The Midland Pullman
Passes Marsh Barton
David Tozer
Passes Marsh Barton
David Tozer
Gents,
Marsh Barton. The first of two visits to Devon of the Midland Pullman. The train is seen returning to Hull with the 1605 1Z44 from Paignton.
Dave
Marsh Barton. The first of two visits to Devon of the Midland Pullman. The train is seen returning to Hull with the 1605 1Z44 from Paignton.
Dave
Copyright David Tozer
Many Thanks David
NINETEEN SIXTY TWO – PART 78
Anniversary of the Beeching Report - Part 3
The Closure of a Station that would not be missed
Michael L. Roach
It was 61 years ago that the Beeching Report was published recommending mass closures of railway routes, and individual stations on lines that would survive. This is the story of the closure of a single station ten years before the Beeching Report was published because it was already probably little-used, unloved and past its use-by-date. The closure illustrates a number of points about passenger station closures and has been chosen because the last day of trains stopping at the station was well recorded in the Railway Observer – monthly magazine of the Railway Correspondence and Travel Society to whom we must be grateful for so well recording the contemporary scene over the years. The last trains called on Saturday 4 April 1953 almost exactly ten years before the Beeching Report was published and of course in those ten years there would have been an increase in private car ownership and a decline in passenger numbers using the trains. The station was called Clifton Mill and served the village of Clifton-upon-Dunsmore about 1½ miles east of Rugby town centre, and was just one mile from Rugby Station on the WCML. Clifton Mill was located on the former LNWR / LMS line to Market Harborough, Seaton and Peterborough East; with branch trains operating from Seaton to Stamford. In 1966 trains took 1 hour 15 to 1 hour 35 minutes for the 51 miles from Rugby to Peterborough East. Seaton to Stamford was a self-contained shuttle, steam operated up until Saturday 2 October 1965, and famous as the very last steam rail motor / auto-train operated service in the whole of Britain. Both routes closed the following year but the last few miles to Peterborough survive as the Nene Valley Railway. The site of Seaton Station is worth visiting for the views obtained nearby of the magnificent Harringworth Viaduct a short distance to the east which carries a former Midland Railway line across the Welland Valley.
The present bus service takes 15 minutes to take passengers from the centre of Clifton-upon-Dunsmore to the centre of Rugby. The trains took two minutes from Rugby to Clifton Mill but involved a considerable walk at each end of the journey. Unless the passenger was heading east from Clifton Mill Station (to Market Harborough, Stamford etc) passengers would have found it much more convenient to catch the bus into town. To the east of Rugby are both the M1 and A5 roads but to the east of the motorway the line passes through very rural countryside, which I have passed through just twice and both times by narrowboat on the Oxford Canal and the Grand Union Canal.
In the first scan from the Summer 1949 LMR timetable Clifton Mill Station is still extant but not all trains call there; in fact 5 out of 9 called at Clifton Mill in each direction. However the timetable was not at all conducive to travelling eastwards for a day trip to Stamford or Peterborough because there was only one train before noon at 7.22am; and it was not much better coming back with only one suitable train at 4.07pm off Peterborough East. Half-day trips were little better with only one suitable train off Clifton Mill. One wonders if BR were up to their tactics of making the timetable inconvenient to justify closure. The second scan shows Table 56 from the LMR timetable for the period 18 April 1966 to 5 March 1967 after Clifton Mill had closed, but the passenger service was withdrawn less than two months after the starting date of the timetable on and from Monday 6 June 1966. Clifton Mill Station is well outside our normal CRS territory but hopefully it will be published as one of the Society's webmasters was based just outside Stamford and lived in the town for a spell and I hope it will bring back memories for him. If you know the Rugby and Clifton-upon-Dunsmore areas you are invited to respond to this article with your thoughts.
