original price after leaving office; by this time, his shares had come to be worth between £350,000 and £400,000.In 1959 Marples opened the first section of the M1 motorway shortly after becoming minister. It is now understood that although his company was not directly contracted to build the M1, Marples, Ridgway "certainly had a large finger in the pie". Marples Ridgway built the Hammersmith Flyover in London at a cost of £1.3 million, immediately followed by building the Chiswick Flyover; Marples Ridgway also were involved in other major road projects in the 1950s and 1960s  including the £4.1 million extension of the M1 into London, referred to as the 'Hendon Urban Motorway' at the time. 

Richard Beeching produced two reports the first in March 1963 titled The Reshaping of British Railways, the report called for the closure of over 7000 railway stations. The second report in February 1965 titled Reorganisation of the Railways recommended that of the remaining 7500 miles of trunk line rail route only 3000miles were worth saving and receiving future investment. It became clear by reading these two reports in tandem that Beeching’s method of analysis was flawed. The system he used for his first report was that he took a route of railway from let’s say Station A to Station F, and for example let’s imagine the distance between A and F is 100 miles. His method of thought went along these lines [no pun intended].

At Station A 200 passengers buy a ticket to travel to Station F.

At Station B 5 passengers buy a ticket, 3 travel to Station D 1 travels to Station E and 1 travels to Station F.

At Station C 2 passengers buy a ticket, 1 travels to Station E and 1 travels to Station F.

At Station D 10 passengers buy a ticket all travel to Station F.

At Station E 1 passenger buys a ticket and travels to Station F.

At Station F 213 passengers arrive.

Beeching concludes for the small number of passengers at B, C, D and E compared to those boarding at A and arriving at F. Stations B, C, D and E are financially unviable when looked at in terms of passenger ticket income against expenditure of maintaining four railway stations and staff so recommends that stations B,C,D and E are closed.

Having recommended that these stations are closed in his first report in his second report he again re-visits the route and concludes there is little if any point in keeping a 100 mile route open if there are only two stations on that route; Station A and F.  As Jack Simmons author of The Oxford Companion to British Railways History put it, Beeching was expected to produce quick solutions to problems that were deep seated and not susceptible to purely intellectual analysis. 

Not unsurprisingly Beeching’s plans were hugely controversial. His second report was rejected out of hand by the government and his appointment as Chairman of British Railways Board was terminated three years early, in effect he was sacked. It finally dawned on him that that perhaps he had been set up by Marples to do the dirty work and Beeching himself said in relation to his direct role in the closures that ‘I will always be looked on as the axe man’. In 1965 he was made a life peer in the birthday honours list. He returned to work within the chemical industry and he died in 1985.

Certainly and without any doubt Beeching is, even today, looked upon as the Axe Man of the railways but he was not the villain of the piece that honour must surely go to Ernest Marples the Transport Minister who had no interest, personal or commercial, in seeing the railways returned to profitability and compete against road transport and the new and burgeoning road motorway system.

Early in 1975 Marples suddenly fled to Monaco. Among journalists who investigated his unexpected flight was Daily Mirror editor Richard Stott:

"In the early 70s ... he tried to fight off a revaluation of his assets which would undoubtedly cost him dear ... So Marples decided he had to go and hatched a plot to remove £2 million from Britain through his Liechtenstein company ... there was nothing for it but to cut and run, which Marples did just before the tax year of 1975. He left by the night ferry with his belongings crammed into tea chests, leaving the floors of his home in Belgravia littered with discarded clothes and possessions ... He claimed he had been asked to pay nearly 30 years' overdue tax ... The Treasury froze his assets in Britain for the next ten years. By then most of them were safely in Monaco and Liechtenstein."

As well as being wanted for tax fraud, one source alleges that Marples was being sued in Britain by tenants of his slum properties and by former employees. He never returned to Britain, living the remainder of his life at his Fleurie Beaujolais château and vineyard in France.

The words to the song The Slow Train by Flanders and Swann:

Miller's Dale for Tideswell ...
Kirby Muxloe ...
Mow Cop and Scholar Green ...

