The objections to the Transport Users’ Consultative Committee
A week before the TUCC public hearing in Aberdeen on 23rd September 1964, British Railways produced its customary internal ‘Brief for Liaison Officer’.1 This clarified that while there had been 314 objections, 280 of these had been received “on a stencilled form”. The objectors’ case – much of which had become a familiar litany across closure proposals in the mid1960s – was summed up as follows: “The principal grounds of objection relate to the inadequacy of the alternative bus service with regard to speed, frequency, comfort and facilities; to the lack of bus services between the Torphins/Lumphanan area and Aboyne/Banchory; to the lack of bus/rail co-ordination at Aberdeen; to the bad conditions of the roads in the area in winter; and to the effect of the closure on tourism and employment”.
The brief tried to ‘spin’ the deterioration in journey times by bus – “It is true that bus journey times are longer than rail, but not unreasonably so’”–and sought to minimise six different aspects of “lack of comfort and facilities” on buses, including that recurring plug in closure cases for the use of ‘Kwells tablets’ to tackle travel sickness. However, there was a rare unqualified admission of unflattering contrasts to the train: “It must be acknowledged that reading and writing are difficult on a bus.”
In the accompanying ‘Heads of Information: Supplementary Details (not supplied to T.U.C.C.)’, information was provided in tabular form, ‘“to give some idea [emphasis added] of bookings and receipts at Ballater”. During a period – 1960 to 1963 – when UK car ownership grew by 33% (from 4.9 million to 6.5 million vehicles)2, a 9% growth in rail patronage at Ballater (excluding season tickets) looks remarkably healthy, particularly as the 1960 start-point post-dated by a year the immediate surge of patronage associated with the introduction of diesel multiple unit/battery railcar operation. However, it might be that part of the growth at Ballater reflected the impact of bookings and receipts re-allocated to the terminus as a result of de-staffing four smaller stations during this period.
Ballater at the time had a population of only 1,302 and four further stations served populations between 1,000 and 2,500, the rest being measured in the hundreds or fewer. The total patronage of the line can be roughly calculated by reference to the BR brief's comment that on Mondays to Fridays in winter “we carry an average of 46 passengers per train”: as the Saturdays and summer situations were not greatly different, this suggests (for twelve trains a day, operating six days a week) that total patronage was of the order of 170,000 single journeys annually – no mean achievement for a railway serving only very small towns and villages. Those 46 passengers represented around doublesupplied by the Ministry of Transport in the original closure proposal: yet another example of what was widely condemned by campaigners as the use of dubious figures to justify closures throughout Britain.
