Ernest Marples: The Shadow Behind Beeching

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Sir Ewart Smith, who retired from ICI in 1959, was asked by the Conservative Minister of Transport, Ernest Marples, to become a member of an advisory group on the financial state of the British Transport Commission to be chaired by Sir Ivan Stedeford. Smith declined but recommended Beeching in his place, a suggestion which Marples accepted. [2] Stedeford and Beeching clashed on a number of issues connected with Beeching's proposal to drastically prune Britain's rail infrastructure. In spite of questions being asked in Parliament, Sir Ivan's report was not published until much later.

This biography examines the life and career of the conservative politician who led the charge to reshape British Railways in the mid-twentieth century. While few drivers followed the instructions, the project to install these traffic lights all over London was abandoned when a gas explosion shattered the lights and injured the policemen operating them. Motorways have also left their mark on our cultural landscape. The Watford Gap service station opened in 1959, the first of many novel and exciting spaces to visit during a long motorway ride (and even buy a souvenir postcard). New dining experiences attracted teenagers and families on day trips as well as The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and other celebrities.

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The 'bad news' report that helped build today's railway". Rail News. 1 September 2008 . Retrieved 20 December 2021. Section 39: Grants for unremunerative passenger services" (PDF). Transport Act 1968. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office. pp.58–60 (in work pp. 66–68). 1968 c. 73. If, in the case of any place or places to and from which railway passenger services are for the time being provided by the Railways Board, the Minister is satisfied (a) that those services are unremunerative; and (b) that it is desirable for social or economic reasons that railway passenger services to and from the place or places in question should for the time being continue to be provided either in the same or in some different form or manner; and (c) that because of the unremunerative nature of the services which the Minister is satisfied are desirable for those reasons (hereafter in this section referred to as "the required services") the Board cannot reasonably be expected to provide them without assistance under this section, then, subject to the provisions of this section, the Minister may from time to time with the consent of the Treasury undertake to make grants to the Board in respect of the provision of the required services for such period not exceeding three years at a time as the Minister may think fit.

After this period, "residual" Beeching closures took place: Bridport to Maiden Newton in 1975, [71] Alston to Haltwhistle in 1976, [72] and Woodside to Selsdon in 1983. [73] See also [ edit ] The first Beeching report, titled The Reshaping of British Railways, was published on 27 March 1963. [19] He recommended that freight services should mainly be for bulk commodities such as minerals and coal, and that the freight system make use of new containerised handling systems rather than less efficient and slower wagon-load traffic. The latter recommendation would prove prescient with the rise of intermodal freight transport in the following decades. [28] The Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes (Beeching II) [ edit ] A map of Great Britain, showing "major lines" identified by Beeching II in bold The first report was accepted by the Conservative government of the day, which argued that many services could be provided more effectively by buses. [33] Most recommendations were subsequently taken forward by the Labour government elected in 1964, but many of the proposed closures sparked protests from communities that would lose their trains, a number of which (especially rural communities) had no other public transport. [34] Intelligencefiles from this period, state quite clearly that Morrison was instrumental in informing other powerful Jewish businessmen connected to the Russians which products would be going up in the annual budget...The grandfather of Tony Blair friend Peter Mandelson was former government minister Herbert Morrison. Richard Beeching, Baron Beeching (21 April 1913 – 23 March 1985), commonly known as Dr Beeching, was a physicist and engineer who for a short but very notable time was chairman of British Railways. He became a household name in Britain in the early 1960s for his report The Reshaping of British Railways, commonly referred to as The Beeching Report, which led to far-reaching changes in the railway network, popularly known as the Beeching Axe.

In 1959 Marples was appointed as the Minister of Transport which became his most controversial position. In his first year of office, Marples opened the UK’s first stretch of motorway – the M1 from Watford to Rugby. Many more would follow and by the end of his tenure the country was criss-crossed with brand new roads. These massive construction projects were completed by various engineering firms including his own, Marples Ridgway, raising questions of a serious conflict of interests. Perhaps Marples is most infamous for appointing Dr Beeching to British Railways with a brief of devising a profitable railway network. His subsequent report “ The Reshaping of British Railways” (commonly referred to as “Beeching’s Axe”) led to drastic cuts across the UK and the dismembering of many of Britain’s local and historic railway lines.a b "Table TSGB0101: Passenger transport by mode, annual from 1952" (ODS). Department for Transport. 15 December 2022 . Retrieved 25 June 2023. Ernie Marples was, no doubt about it, a rogue,” said Lewis Baston, author of the Marples biography, who is looking for a publisher for his book.