The Railways of Leicestershire and Rutland

This video is about the Railways of Leicestershire and Rutland, current stations and track and where and when closures took place, focussing on the impact of the Beeching Axe upon the railway as a whole.

[@Mav_at_Pwll-Y-Ddraig]

Hi Matt. That was a fantastic bit of history brought to life. My own opinion about Beeching is were it not for his 'axe' then we wouldn't have many if not any of the amazing Heritage Railways that we have today. He wasn't wrong though when he said that he'd be the scapegoat for many years to come! Thanks again for this

[@paulwilson3083]

Thank you Matt , that was very interesting, I'm a retired BR signalman and remember the so called Benching cuts well, what many people don't realise is that Breaching only did a recommendation and Labours Harold Wilson came to power in the mid sixties on the promise of reversing the railway closures and as a result his transport minister Barbara Castle actually closed the Great Central, but enough of politics and thank you once again for your video.

[@MattDavis_BeechingsGhosts]

Thank you Paul. Which are the boxes you worked in? If any of them were in these counties I would very much like to get in contact with you.

[@aboutyeabig]

This was great. Thanks very much for all the effort put into making this video.

[@RichardWells1]

Wow! A whistle-stop history study - interesting and easy-to-understand. A great deal of research clearly went into this! A superb contextual background...if anyone is reading Stephen Done's excellent railway detective mysteries based at Leicester on the Great Central.

[@MattDavis_BeechingsGhosts]

Thanks Richard that makes all the work worthwhile

[@andrewwallace7016]

Fascinating. There's plenty to take in, so I'll have another watch shortly.

[@rslewis]

Very interesting, thank you

[@andrewmarch7891]

Thank you much; very informative. I'm in exile form Leicestershire, it is masterful work like yours that reminds me of what I knew vaguely of but sadly took very much for granted.

[@MattDavis_BeechingsGhosts]

You are very welcome and thank you for watching.

[@itsjustspecial3231]

Superb. Thank you. My cycling around Leicestershire and Rutland in the 1950s/60s enabled exploration of much of this and a continuing interest in railways. Very useful.

[@stevenfollows3642]

Great little film full of information! Loved it ! The bluebell line is dear to me !

[@deejaytee5481]

Let us not forget that the man behind Beeching, Transport Minister Ernest Marples, 'coincidentally' was a director of Marples Ridgeway, who were responsible for building a large proportion of the motorways that were necessary to carry the freight lost by the railways, Beeching admitted he was a pawn, but he was well paid for his hatchet job

[@MattDavis_BeechingsGhosts]

Thanks for your comment. I'll be addressing Beeching in a separate video, dedicated entirely to him - ahem - his actions. How you look at what he got paid can be seen in two different ways: he retained the same salary he had at ICI so he was no better off financially, but as far as a civil servant goes highly paid in comparison to others. More than double that of the Prime Minister to be precise.

[@michaelhearn3052]

Firstly you need to check your facts. Yes, Marples was a director in Marples Ridgeway but he resigned as a director in 1951 on becoming a junior Cabinet Minister. For which there would be documentary evidence to verify this. He was required to do by Parliamentary Laws, as Ministers and above, are required to do so today. By the time he was Minister of Transport in 1960, during those 9 years, he had nothing to do with the day-to-day running of his former company and during that time was not involved in any of the contract negotiations. As Minister of Transport, he was responsible for the closure of a number of lines, following the Beeching Report of 1963. Owing to the inadequacies of the 1962 Transport Act, in that, it specified that railway lines had to operate at a profit. If they did not then they were candidates for closure. Marples always had to demonstrate that he was acting within the letter of the law as defined in the Act. At that time there was no provision for lines that were of a social need and needed grant assistance. That came later on with the 1968 Transport Act where a grant was payable for unremunerative lines that were of a social need.

[@garthhentley5957]

John Laing was the major contractor for motorways ; MR built the Chiswick Flyover. Now, if you want a real conflict of interest Ernest Marples was Minister of Housing in the ' 50s and MR was appointed main contractor.