No more will I go to Blandford Forum and Mortehoe
On the slow train from Midsomer Norton and Mumby Road.
No churns, no porter, no cat on a seat
At Chorlton-cum-Hardy or Chester-le-Street.
We won't be meeting again
On the Slow Train.

I'll travel no more from Littleton Badsey to Openshaw.
At Long Stanton I'll stand well clear of the doors no more.
No whitewashed pebbles, no Up and no Down
From Formby Four Crosses to Dunstable Town.
I won't be going again
On the Slow Train.

On the Main Line and the Goods Siding
The grass grows high
At Dog Dyke, Tumby Woodside
And Trouble House Halt.

The Sleepers sleep at Audlem and Ambergate.
No passenger waits on Chittening platform or Cheslyn Hay.
No one departs, no one arrives
From Selby to Goole, from St Erth to St Ives.
They've all passed out of our lives
On the Slow Train, on the Slow Train.

Cockermouth for Buttermere ... on the Slow Train,
Armley Moor Arram ...
Pye Hill and Somercotes ... on the Slow Train,
Windmill End.

Looking at the words and indeed listening to the song itself the lyrics imply that Formby Four Crosses and Armley Moor Aram were whole station names when in fact they are two consecutives names from an alphabetical list of stations. Of the thirty one stations mentioned in the song as of the date of this blog ten of those stations remain open or have since closure reopened.

Millers Dale for Tideswell [Millers Dale] between Buxton and Matlock opened 1863 closed 1967.

Kirby Muxloe between Leicester and Burton upon Trent opened 1848 closed 1964.

Mow Cop and Scholar Green between Stoke on Trent and Congleton opened 1848 closed 1964.

Blandford Forum between Templecombe and Broadstone Junction opened 1863 closed 1966.

Mortehoe between Barnstable and Ilfracombe opened 1874 closed 1970.

Midsomer Norton between Bath Green Park and Shepton Mallet opened 1874 closed 1966.

Mumby Road between Willoughby and Mablethorpe opened 1888 closed 1970.

Chorleton cum Hardy between Manchester Cemtral and Stockport opened 1880 remains open as Chorleton as of July 2011.

Chester le Street between Durham and Newcastle opened 1868 remains open.

Littleton Badsey [Littleton and Badsey] between Evesham and Honeybourne opened 1853 closed 1966.

Openshaw [Gorton and Openshaw] between Manchester London Road and Guide Bridge opened 1906 remains open.

Long Stanton between Cambridge and Huntington opened 1847 closed 1970.

Formby between Liverpool Exchange and Southport opened 1848 remains open.

Four Crosses between Oswestry and Buttington opened 1860 closed 1965.

Dunstable Town between Hatfield and Leighton Buzzard opened 1860 closed 1965.

Dogdyke between Boston and Lincoln opened 1849 closed 1963.

Tumby Woodside between Firsby and Lincoln opened 1913 closed 1970.

Trouble House Halt between Kemble and tetbury opened 1959 closed 1964.

Audlem between Market Drayton and Nantwich opened 1863 closed 1963.

Ambergate between Derby and Matlock opened 1840 remains open on the Matlock branch.

Chittening Platform between Filton and Avonmouth opened 1917 closed 1964.

Cheslyn Hay [Wryley and Cheslyn Hay] between Walsall and Rugeley Town opened 1858 closed 1965.

Selby between Doncaster and York opened 1834 remains open.

Goole between Doncaster and Hull opened 1869 remains open.

St Erth between Truro and Penzance opened 1852 remains open.

St Ives terminus of branch line from St Erth opened 1877 remains open.

Cockermouth for Buttermere between Workington and Keswick opened 1865 closed 1966.

Armley Moor between Leeds and Bramley opened 1854 closed 1966.

Arram between Driffield and Beverley opened 1853 remains open.

Pye Hill and Somercotes between Kimberley and Pinxton opened 1877 closed 1963.

Windmill End between Dudley and Old Hill opened 1878 closed 1964.

Listen to The Slow Train