a line by line documentation of what was lost following the Dr Beeching report

 

A recent addition to our library is this book about the consequences of the infamous Dr Beeching report released in March 1963 (see earlier post), the essence of which was to drastically reduce the British railways network.

There have been other books on this theme, but this one sets out to describe, region by region with easy to follow maps, all the closures of lines (which were to total over 4,500 miles or 7,300 km lost) and stations (over 2,000).  As mentioned in the earlier post, some lines were reprieved, but there were others not slated for closure which were closed.

Author Julian Holland is scathing - "there was never any joined-up thinking, it was never properly thought through and our country has suffered ever since - witness the near gridlock on our motorways." He quotes some of a speech by Lord Stonham in May 1963 who pointed out that the net subsidy to road transport was about 4 times that to the railways (where else is that the case?).

But the book is not about economics or politics, rather an historical description of every line with at least one photo, often in colour, that is no longer part of the national system.  187 pages, softcover.