[@1chish]

@@michaelhearn3052 Well said Michael. Too many people know half a story and add the rest.

[@michaelhearn3052]

@@garthhentley5957 he had resigned as a director from MR in 1951 when he became a junior cabinet minister. He was required to do so by parliamentary law as ministers and above are required to do so today. So he had no involvement in the day to day running of MR and was not involved in the contract negotiations.

[@richardfenngriffin2406]

Really enjoyed this video. I'm moving to Leicestershire this summer and feel really informed about the railway history of the county. Weren't there a lot! As for your question about Beeching. He's the scapegoat. The government, and in fairness most of the public, couldn't see how useful railways would be in the future. However, British Rail didn't do itself any favours in the preceding years to ingratiate themselves to government. A bodged modernisation plan in the 50s meant that by the 60s the government was really asking whether another lump sum would deliver any results. However, that's all history. The railways are doing very well now and hopefully connecting places like Coalville back to the network will be the start of many such schemes across the network.

[@MattDavis_BeechingsGhosts]

Thank you. Yes, phase 2 of the Ivanhoe project - if it ever gets going - will be very interesting but double track will be needed. You've covered under the poignant notes of the British transport commission and their struggle to deal with their spiralling debt, I'd rather keep schtum for a little bit until my Beeching video is complete. However in the meanwhile the next video will be regarding the Midland Railway, however it is a large undertaking as it covers so much of the UK, places outside of Leicestershire and Rutland need an honorable mention.

[@MattDavis_BeechingsGhosts]

Hi Richard. Have you moved here yet? I have become an official tourguide of the Glenfield tunnel and we are doing two more weekends of public tours should you wish to see the longest railway tunnel in the world (in 1832).

[@seanbrady6731]

Great video Matt

[@MattDavis_BeechingsGhosts]

Thanks Sean. Are you watching the other videos, covering each one of these histories?

[@whyyoulidl]

What a joy to have stumbled upon your presentation! One of my favourite areas of the country featuring so many lines and stations that'll keep me busy for a few hours tracing them on google maps. Oh, btw - SUBSCRIBED :-)

[@davidwarner6466]

Great video thanks. I didn’t realise until recently how wide spread it all was back then. I was besotted as a kid in the 50’s with the Groby Granite spur from Glenfield junction to the quarry. All day the saddle tank ‘Hunslet‘ ran up and down and frequently took me for a ride down to Glenfield through the tunnel under Ratby road. They Wouldn’t do it now of course. Well done!

[@MattDavis_BeechingsGhosts]

Thanks for the comment David. Have you been on one of the tours of the Glenfield tunnel? The Leicestershire industrial history Society run tours in the warmer months when bats are not in the tunnel which is between April and September. I'm one of the tour guides!

[@hdipower1]

I live in Leicestershire - really interesting! There was also a mineral line that ran south from just east of Bottesford (the Grantham Nottingham line) towards Branston - operational up to the 1960s I believe.

[@MattDavis_BeechingsGhosts]

Thanks for this. I've found it, *just* inside Leicestershire. Never knew it was there. I'll see to add it in a future update, though it could go into its own category of 'industrial lines' with the Holwell mineral branch and Cottesmore (extensive!) sidings.

[@MattDavis_BeechingsGhosts]

I'm going to include this spur in the next video which will be the Great Northern and London northwestern joint railway. Perhaps the most challenging video to date!

[@mikebass3721]

My great grandad was a signalman on the Leicester to Swannington railway at Fosse road, he & my family lived backing onto the “ rally” my family then went to live near the Glenfield tunnel , Kirby Muxloe,Ellistown & Coalville. Finally worked as a planner & senior PICOP on the railway myself. Where would we be without the train. My son is now in charge of WCML southern possession team

[@tomcarr1358]

Really good. Several watchings are well rewarded. Enough illustration to keep pace with the commentary. Amazing how many small ironstone quarries of limited potential seem to justify the creation of such and extensive network. There were blast furnaces at Wellingborough, I think, as well as Corby so they had to be 'fed'.

