In the August 1984 issue of The Railway Magazine, Arthur Miller’s “Thirty Years On” looked back to the dawn of his railway enthusiasm. Having travelled over all the British Railways passenger lines in Great Britain then carrying a regular timetabled service, he reflected on the journeys, changes and experiences of the previous three decades.
A red-letter day
FOR me, Saturday, May 15, 1983, was a red-letter day. As a passenger on the 17.30 St. Pancras to Sheffield service, which was routed via Toton and did not therefore call at either Derby or Nottingham, I finally achieved my ambition of travelling over all the British Railways passenger lines in Great Britain currently having a regular timetabled service (with the exception of a few short spurs and station avoiding lines).
While I do not personally know anyone else who has travelled the entire network nor indeed anyone who is attempting to do so, I do not doubt that some other enthusiasts will have done the same thing. Moreover, I can hardly claim any speed record because it took me about thirty years of mainly holiday travel on ordinary time-tabled and BR excursion trains to fulfil my ambition, partly because I also spent several holidays abroad during this period. Of course, during the three decades I travelled on a very large number of lines which have since been closed. I did not purposely set out to cover the whole network and it was only comparatively recently that I realised that the possibility was there.
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My interest in railways began in late 1947 when, as a very young schoolboy, I joined the massed ranks of train-spotters. Collecting numbers did not give precedence to travelling until a few years later when I started work and had a meagre income at my disposal. Although my home was in Birmingham, I had relatives who lived at Fernhill Heath, three miles north of Worcester, and used to spend many of my holidays there, almost within sight of the (now closed) railway station. Using Holiday Runabout Tickets I made frequent forays into South Wales and the Wye Valley and developed my passion for branch lines.
Thirty years of travelling
My spell of National Service was spent mostly abroad but when I returned to the UK in 1958 I began to travel far and wide, again using bargain-priced weekly tickets. The Western Region was, and still is, my favourite territory and I had covered the entire region, as it then was, by 1963. Other regions had to wait very much longer!
As I relaxed after my journey to Sheffield last year—I had started the day in Penzance on the 08.27 to Exeter—I cast my mind back to the changes that had taken place since 1947 and could not help but recall some of the journeys and experiences I had had.
Nationalisation, closures and changing traction
Nationalisation came in 1948 and since then the two major changes have been the considerable truncation of the railway network and the abolition of steam locomotives. Undoubtedly, in my opinion, the closure of vast numbers of lines both before and during “the Beeching era” was the most significant. Millions of people suddenly lost their train services. Large areas of the country became wildernesses for public transport. The car industry prospered and the motorway builders made fortunes. The great irony of it all was that many of those who protested at the closure of lines were people who hadn’t used them anyway.
Many of the lines were hopelessly uneconomic but the view still persists in many quarters that some borderline cases would have been saved if sufficient allowances had been made for the revenue which branch-line passengers contributed to the main lines. It was often claimed by BR that when the branch lines were closed their passengers would travel to the nearest open railhead by some other form of transport and join the trains there. In the event, most of them made the whole journeys by road.
Replacement of steam locomotives by diesel and electric traction was carried through—many would say “bungled”—with such haste that it created a “nostalgia industry” almost overnight. I am a steam fan myself, and so I do not make that comment in any sarcastic sense, but I doubt whether those travellers who are not also locomotive enthusiasts are particularly concerned whether their train is hauled by a steam engine or a diesel or electric providing that it runs to time. Indeed, many important services, especially those operated by HSTs and West Coast electrics, are now much faster than in steam days and the fare-paying customer benefits. And of course, to those potential travellers deprived of their train services because of line closures, the type of traction used elsewhere is academic.
The changing cost of rail travel
The increase in the cost of living over the years has naturally affected us all and it may just appear to be the case that railway fares are now much higher in real terms than they ever were before, but I’m inclined to doubt it. My first week’s Holiday Runabout Ticket in 1953 cost just 16s. 6d. (82½p) and covered an area of 140 miles from Leamington Spa via Stratford-upon-Avon, Evesham, Tewkesbury, Malvern and Hereford to Monmouth, together with Malvern to Droitwich Spa, Worcester to Ashchurch and Worcester to Evesham. Even in 1959 a similar ticket was priced at only 19s.6d. (97½p).
By contrast, in May 1983 my All Line Railrover cost me £100 second-class for seven days. Being now middle-aged, unmarried, and not having to travel for my employer, I cannot enjoy the considerable concessions offered to families, students, senior citizens and so on, and often feel that I am subsidising virtually everybody else!
Back in the ’fifties, the fare structure was much simpler and one could generally work out the cost of a journey from the distance to be covered.
