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A lot of the branches that were kept had some people moaning about how
they were rationalized to keep costs to a minimum ,bus shelter style
buildings ,no staff at many stations with tickets sold on the train
etc.

Weren't there branches that went straight from significant staffing (maybe
not the the extent of coal fires in waiting rooms) to closure, without
unstaffed stations and tickets sold on trains? I remember reading that this
is one of the gripes of the Beeching cuts, that reducing costs was not even
attempted on some lines.

Having said that, BR suffered a lot from unions imposing minimum staffing
levels and hence cutting their noses off to spite their faces: reduced
staffing levels (if unions had accepted this) *may* (or may not!) have saved
some lines.