In April 1961, British Railways had about 7,000 stations open to traffic, equivalent to one for every 24 miles of route, and the distribution of stations over the route system with indications of their passenger and freight traffic levels are shown in Maps Nos. 3 and 4.
An analysis of the passenger receipts arising at passenger stations, excluding some very little used ones and unstaffed halts, was made from very complete records kept in 1960. As will be seen from Table No. 4 and Figure No. 2 in Appendix 1, one third of the stations produced less than I per cent. of the total passenger receipts and one half of the stations produced only 2 per cent. At the other end of the scale 34 stations, or less than 1 per cent. of the total, produced 26 per cent. of the receipts.
Of the freight stations, one third produced less than 1 per cent. of the station freight receipts and one half of the stations produced less than 3 per cent.
The total revenue derived from the least used half of the total number of stations and the cost of running them is set out below.
| £m. per annum | |
| Receipts from: | |
Originating passenger, parcels and other coaching train traffics at the least used 50 per cent. of all passenger stations |
4.8 |
Freight traffic forwarded from the least used 50 per cent. of all freight stations. |
1.7 |
| Estimated cost of least used 50 per cent. of all stations | 9.0 |
From these figures, which are not highly accurate, but which are approximately correct, it will be seen that the gross revenue derived from traffic of all kinds flowing from the least used half of the total number of British Railways' stations does not match the cost of the stations themselves. In other words, it makes no contribution whatever to route costs, to movement costs, nor to terminal costs at the other end of its transit. There can be no question, therefore, that the railways would be better off financially if a high proportion of the stations were closed, even if this resulted in a total loss of the traffic passing through them.
MORE DETAILED CONSIDERATION OF THE MAIN GROUPS OF TRAFFIC
The foregoing general considerations focus attention upon the extreme unprofitability of some broad classes of traffic, as they are handled at present, and also upon the highly questionable value of much of the lightly loaded route mileage and of many of the small stations. Nevertheless, before firm conclusions can safely be drawn as to the desirability of closing particular routes, or of deliberately rejecting particular types of traffic, it is necessary to examine the mixture of traffics in each broad class in more detail, and to determine what
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