Favourite lines
Choosing a favourite line is always difficult. I have a great liking for the Wye Valley and all the former lines in that area appealed to me. Perhaps the most dramatic was the Newport (Mon.) to Brecon, which left the industrialised, coal-mining area of Newport and climbed steeply towards the Brecon Beacons with views of reservoirs en route. The actual summit in tunnel near Torpantau was at 1,313 ft. above sea level, after which the line descended to Tallyllyn Junction and continued to the attractive county town of Brecon.
The Ross-on-Wye to Monmouth line was also highly scenic and I travelled it several times before closure, very often breaking my journey to climb to the Rock at Symonds Yat. The Monmouth to Chepstow service, with its striking views of Tintern Abbey, was often operated by an ex-GWR railcar and was also a great favourite, especially if it could be visited as the sun was setting after a warm day.
Of course I’m indulging in nostalgia myself now, but few of the lines still open carry the same fascination. The Fort William and Mallaig line from Glasgow is arguably my favourite route still operating, though the Cornwall and Devon mainline never fails to attract me.
Favourite locomotives
While certain classes of diesels—notably the “Deltics”, “Hymeks” and “Warships”—have appealed to me, I doubt that any locomotives will oust the GWR “Castles” as my personal favourites. I saw virtually all of them and had journeys behind 56 engines of the class. The “Kings” were always very popular at the late lamented Birmingham Snow Hill, where they operated the Wolverhampton to Paddington expresses and I had rides behind 18 of the class of 30. I also liked the GWR “Counties”, the Southern Pacifics, the LMSR “Coronations” and rebuilt “Scots” (which never appealed to me in their unrebuilt form) and of course the exciting LNER “A4s”.
Buffets, meals and fellow passengers
Being a compulsive tea drinker, I have spent many hours patronising BR station buffets, where the beverage used to cost 2d. per cup and now costs very much more. It was sad to see the demise of such buffets as Worcester Foregate Street and Great Malvern. The opportunity to have meals on trains does not present itself very often these days in the UK and the cost is prohibitive to those like myself without an expense account, but I can happily record that I have never had a poor meal on BR. Likewise, I rarely use sleeping cars but I do find the British ones rewarding and seem to sleep better in them than in those in some other countries.
During the course of my travels I have had conversations with many people and found some most interesting companions. These have included a Birmingham girl who was a dancer in the Casino in Beirut in more peaceful times, a salesman who often dealt with high officials of African governments, a party of Spanish industrialists who spoke virtually no English and exercised my Spanish all the way from Paddington to Birmingham, and a survivor of the 1940 Norton Fitzwarren rail crash. The present-day preference for open saloons has tended to reduce the amount of conversation between passengers.
When things go wrong
I always plan my holiday tours well in advance and check and double-check all the times. Whenever possible I try to reach my destination for each night no later than mid-evenings as I rarely book accommodation in advance. Even so, things do go wrong!
One of my first “clangers” was when, as a novice traveller, I boarded a late-running train at Gloucester intending to go to Cheltenham and then found that it didn’t stop until Bromsgrove (where, coincidentally, I now live) and then only to summon a banker for the ascent of the famed Lickey Incline. The holiday train was packed to capacity and I got some very strange looks from people perched on luggage in the corridors as I clambered down from the train and made my way on foot onto the platform for a round of explanations. But even more startled was a railway employee who found me in a compartment of a train he had just shunted into a siding at Aylesbury!
Many years earlier I arrived at Abergavenny one Monday for the Brynmawr train only to find that the service operated only on Tuesdays and Saturdays. On the Southern Region, where I spent a week in 1981 travelling on 103 trains, I slipped-up because my watch was two minutes fast and caught the train which left at the time my watch showed to be correct. Yes, that suburban service is so intensive. Trains have occasionally broken down and caused me to miss connections and have problems with accommodation, but I have only been seriously inconvenienced in a very few instances (usually when it was raining!), though these occurrences are unfortunately becoming rather more frequent.
Diaries and memories
Timing of trains has never been an interest of mine and I hardly ever take photographs but I do keep comprehensive, if somewhat idiosyncratic, diary accounts of all my travels with the actual timetables which I have worked out. I concentrate more on the atmosphere and conversations during travel rather than on the physical attributes of the lines and while I enjoy reading my notes my pleasure is tempered with sadness that so many of the lines have disappeared. I have threatened for a long time to write a book on my UK travels with perhaps another one dealing with my train journeys in twenty or so countries, and I have almost completed the first volume.
A claim quickly invalidated
In my opening paragraph I quoted the date deliberately. Two days later a new Penistone to Barnsley service was inaugurated and, as I hadn’t travelled this line before its earlier closure in 1959, my claim to have travelled the entire network was quickly invalidated. This was mildly irritating, I must admit, but I view the situation philosophically. Being a railway enthusiast I am delighted to see new lines open to passengers. There can’t be too many.
Arthur Miller
