Why was the LNER poor?

[richard]

Those J20s are not to be sniffed at - but they were used on coal traffic from the north.


Richard

[Solario]

The London, Tilbury & Southend Railway had good access to the London docks & when it was taken over by the Midland in 1912, that company and subsequently the LMS took much of the traffic. It was quite a strategic coup by the Midland.

[CVR1865]

It was even more of a bargain when the grouping just handed over to the LMS. I bet the old GER guys were thinking finally we get it all back and then no, off it goes to the others.

The LNER did invest a lot in the GER system with the relaying of branches and the investment in the Liverpool street to Norwich services with the B17s and the engineering nightmare that they were. They also renovated Liverpool St. I believe they took away the palm fronds on the columns that were only re-instated by BR in the 1984 works.

The LNER seems to lack the rich commuters of the Southern/ Great Western and also the Atlantic trade of the LMS. The industrial cities of the East have as many problems as the west, Lancashire was as broke and had many unemployed around the depression just like yorkshire.

During the 20/30s there was a small amount of economic growth in white collar sectors but this was a localised southern (London) phenomenon centred around the south and west suburbs of London and fueling the pockets of the respective railways.

[Pyewipe Junction]

This is a very interesting topic for me. IMHO the business side of railways is usually overlooked by railway enthusiasts who (not unnaturally) are more interested in the operating side. However, the 'Big Four' companies were expected to operate as businesses and make profits, despite the fact that they had inherited a railway network riddled with uneconomic lines and duplicated routes - a product of untrammelled Victorian laissez-faire capitalism. Compare the networks of France and Germany - little duplication there! And all in a time well before the notion of 'social obligation' resulted in the support of lines in poorly populated areas through local government grants.

Nevertheless, it has always mystified me why the LNER was the poorest of the Big Four. I would have thought this dubious honour would have gone the the GWR, which really only had South Wales and a little bit of the West Midlands to draw on for bulk freight revenues - the remainder of its territory being mainly rural. In fact, things got so bad for the GWR that the last batch of 42xx 2-8-0 tanks was immediately put into storage because there was no work for them when built.

Coal production may have peaked, as Richard says, just before WWI, but growing up in Lincoln in the late 50s and early 60s, I remember a steady stream of coal trains off the LD&EC line to Immingham or March via the 'Joint' line. Check out the allocations to sheds like Colwick, Langwith and March - they remained pretty stable up the mid-60s.

It is also misleading to say the GE Section handled little or no freight. In fact, it had two of the biggest marshalling yards in the country - Whitemoor and Temple Mills. Perhaps it would be better to say the GE didn't generate a lot of freight, but certainly the March to Temple Mills route handled a lot.

[stembok]

In the 1920s and 1930s the difficulties of the railways were seen even by their critics as outside of the control of those running them. A combination of severe structural change in the economy, an outmoded regulatory regime imposed upon the railways by the government and the enormous threat posed by competitors was simply too much to allow the railways to prosper. In relation to the first of these difficulties the LNER was in the weakest position of the 'big four' given the industrial geography of the areas it covered, much of it based upon first generation heavy industry. The LMS served some relatively more prosperous areas, though it too had its areas of difficulty, as did the GWR, though it certainly suffered heavily in South Wales. My point being that the depression itself varied significantly in its severity according to area. Of the four premier pre-grouping railways in terms of financial power in 1923, two, the Midland and LNWR went into the LMS. The GWR was largely unaffected structurally by the Grouping. Much was apparently expected of the prosperous NER in financially strengthening the LNER group. Sadly, the circumstances outlined above meant it was not to be. Even so the railway did manage to make an operating profit even in its most difficult years. The failure was, as one writer has written, not one of enterprise -the LNER had this in abundance- but of public policy and organisation. Some eighty years later much the same applies.

[CVR1865]

Sorry, so the LNER still turned a profit every year it was in business? I imagine that doesn't include the war years. But does include 1946 and 47?

[stembok]

CVR1865: It [the LNER] achieved an operating profit. The key word being operating. This does not mean it was financially healthy. It was not and often had to raid its reserves in order to pay some kind of dividend. At one point the railway owned Tyne Dock was sold to raise cash. Similarly, in the 1950s BR achieved an operating profit in a number years, but was overall, with other charges, added, heavily in debt. During the war the Railway Executive assumed overall responsibility for the railways. The railways received from the government agreed annual sums based upon the average of the years 1935-37 ,irrespective of the amount of traffic handled! The Government did well financially out of this arrangement for after the lean pre-war days the railways now had more traffic than they could handle, renewals were deferred and had normal commercial conditions applied the company would have exceeded the figures allowed to it by the Government. The Government also set up an, 'Arrears of Maintenance' fund accumulated out of surpluses after the agreed annual sums ( see above) had been paid. This deferred sum, amounting to some £40 million was paid after the war and spent on infrastructure renewals.

[CVR1865]

Many thanks I understand now.