[@MattDavis_BeechingsGhosts]

Thanks for the comment, Tom. As I progress with other lines I'm finding many more sidings of quarrying granite, collieries or ironstone working. My work in progress is for the Birmingham and Leicester aka South Leicestershire line and I'm trying to feature some of the sidings including Croft, Stoney and Enderby. I'm very much looking forward to doing the joint Great Northern and the London northwestern line which owes its entire existence to ironstone quarrying!

[@roderickmain9697]

Some of it was undoubtedly inevitable. Beechings plan just brought the invetibility forward. It is interesting his bus expansion was ignored though. It didnt really take into account the expansion of some of the towns left without railways but now find the road infrastructure unable to cope. In 1963 the town I grew up in had a population of about 7000 that is now around 30,000 and getting bigger. A rail service to connect to the GWR would be ideal today. It can also be observed that in other countries of Europe - France for instance - which probably didnt have as many railways as the UK to start with, they have created high speed lines to serve major conurbations but local lines have and are decaying into disuse caused by and creating less and less passengers. In postwar Britain, a train service connected London to Newhaven - a ferry connected to Dieppe and a fast train service connected to Paris. You could leave London early at 6.00 am and be in Paris by 1.00pm. These days, you'd be lucky to get to Paris by 8pm on the same route. Dieppe's fast line is now a cycle way and you have to travel via Rouen (which the last time I checked, required a 90 minute wait for a connection).

[@andrewlong6438]

A very interesting video and I am glad that you didn’t fall into trap of blaming all railway closures on Beeching. Much of your video isn’t about Beeching but I imagine if you put the B word in the title you get more views.

[@randomclass4653]

nice!

[@1258-Eckhart]

Rutlander here. I understand the need for Beeching's rationalisation, but the reason why he is viewed - rightly - as an "axeman" is that he did not provide for the future viability of the network. I have spent my professional career creating telecommunications networks and it is essential to provide for so-called "redundancy" in order to reroute traffics in the case of line closures. The minimal measures required are the planning-safeguarding of trajectory ("mothballing"), the maximum measures are the retention of the line in full working order. Maybe all this wasn't in his brief, but if the politics of the day had refused on (Beeching's) request to write it into the brief retrospectively, there was always the option of an "obiter dicta", where Beeching could have added such recommendations on his own initiative. Both ECML and WCML need side routes. As an Eastmidlander it irks me that not only has BR (in fairness, not Mr. Beeching) closed the March - Spalding line, they have now even built a prison on the trackbed to ensure that any recovery of the line will be really expensive.

[@peterkazmierczak7273]

Just found this Matt, very interesting. Think you've missed off Castle Donington on the MR line between Trent and Burton.

[@MattDavis_BeechingsGhosts]

Yes, the next video I'm currently doing is the Midland Railway and that's got Castle Donington in it as well as Wilson, Queniborough and a number of others I've missed along the way. Thanks for the comment.

[@peterkazmierczak7273]

@@MattDavis_BeechingsGhosts 👍

[@burniemaurins2382]

Enjoyable, I can tell you are not a native of the county, some of those pronunciations made me chuckle, I was born and raised in the county and lived close to the old Great Central near to Whetstone station. I have fond memories of travelling all over the county by train mostly by steam power. There was a mineral line that ran to Croft Quarry that ran into the 21st century I think.

[@andrewwalton9700]

Did you mention the Malybone Rugby Lutterworth Ashby Magna Leicester (Great central stn ) Nottingham Sheffield . I believe that it was the last railway to be built in this country . Good video .

[@MattDavis_BeechingsGhosts]

Yes the Great Central appears at 12:00, it was the last mainline railway to be built in this country prior to HS2. I'm currently working on a detailed video covering that line.

[@cjmatthiasakamatt8174]

You missed the line from Market Harborough to Northampton which opened on 16th February 1859.

