Many branch lines use diesel engines and the Harlem-Hudson line uses a third rail system to draw power.
There are wider benefits to the railway, such as social inclusion, to justify the existence of branch lines.
The partnership said 2, 027, 544 journeys were made on the branch lines in 2012, a rise of 4.7% on the previous year.
BBC: Rail franchise row: Fears of Great Western 'overcrowding'
In 2003, Mr Bowker has come to the same conclusion about regional routes, rural branch lines and track used by freight trains.
Improved bus services could replace branch lines, argued Dr Beeching.
The Beeching report recommended taking an axe to about a third of the network - 5, 000 miles of track, including hundreds of branch lines, 2, 363 stations and tens of thousands of jobs.
But a serious reallocation of resources on the railways would mean cutting lots of branch lines, and that is a task for a politician with the hide of Dr Beeching, not of Tony Blair.
The branch lines in Devon and Cornwall are the Tarka Line, Tamar Valley Line, Looe Valley Line, Atlantic Coast Line to Newquay, Maritime Line to Falmouth Docks, St Ives Bay Line and the Avocet Line to Exmouth.
BBC: Rail franchise row: Fears of Great Western 'overcrowding'
As well as the mainline at Cowley Bridge, near Exeter, being affected by floods, many of the region's branch lines - including those extending to Looe and Newquay in Cornwall, and Barnstaple and Exmouth in Devon - were also damaged.
The Consumer Services segment represents the company's branch network, including consumer banking products and services related to residential first mortgages, home equity lines and loans, indirect loans, consumer credit cards and other consumer loans, as well as the corresponding deposit relationships.
As software eats the world, every sort of engineering (and indeed, every sort of profession organized along lines suggested by the physical sciences, including fields like medicine) is becoming effectively a branch of computer science.
"I do think the blurring of the lines needs to be looked at, " said Nigel Le Gresley, chairman of the Essex branch of the Magistrates' Association.
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