This is what the Railway Observer said about the last day of passenger trains calling at Clifton Mill Station on page 129 of the May 1953 edition:
“The last up train to call at Clifton, the 2.16pm on Saturday 4/4/1953, was hauled by 41162. Three passengers boarded for Rugby. The last down train was the 6.57pm. At 6.55pm, in the gathering dusk, the porter-cum-signalman-cum stationmaster lit the three oil lamps on the down platform. At 7.03pm the last train to call at Clifton arrived behind 42941. No passengers got on or off and within ten seconds the train left. The three oil lamps were extinguished for the last time . . . The complete lack of co-operation between the station-closing and station-painting departments of British Railways was again in evidence, as the station was painted a few months ago.
In 1950, Clifton Mill Station was awarded fourth prize in the Best Kept Station Competition; in 1951 – third prize; in 1952 – second prize. In 1953 the station will be no more. What a cruel stroke of fate closed the station when the first prize seemed within its grasp.”
Authors note; Although it seems perverse to paint a station just months or a year before it closed BR would not have known how long it would take to close the station and infrastructure has to be maintained up to the very last day of services. In addition, what is often forgotten, is that station buildings were sometimes sold off and would be easier to sell, and achieve a better price, if in good condition and appearance at the time of sale. 41162 was a Fowler Compound 4-4-0 based at Rugby Shed until withdrawn in June 1960 working the 12.25 from Peterborough East to Rugby; and 42941 was a Hughes/Fowler Crab 2-6-0 based at Speke Junction Shed believed to be on a Rugby to Market Harborough train. It would have been interesting to learn if any villagers went to Clifton Mill Station to see the very last passenger train call – my guess would be possibly no-one except the RO correspondent. The fact that no-one alighted from the last train means that none of the villagers made a last round trip into Rugby and return – the villagers of Clifton-upon-Dunsmore had already given up on their station because it was just too far from the village to be convenient. This was a common problem for many rural stations after World War Two which would not have been a problem when the line was opened in 1850 and there was no competition from other forms of transport. When travelling on last trains in the late 1950s and 1960s it was quite common when stopping at intermediate stations on longer lines to find that only a handful of people had turned out to see the last passenger train call at their station. This did not apply to branch line termini where often crowds turned out to witness the last train. Many wayside stations had simply outlived their usefulness by the time the Beeching Report was published. The wheel has now come full circle with larger towns wanting their railway station to be restored, if it was closed, and smaller towns and villages seeing a railway station as a great asset to the area on a par with a church, public house, convenience store, post office and primary school etc.
In Part 1 I posed the question did the closures proposed and carried out as a result of the Beeching Report go too far. I think that with the benefit of hindsight it can now be said the closures did go too far particularly in cutting off medium to large towns and closing alternative and diversionary routes. The many railway stations that have been reopened or been rebuilt in a new location tend to prove the point.
The present bus service takes 15 minutes to take passengers from the centre of Clifton-upon-Dunsmore to the centre of Rugby. The trains took two minutes from Rugby to Clifton Mill but involved a considerable walk at each end of the journey. Unless the passenger was heading east from Clifton Mill Station (to Market Harborough, Stamford etc) passengers would have found it much more convenient to catch the bus into town. To the east of Rugby are both the M1 and A5 roads but to the east of the motorway the line passes through very rural countryside, which I have passed through just twice and both times by narrowboat on the Oxford Canal and the Grand Union Canal.
In the first scan from the Summer 1949 LMR timetable Clifton Mill Station is still extant but not all trains call there; in fact 5 out of 9 called at Clifton Mill in each direction. However the timetable was not at all conducive to travelling eastwards for a day trip to Stamford or Peterborough because there was only one train before noon at 7.22am; and it was not much better coming back with only one suitable train at 4.07pm off Peterborough East. Half-day trips were little better with only one suitable train off Clifton Mill. One wonders if BR were up to their tactics of making the timetable inconvenient to justify closure. The second scan shows Table 56 from the LMR timetable for the period 18 April 1966 to 5 March 1967 after Clifton Mill had closed, but the passenger service was withdrawn less than two months after the starting date of the timetable on and from Monday 6 June 1966. Clifton Mill Station is well outside our normal CRS territory but hopefully it will be published as one of the Society's webmasters was based just outside Stamford and lived in the town for a spell and I hope it will bring back memories for him. If you know the Rugby and Clifton-upon-Dunsmore areas you are invited to respond to this article with your thoughts.
