Beeching: aman of his time – or ahead of it?
Dr Richard Beeching is still considered by many to be the ultimate railway bogeyman. To coincide with the publication of his newbook, Britain’s Railway Closures and their Legacy – The Definitive Guide, Robin Jones asks whether Dr Beeching was a man rooted
To coincide with the publication of his new book, Britain’s Railway Closures and their Legacy – The Definitive Guide, Robin Jones asks whether Dr Beeching was a man rooted in his day, a scapegoat, or a visionarywho saved the network.
appointed him– Ernest Marples.
TheMinister of Transport was a roads man: he founded Marples Ridgway, a firm which thrived on road construction at a time when motor transport was soaring in its ascendancy at the great expense of rail, and in 1959, he gave the go- ahead for theM1 to be built, Britain’s first inter- city motorway.
Modernisation
loudly objected to the sweeping job losses that the closures brought, and the Labour Party vowed to sack Beeching if they were elected in 1964, and reverse all of ‘ his’ cuts.
Labour won the General Election, and not only retained Beeching for a time, but carried on with implementing his programme of recommendations, and thenmade further closures over and above them – the Midland Railway’s Matlock to Buxton line, part of which is now home to Peak Rail, springs immediately to mind.
One of Beeching’s often overlooked successes is that of the bulk containerisation of freight, allowing the railways to compete with road transport in areas where they could do the job better. His approach was to swim with the tide, not against it.
Carownership
tunnel at Faenol would also need major repair work, while part of the trackbed is currently used as Lon LasMenai, a popular cycle path.
Herein lies the nub of the problem with the Beeching era. Beeching did not invent rail closures: indeed, what happened in Britain was taking place throughout much of the post- war western world.
However, his remit did not consider the state of Britain’s transport networks, in say 50 years’ time. Back in 1963, there were many who thought the railway age was approaching its end because of competition from themore versatile car: they did not envisage a 21st century of unbearable city road congestion and air pollution.
Disposal
housebuilding might well make a daily commuter service into, say Grimsby, attractive.
Also, did Beeching’s initial studies ever fully take into account the passenger and freight traffic that a loss- making branch might nonetheless contribute to the main line it served?
On the other hand, what if there had never been a Beeching, and the cuts had never beenmade? Would British taxpayers have been happy to subsidise a plethora of remote branches where trains ran with empty carriages for the sake of long- term sentimentality?
In my new hardback, Beeching: Britain’s Railway Closures and their Legacy – The Definitive Guide, these and many more issues are discussed in detail, along with the background to the Beeching era, its aftermath, and the case for rail revival today.
So was he the villain of popular legend, or a visionary who helped save Britain’s railways at a time when there were those who wanted to see even more drastic pruning? You decide!