Nationalisation Ignored

A further major re-organisation of the rail industry was again largely ignored by the local press when the rail network was nationalised on the 1st January 1948, and metamorphised into British Railways. However this move brought considerable benefits, in terms of employment, to Perth.

The nationalisation duly saw Perth chosen as an administrative centre of considerable significance, its management area was extended to include Mallaig and Oban in the West, Kinnaber Junction and Blair Atholl in the north, and Alloa and Plean in the south.

In the local press the only reporting of this tremendous employment benefit was in the Railway Notes column, written by "Buffer" presumably a railway employee, who reported, "hundreds of additional staff were recruited".

Car now sit in the filled in platform bay where the wooden 'First' carriage sat in the second picture on the 'Complacency Sets In' page. But the clock is still there!
(Photograph courtesy of Perth Museum and Art Gallery, Perth & Kinross Council, Scotland. Use of this image by third parties and end users is strictly prohibited except for private studies)

The only other reference to it in the local paper was the reporting of a meeting, in March 1947, of the National Union of Railwaymen and the Railway Clerks Association addressed by a Labour MP, Mr. A. J. Champion of Derby South. This was certainly a case of preaching to the converted as the Railway Clerks Association had been supporting the nationalisation of their employers since 1913. The MP put forward the advantages of nationalisation as being able to provide the extensive capital expenditure required to update the network, which together with road, passenger and freight nationalisation, "... would end wasteful road versus rail competition".

Mr Champion, in a prescient remark, criticised the railways for the failure to exploit their speed advantage over roads. (This was one of the arguments used by Dr. Beeching 25 years later for the closure of rural lines and minor stations). Mr Champion also stated, "We have to ensure the country districts are adequately covered by a transport system that brought to country areas similar advantages towns had".

However, despite Mr Champions laudable aims for country transport, within four years of nationalisation the line between two of the counties principal towns, Perth and Crieff, was to close to passenger traffic. The Perth - Crieff passenger service ceased in 1951, although the line remained open for freight traffic, and Crieff was still linked to the rail network to the south via Gleneagles.

This event, which in 1951 represented a major railway line closure, appears to have passed without comment and certainly none of the handwringing that accompanied the Beeching Report in the 1960's in other areas. The publics love affair with the, "motor omnibus" must have been complete!

In 1952 however, power still seemed to be in the hands of the consumer. The announcement of the closure of Strathord station, six miles north of Perth, saw a vigorous defence of its facilities by the powerful National Union of Farmers. The farmers argument, based on their claim that the volume of agricultural produce and supplies was running at approximately one and a half and two thousand tons per year which justified the facilities retention. This was countered by BR denying this volume of traffic existed. The farmers response was prompt and to the point "... if we didn't (despatch that much), it is because BR didn't supply the wagons, forcing us to use Stanley at great inconvenience". Their defence must have struck a raw nerve, the station remained open.