Northern Star. Early Scrapping.

[ALARIC]

I did get some response to the 2012 article and learned that the issues that led to Northern Star’s early scrapping can be summarised as follows;
• The Boeing 747 which went into commercial service in 1970 and effectively ended long distance liner travel for ever.
• Shaw Savill decided to compensate for the loss of the liner trade by going into the Cruise Market, although they had no background in this business.
• It was decided that Southern Cross was unsuitable for cruising due to the many 4 and 6 berth cabins without private toilet facilities. Laid up in 1971 and sold to Greek owners in 1972, who kept the public rooms, gutted and re-built most of the cabins and proved that Southern Cross made a rather good Cruise Ship after all.
• Shaw Savill purchased Empress of England from Canadian Pacific in 1970, renamed her Ocean Monarch and sent her to Cammell-Laird to make her suitable for cruising alongside Northern Star. The spec. was wrong and the project went seriously over budget and over time. Although I don’t know the details, the ship was never satisfactory in service with Shaw Savill.
• The entry into the Cruise Bussiness was not a success, both ships were withdrawn from service and scrapped in 1975. A contributing factor was Northern Star’s main gears (I never liked them). The oil drain tanks were near or adjacent to the after sewage tank and bacterial contamination caused damage to the gearing.
• The overriding cause of the early scrapping of Northern Star was poor management. From the end of WW2 until his retirement in 1963 the company had been led and managed by an outstanding Chairman, Basil Sanderson. After his departure the company went into rapid decline. In 1975 the Chairman was Dr. Beeching, who had previously managed and closed large parts of British Railways. His philosophy was, if it was loosing money, don’t make sensible investment, just scrap it.

[Makko]

Gearing. Thanks Alaric.
Rgds.
Dave

[Tomvart]

Very interesting Alaric, Beeching...........Here was me thinking that a man could not be hated any more after what he did to Britains once sprawling prolific rail network!! Until you posted this - it seems like he had many of his contaminated fingers in several pies!!

[Les Gibson]

I'm a big railway enthusiast and don't like to say it, However... Beeching did not close any lines! It was the government of the time who did it. A certain Mr. Marples (Into motorway building in a big way) was the man mostly responsible. Beeching only made recommendations.

[Tomvart]

Point taken Les and I stand corrected - perhaps he should have kept those recommendations to himself, looking retrospectively at the impact they had on our rail network. Whether it was directly the work of Beeching or not, his name is always 'in lights' wherever cuts to services are mentioned!!

If 'Marple' could only see the results of his closures today.....absolute gridlock on most of our road networks and a barely fit for purpose rail system.

Having spent some time living in Europe and the Far East using excellent public transport - I find our current rail services somewhat embarrassing.

[tugger]

On Rail transport I watched a program by Chris Tarrent on the bullet trains in Japan, brilliant. Here's a country that was wiped out in the war; and yet has the best and fastest train service in the world, it took Australia donkeys years to build a railway [the Ghan] from Adelaide to Darwin.
From what I have seen on TV Britain has recovered many of her old train services.
Back to the original theme, I emigrated to NZ on the Southern Cross in 57, and I agree with Alaric2 the accommodation was pathetic even for those days, I had better on British tankers they would have had to completely gut her and change the lot.
tugger

[Les Gibson]

Agree with Tom and Tugger,
Having spent some considerable time in Japan, lived there for 5 years in the 70s and revisited twice in the last 4 years, I still wonder how they manage to run the railways as they do. Even quite small wayside stations are manned and in some cases overmanned.
Although they were 'privatised' at about the same time as ours I have a sneaky feeling that the Japanese government subsidise them in some quiet way. Although when JR Hokkaido was formed 6.000 lost their jobs.