This is what the Railway Observer said about the last day of passenger trains calling at Clifton Mill Station on page 129 of the May 1953 edition:
“The last up train to call at Clifton, the 2.16pm on Saturday 4/4/1953, was hauled by 41162. Three passengers boarded for Rugby. The last down train was the 6.57pm. At 6.55pm, in the gathering dusk, the porter-cum-signalman-cum stationmaster lit the three oil lamps on the down platform. At 7.03pm the last train to call at Clifton arrived behind 42941. No passengers got on or off and within ten seconds the train left. The three oil lamps were extinguished for the last time . . . The complete lack of co-operation between the station-closing and station-painting departments of British Railways was again in evidence, as the station was painted a few months ago.
In 1950, Clifton Mill Station was awarded fourth prize in the Best Kept Station Competition; in 1951 – third prize; in 1952 – second prize. In 1953 the station will be no more. What a cruel stroke of fate closed the station when the first prize seemed within its grasp.”
Authors note; Although it seems perverse to paint a station just months or a year before it closed BR would not have known how long it would take to close the station and infrastructure has to be maintained up to the very last day of services. In addition, what is often forgotten, is that station buildings were sometimes sold off and would be easier to sell, and achieve a better price, if in good condition and appearance at the time of sale. 41162 was a Fowler Compound 4-4-0 based at Rugby Shed until withdrawn in June 1960 working the 12.25 from Peterborough East to Rugby; and 42941 was a Hughes/Fowler Crab 2-6-0 based at Speke Junction Shed believed to be on a Rugby to Market Harborough train. It would have been interesting to learn if any villagers went to Clifton Mill Station to see the very last passenger train call – my guess would be possibly no-one except the RO correspondent. The fact that no-one alighted from the last train means that none of the villagers made a last round trip into Rugby and return – the villagers of Clifton-upon-Dunsmore had already given up on their station because it was just too far from the village to be convenient. This was a common problem for many rural stations after World War Two which would not have been a problem when the line was opened in 1850 and there was no competition from other forms of transport. When travelling on last trains in the late 1950s and 1960s it was quite common when stopping at intermediate stations on longer lines to find that only a handful of people had turned out to see the last passenger train call at their station. This did not apply to branch line termini where often crowds turned out to witness the last train. Many wayside stations had simply outlived their usefulness by the time the Beeching Report was published. The wheel has now come full circle with larger towns wanting their railway station to be restored, if it was closed, and smaller towns and villages seeing a railway station as a great asset to the area on a par with a church, public house, convenience store, post office and primary school etc.
In Part 1 I posed the question did the closures proposed and carried out as a result of the Beeching Report go too far. I think that with the benefit of hindsight it can now be said the closures did go too far particularly in cutting off medium to large towns and closing alternative and diversionary routes. The many railway stations that have been reopened or been rebuilt in a new location tend to prove the point.
The Summer 1949 timetable. Copyright Michael L. Roach.
The Summer 1949 timetable. Copyright Michael L. Roach.
The 1966 – 1967 timetable. Copyright Michael L. Roach.
Many thanks for another interesting installment, Michael.
To read more of Michaels articles, please click here.
To read more of Michaels articles, please click here.
A month of changes at Par
Jon Hird
March 3rd and March 30th at Par. The arm of the semaphore has been removed and a new colour light signal has grown up in front of it. In the down goods loop another colour light signal has sprung up. Copyright Jon Hird.