[@MattDavis_BeechingsGhosts]

You're quite right. Missed because it's only a mile out of Market Harborough before it leaves the county and the next station is a further two miles out of the county. But worth mentioning, nonetheless. I'll add it to the update, which I need to get done soon. Thanks for the feedback.

[@davidshaw3303]

Just brilliant! To see the map drawn on a timeline is genius and really puts things in perspective, especially when you consider that early passengers at Leicester would be nearly 60 by the time the GCR was open! Out of interest do you know when the first trains to London ran (presumably through Rugby?). Thank you so much.

[@MattDavis_BeechingsGhosts]

9th April 1838 it was possible to get to London from Rugby but only from 17 September was a through route available. Thanks for the lovely comment

[@colinjolliffe]

It is interesting to see how many railways there were in Leicester. It showed what Beeching talked about with duplication of routes. 2 railways to London from Leicester, just because railway companies wanted the profitable traffic. You can see why 95% of traffic was on 50% of the lines. The one calculation Beeching struggled with, as everything was calculated by people, not computers, was how the 95% would be affected when the 5% was removed, which fed the 95%. To try and ensure that traffic wasn't lost, he planned that little used lines would be replaced by buses for passengers and lorries for freight. The government ignored this important part of the feeding of the railways to make them work. This led to a loss of traffic. There were also lines that Beeching said should stay but the government removed. The varsity line was one, which is now being reinstated. The other major mistake of the government was not safeguarding land that the lines occupied, in case of future need. A number were swalled up by roads like the A38 in Devon. This stopped the heritage line, the South Devon Railway continuing to serve Ashburton. Which was actually reopened by Beeching, as he stated he never closed this station, so was happy to reopen it. The station did close again after the A38 was built.

[@alastairhopkins245]

Because of how suburbs have grown, a lot of these "duplications" would no longer be duplications because they linked different parts of where they served.

[@murrayangus]

I'm surprised you didn't include the LNWR route from Seaton Junction (in Rutland) to Peterborough, which was used for passenger services from the West Midlands to East Anglia.

[@MattDavis_BeechingsGhosts]

Hi Murray! It's one of those things, but I have covered it in an update. I think I missed it because there's no station from Seaton in Leicestershire or Rutland Wakerley and Barrowden is in Northamptonshire. I think I've covered all bases on my update but I'm just leaving it a little longer in case somebody else like yourself brings up something that I have carelessly missed. Thanks again for your comment and I hope you've enjoyed watching.

[@GrrMeister]

*The GCR Express Route Should Never have been closed - however.*

[@MattDavis_BeechingsGhosts]

As I'm doing all the railways as separate videos and in chronological order, my reply to you will be some months away. I agree it should never have been closed, but like you say, there is a big however regarding it and Hudson's legacy was still having an effect...

[@frankmitchell3594]

The direct connections from Leicester to Coventry, Burton on Trent and Northampton were lost. All these are major cities and towns in the area. Why do this?

[@MattDavis_BeechingsGhosts]

Hi Frank, thanks for the comment. These places are not in my current area of study, however, for Northampton, the staffing costs of the line (several level crossings needed people operating them) compared to actual income in passengers and freight led to a haphazard closure but some time before Beeching got his teeth into it. It's too easy to balance the decisions of the past with the needs of today and there is more demand than ever to re-open old connections. If only the North-East to South -West spur at Nuneaton was still open!

[@ronaldhaynes4042]

I was a fireman at Market Harborough till it closed.

[@MattDavis_BeechingsGhosts]

Did you book on there or remain at the station?

[@ronaldhaynes4042]

@@MattDavis_BeechingsGhosts I would book on at loco then I left and went to 1A Willesden

[@MattDavis_BeechingsGhosts]

@@ronaldhaynes4042 blimey that's a commute! Before retiring I commuted Leicester to London daily but trains are much quicker these days

[@ronaldhaynes4042]

@@MattDavis_BeechingsGhosts one of the last jobs I had at loco was the take the empty wagon on to the Melton Mowbray branch were the contractors were cutting the tracking to load on to the wagon we pulled the last lot of wagon out of Wellam that was with a 4f and my driver was Jack Shelve.

