The Lost Railways of Britain | 1990s VHS Classic Video

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Borderlands Line

2 ай бұрын

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Пікірлер: 37

@grahamdavidcowley Ай бұрын

Most people do not travel between Sheffield and Manchester on the A57. That takes you via the Snake Pass, which is often closed in the winter. A narrow twisting route. Woodhead is far more popular, and also the M62.

@tommccanna7036 29 күн бұрын

In the late 1970s, I remember being on a Manchester to Sheffield train which was diverted from the Hope Valley line to the Woodhead. The tunnel itself had lighting.

@neiloflongbeck5705 Ай бұрын

The problems of road hauliers undercutting the railways was not just a phenomenon of the 1950s it was looked at in the 1930s with the conclusion that if the railways were to survive as freight movers then they had to be relieved of common carrier status and road hauliers charged more for access to the roads. And Winston Council in 1908, whilst President of the Board of Trade, said that route duplication was as harmful to the railways as the multiplicity of companies.

@amazoniaamazonia7225 Ай бұрын

Clement Atlee’s government nationalised the rail and long haul road transport in 1948, they we’re showing a operating surplus when he was superseded by Churchill in 1951 who to appease his chums in the RHA denationalised the road haulage, and with an abundance supply of cheap ex military lorries it was all to easy to undercut the railways who for many decades would still have to pay dividends to the share holders of the former private railway companies.

@neiloflongbeck5705 Ай бұрын

@@amazoniaamazonia7225 the Salter Report of 1933 show that road transport of freight services were unfairly advantaged due to less onerous restrictions on their operations. This had been true since the end of WW1 with the first sale of ex-WD lorries. The results of the Salter Report were increased licencing charges for the road hauliers and speed limits as set out in the Road Traffic Act 1934, followed by, in 1935, increases in Vehicle Excise Duty and height taxes on fuel and a partial lifting of restrictions on prices. Herbert Morrision said "the weapon of taxation of road transport as a means of putting the railways right was a foolish and idiotic policy". The new charges were blamed for driving heavie steam traction off the road in favour of the lighter lorries powered by internal combustion engines using imported oil and was opposed by many. This goes to show that the problems were deep set even before nationalisation.

@IndustrialParrot2816 Ай бұрын

It actually started in the 1920s in the US with the Interurban Railroads getting undercut by trucking and cars and worsened into the 40s and by the 60s most of the Interurbans were completely gone, thousands of them all gone only a single one survived, The South Shore Railroad

@neiloflongbeck5705 Ай бұрын

@@IndustrialParrot2816thank you, but what happened in the US is irrelevant to a discussion about the UK.

@IndustrialParrot2816 Ай бұрын

@@neiloflongbeck5705 it's relevant because you guys followed us in our mistakes, you failed to Learn from our mistakes

@McAttack21574 Ай бұрын

To be completely honest, many lines would always have to close, mostly duplicate or routes with quicker alternatives like the S&D and the GC Main Line, not because of being horrible, just pointless when there were already better lines going to the same place. But I do agree that many lines still had great potential, the waverly and woodhead being examples.

@boyfromblackstuff7859 Ай бұрын

Very interesting, thanks for posting.

@user-se2pq4xq6s Ай бұрын

Magic.

@tominnis8353 Ай бұрын

It was done without any forethought and we all pay the costly price today. And it is totally irreversible . . . .

@OTIB1 Ай бұрын

Irreversible is what was intended by Ernest Marples; Transport Minister and principle share holder of TarMac construction who (by chance), won the government contract to build roads replacing railways.

@tominnis8353 Ай бұрын

@@OTIB1 Yes, all destroyed with remarkable haste!

@typhoon2827 Ай бұрын

To be fair, some market towns have been spared the dereliction and demise that rail links to squalid urban areas have brought.

@Mounhas 14 күн бұрын

@@OTIB1 That ol’ tory corruption.

@Mounhas 14 күн бұрын

One of life’s regrets is that I never traveled on the S&D when I had the chance. Oh well.

@neiloflongbeck5705 Ай бұрын

Those repairs to Ribblehead viaduct were done on the cheap a d had to be redone since this video was made. I guess the original price tag might have been correct.

@neiloflongbeck5705 Ай бұрын

Stainmore line - scheduled passenger trains west of Barnard Castle often only carried the crew, and Belah Viaduct needed major strengthening which looked at traffic volumes could not be justified.

@grahamdavidcowley Ай бұрын

One error was on the feature about the Woodhead railway. There was a lot of opposition to re routing the service through the Hope Valley. Trades Unions, political parties, community groups and the various 'green groups', then in their infancy took part in demonstrations. However, the reason to close seems to have been political in itself. The management of BR was always anti GC, and the admitted that at a meeting in Penistone just weeks before the final trains.

@neiloflongbeck5705 Ай бұрын

Just wondering, why was a public meeting required to close a freight line? The local TUCC wouldn't have a say in the closure. Neither would the local councils. The line needed expendive refurbishments as the Class 76s and the electrification equipment was life expired. It was also more expensive to operate with the changes locomotives required on the MGR trains being a case in point. Diesel at either end with DC electrics in the middle, instead of one locomotive for the entire run. Add these facts to the recession and falling traffic levels which allowed the Hope Valley route to have capacity city to accommodate all traffic.

@rosmear7871 13 күн бұрын

The closure of many of Britain's rail network was achieved with a similar lack of vision and planning to that of the cretion of the llines in the first place. This lack of these attibutes and political incompetence continues today with the cancellation of HS2. Ironically, the GCR could have provided the high speed route to Nottingham & Sheffield that is so badly needed, but then we continue to elect incompetence.