On Dec 22, 6:41*pm, wrote:
In article
,

(John B) wrote:
A rather good new short film on the Northern Heights scheme and the
effects of its failure on modern London, from a non-spottery POV:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjuD288JlC

"The URL contained a malformed video ID."

How bizarre. Try: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anHLOwH2HWU

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

On Tue, 22 Dec 2009 20:20:05 -0000, John B wrote:

How bizarre. Try: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anHLOwH2HWU

Much better.
Very educational and pretty amusing to.
I think he made a small error right at the end though, by using the old
Blackfriars Railway Bridge to illustrate 'unfinished London'?

--
Fig

On 25 Dec, 11:19, Fig wrote:

Much better.
Very educational and pretty amusing to.
I think he made a small error right at the end though, by using the old *
Blackfriars Railway Bridge to illustrate 'unfinished London'?

I agree. It's also hardly correct to say that Beeching had 'An
incurable phobia of trains'.

wrote:
On 25 Dec, 11:19, Fig wrote:

Much better.
Very educational and pretty amusing to.
I think he made a small error right at the end though, by using the
old Blackfriars Railway Bridge to illustrate 'unfinished London'?

I agree. It's also hardly correct to say that Beeching had 'An
incurable phobia of trains'.

His phobia was of railways that hardly had any trains.

--
We are the Strasbourg. Referendum is futile.

On 26 Dec, 14:30, "Basil Jet"
wrote:

His phobia was of railways that hardly had any trains.

Or passengers, or freight. He certainly wasn't anti-railway.

On Dec 26, 2:30*pm, "Basil Jet"
wrote:
wrote:
On 25 Dec, 11:19, Fig wrote:

Much better.
Very educational and pretty amusing to.
I think he made a small error right at the end though, by using the
old Blackfriars Railway Bridge to illustrate 'unfinished London'?

I agree. *It's also hardly correct to say that Beeching had 'An
incurable phobia of trains'.

His phobia was of railways that hardly had any trains.

*thread drift*

How on earth did BR and Beeching justify closing the assorted London
railways that were axed?

While I know London's population was in decline at the time, it never
went much below seven million - so something like Finsbury Park to
Edgware via Highgate should hardly have been bracketed along with the
many "slow route from nowhere-in-Wales to nowhere-in-Wales via nowhere-
in-England"-type cuts that were rightly made.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

In article
,
(John B) wrote:

On Dec 26, 2:30*pm, "Basil Jet"
wrote:
wrote:
On 25 Dec, 11:19, Fig wrote:

Much better.
Very educational and pretty amusing to.
I think he made a small error right at the end though, by using the
old Blackfriars Railway Bridge to illustrate 'unfinished London'?

I agree. *It's also hardly correct to say that Beeching had 'An
incurable phobia of trains'.

His phobia was of railways that hardly had any trains.

*thread drift*

How on earth did BR and Beeching justify closing the assorted London
railways that were axed?

While I know London's population was in decline at the time, it never
went much below seven million - so something like Finsbury Park to
Edgware via Highgate should hardly have been bracketed along with the
many "slow route from nowhere-in-Wales to nowhere-in-Wales via nowhere-
in-England"-type cuts that were rightly made.

Were any of the London closures that actually happened really Beeching's?
I know he had it in for the North London but it didn't close, quite the
contrary in the long run. The Ally Pally passenger service went in 1956.
Were even Palace Gates and Belmont Beeching closures? The Turkey St loop
reopened in his time.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In message ,
writes

Were even Palace Gates and Belmont Beeching closures?

Yes, along with the Staines West and Uxbridge Vine Street branches. But
the only major proposal in the London area was to close the NLL which,
of course, never happened.

People often forget that Beeching was not "anti-rail" - in fact, he
promoted the inter-city and freight-liner networks. He was simply very
conscious of the fact that slow, rural branches which had never paid
their way were becoming an enormous drain on resources as car ownership
increased in the 1960s.

--
Paul Terry

On 27/12/09 18:24, in article ,
" wrote:

Were any of the London closures that actually happened really Beeching's?
I know he had it in for the North London but it didn't close, quite the
contrary in the long run. The Ally Pally passenger service went in 1956.
Were even Palace Gates and Belmont Beeching closures? The Turkey St loop
reopened in his time.

I think Palace Gates went in '63, so it was probably planned pre-Beeching.
Belmont was later I think '64?

The answer in most cases as to why lines were closed is that people weren't
using them, and this was nothing new, certainly nothing to do with Beeching.
From early in the 20th century many local lines in London had seen drastic
decline due to competition from electric trams, and later buses. I think
it's one of Jim Connor's books which gives some figures, and it's really
dramatic. I can't remember the details now.

Some lines closed during the first war and were never re-opened, Greenwich
Park and what is now Thameslink for example. The London & Blackwall closed
during the General Strike, and never re-opened I believe. Ok, part of the
Greenwich Park branch did re-open later, as did the Snow Hill tunnel, though
not the line from it towards Moorgate did re-open after a very long break,
as did part of the L&B for the DLR. The L&SWR route to Richmond via
Shepherds Bush also never re-opened, doubtless due to competition. Indeed,
the Shepherds Bush area has probably seen more closed stations than anywhere
else in London.

Other lines closed during the second war, West London lost almost all of its
passenger service of course, and Dalston Junction to Poplar never reopened.

Other lines lost out to competition from Underground lines, Stanmore
Village, both Uxbridge lines and Rickmansworth Church Street being obvious
ones.

People didn't want to travel on slow, dirty steam trains when they could use
new fast clean electric trains and trams. Note how few electrified lines
have closed in London. Crystal Palace was one of course, how it kept going
for 18 years after the Palace burned down, I don't know. I think it carried
some coal which may have kept it alive for a while.

Axexandra Palace pretty much died with the rest of the Northern Heights
scheme, and the Palace itself was in serious decline by that time.

Broad Street was probably closed mainly because the land it stood on was too
valuable, though retaining a smaller station there might have been
justified. It was also convenient to be able to divert the existing North
London service when they wanted to re=open the line through Hackney. This
also killed the last of the service via Lea Bridge, the remains of what had
been the North Woolwich - Palace Gates service, when the North Woolwich
branch was joined to the North London.

There's not a great deal more in London that has closed, is there? Elmers
End to Selsdon, again competition, and a few line lines in the East End,
around the docks and Beckton gas works, wartime damage, and then declining
industry.

Lastly, too many lines and stations in London were built in the first place
by the various competing companies.

Very little to do with Beeching at all, and most of it not in his time.

On Sun, 27 Dec 2009 19:04:01 +0000
Paul Corfield wrote:
Finsbury Park to Edgware was not a Beeching closure though - it's not
shown on the London closures map. That was a post war decision by LT not
to proceed with the plans for electrification and passenger services.

I remember reading somewhere many moons ago that the bridge taking the
northern heights line over the main line was knackered and beyond economic
repair and the cost of replacing it was the death knell for the line.
Whether thats the whole story or even true I have no idea.

B2003