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

Err, the last mainline to be built was HS1.

[@MattDavis_BeechingsGhosts]

Yes you're right and HS2 will be the last some time soon, but alas, neither goes through Leicestershire or Rutland, nor were they built in the steam age as the commentary states. I'll attempt to make this clearer in an update.

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

You missed out that whilst costs went up for the railways the passenger fare and freight charge caps put in place by the governments during the 1950s to control inflation that contributed to the losses the rail ways incurred. This coupled with the loss of traffic to the roads lead to the need for something to be done. Beeching was charged with the herculean task of cleaning up the augean stables that were BR's financial woes caused in part by the government blocking fare and freight charge rises. The Modernisation Plan didn't help as it didn't modernise the one area that really needed attention - the way that freight was handled. By the time the Beeching Report was published the average goods wagon would spend between 1.5 and 2 working days in transit with a load and almost 12 working days between loadings.

[@MattDavis_BeechingsGhosts]

It is my intention to go into further detail in a forthcoming video addressing the minutae of Beeching's actions and the impact it had upon the whole of the UK's transport network.

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

@@MattDavis_BeechingsGhosts I'll look forward to seeing that. It is a compliacated issue. Too many accounts fall into the category of "Beeching was a bastard" without looking at the problems he had to deal with and the general economic situation in the country as a whole, such as the Sterling Crises of 1964 to 1967. I'm not saying Beeching got everything right in the short term, let alone the long term.

[@MattDavis_BeechingsGhosts]

@@neiloflongbeck5705 I very briefly covered my feeling of Beeching at the end of the video that he was a scapegoat. I agree that he was not the real culprit but MacMillan, but as ever, governments need to blame a single party and deflect their wrong-doing. That video is likely to take a while as I have a lot of reading to do on the subject and want to promote a fair sided argument. Thanks for your comments.

[@seanbrady6731]

I read a lot of railway history and contemporary reports. Your comment about modernising the wrong things is new to me but, on reflection valid. I think too that the financial crisis in BR required radical action and the field was constrained by the economic orthodoxy of Butskellism. How much different could it have been without a crystal ball? I have hindsight and can see the errors, but would I have done in 1962/3 (different times - a report published in 1963 would have been written on 1962 realities.)

[@roberthuron9160]

There has been,always long detriment,when things are decided on only profit,or economic terms! One example in the US,was the shut down of the old Erie mainline through the Southern Tier of New York! No one saw the Double Stack trains of the 90's,and guess what,the old Erie mainline had Zero problems,in regard to the 25 foot vertical clearance needed! Suffice it to say,the entire mainline was rebuilt,double tracked,and highly upgraded,and this out of taxpayer funds! The original reason,why the line was shut down,was,it didn't make a profit(based on an 8% return),and that turned around and bit them,hard!! It is still one of the busier mains,in the US,so the lawyers,and economists,were very,very wrong! To date,no one has apologized for their mistakes,or failures!! Thanks again for your attention 👍!

[@martyn6792]

What is a real shame is that they didn't mothball them or at least ensure the trackbeds remained intact when they closed the lines

[@bermudarailway2411]

The real crook was Marples.

[@1chish]

No he wasn't. It was Barbara Castle. She lifted the tracks.

[@richard1342]

@@1chish Oh no, it was definitely Marples, whose was joint founder of the company Marples Ridgeway - road builders, bridge builders and civil engineers. Miles of motorway built in this era, much by MR. Barbara Castle was actually a very clever Labour minister (don't see many of them these days). She developed the concept of the need to subsidise certain parts of the railway network for social reasons. Well ahead of her time.

[@1chish]

@@richard1342 Sorry Richard you are factually wrong because you are letting some political bias intrude. Marples was the Minister who received the first report from Beeching (appointed in 1961) in 1963 and instigated some service withdrawals. We are all aware of Marples' commercial connections and how he was a tax fraud but he never lifted tracks. Labour returned to power in October 1964, barely 15 months after Beeching's first report, and they received his second report in 1965 just 4 months later. THAT is when the tracks were lifted and railway rights were lost. Barbara Castle also never put in place the extra bus services proposed by Beeching. Her reputation is saved by the Beeching name but it was her choice to lift tracks after services ended when they didn't need to be lifted and rights lost. How do I know this? I studied the detail when I worked as a Project Officer on a major project to re-open one of the closed lines where track had been lifted to understand the legal implications.

[@richard1342]

@@1chish Agreed he never lifted tracks - but that was not the accusation I was responding to. The initial proposition was that he was a crook, and beyond fraud, he ensured he received many government contracts to build roads - so yes he was a crook. I don't think BC could have ever been described as a crook, but yes Labour as well as the conservatives proposed, or actually lifted track. The infamous Whitby Scarborough line is one good example of slippery work on the subject by Harold Wilson I believe.

[@1chish]

@@richard1342 I took the OP's comment as referring to lifting tracks especially as I did say earlier Marples was a convicted fraudster. I think anyone guilty of the biggest infrastructure vandalism in the 20th Century can be called a crook or at least a criminal. And that was BC. If you want to understand the level of deceit and false accounting going on in BR to close miles of routes look no further than the Settle & Carlisle line that was saved by Michael Portillo after he unearthed appalling estimates of repairs to viaducts and drainage that simply did not add up. BR were engaged in managed decline nothing less and I am glad we got rid of it all.

[@simonballard6413]

Very good video. I never did like Beeching (or Marples, who was just as blameworthy). O ne point - please, Matt, this is England - please talk in MILES, not wretched kilometers !!

[@MattDavis_BeechingsGhosts]

Thank you for the comment, much appreciated. We (the UK) adopted the metric system in 1973 and all educational establishments were using it by 1988. Although railways do still use miles, chains and yards, I do my best to adopt BOTH systems in other videos in order to cater for a worldwide audience. In my humble opinion, kilometres and metres are so much easier to calculate and break down than how many times 22 goes into 1760 - I'm not old enough to remember tanners and florins so I've always worked on decimalisation, based on the number of digits on my hands. Rest assured though that the subsequent series of videos should meet your requirements.

[@tommyc23101986]

Beeching has been blamed for it when the government ignored a lot of his recommendations i.e the scapegoat for it all.

[@1chish]

Before people dive off into their usual Beeching - hate rhetoric many need to get their facts straight. For a start it wasn't Marples who was the villain here and neither was Beeching himself who actually saved BR from killing itself with archaic practices, overmanning, outdated rolling stock and a vague understanding of customer service. Sorry to disappoint many here but the real villain who committed an act of infrastructe savagery was Barbara Castle. SHE was the one who lifted tracks, bulldozed stations and infilled tunnels and by doing so lost the country thousands of miles of railway routes and rights. Beeching reduced or stopped unprofitable services but never ever suggested lifting tracks. That was an entirely political decision. And remember every time you see a Freightliner train that was a Beeching idea.

[@bobtudbury8505]

Not beeching but the labour party closed the lines.Then the labour party gave beeching an award. Labour did not close all of beechings lines , some were left but they shut a lot more on top.The labour party also closed hundreds of pits in the 60's. never trust labour

[@michaelhearn3052]

True. A lot of lines were closed under labour just after the 1964 election when they came to power, in spite of their manifesto that was based on them not closing any lines. When they were in office they reneged on this.

[@davidtomlinson6138]

Never have done , never will do ! On anything 🤔🙄and Labour gave away our invention of the jet engine to yanks 😠🧐🤬, they betrayed Whittle with one of the world's most important british inventions --- LEFTY, SOCIALIST GITS !!!

[@davidtomlinson6138]

Kist another gov.pawn GIT ! destroyed our once proud railway system