Beeching and his elder brother Geoffrey attended Imperial College of Science & Technology in London, where both read physics and took First Class honours degrees. [14] He would receive the same yearly salary that he was earning at ICI, the controversial sum of 24,000 (568,000 in 2021 terms), 10,000 more than Sir Brian Robertson, the previous chairman of the BTC, 14,000 more than Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, and two-and-a-half times higher than the salary of any head of a nationalised industry at the time. The Times, "Mr. Cousins says 'We Sacked Beeching'", 17 November 1965, p. 12. [14], These proposals were rejected by the government, which put an early end to his secondment from ICI; Beeching returned there in June 1965. His cuts ended public use . 11th December 2012. Although the majority of his recommendations were accepted, many weren't. Furthermore other lines outside his recommendations were closed against his advice. I asked Michael Palin, the former Monty Python star who later carved out a career travelling the world, often by train, whether he thought Beeching was a hero or a villain. True to his nature and previous track record he'd had the railways in his sights for a while, He just needed the official excuse and remit to do his thing. ; The industry today is very similar to Dr Beeching's vision half a century ago. [22] One of the last major closures was the 98-mile long (158km) Waverley Route between Carlisle, Hawick and Edinburgh in 1969; the reopening of a 35-mile section of this line was approved in 2006 and passenger services resumed in September 2015. As demand for rail has grown since the 1990s, the failure to preserve the routes of closed lines (such as the one between Bedford and Cambridge, which was closed despite Beeching recommending its retention) has been criticised. Similarly for freight: without branch lines, the railways' ability to transport goods "door to door" was dramatically reduced. Many of the closed lines had run at only a small deficit. ", Imran Khan survives deadly Pakistan rally shooting, Jeremy Bowen on reporting from Ukraine's frontline. Times, 28 March 1963, p. 8. [6] As one author puts it, Beeching "was expected to produce quick solutions to problems that were deep-seated and not susceptible to purely intellectual analysis. When opening the M1 motorway, he said: "This motorway starts a new era in road travel. With a few exceptions, after the early 1970s proposals to close other lines were met with vociferous public opposition and were quietly shelved. The British Railways Modernisation Plan of 1955 stated, "there will be a marked reduction in the stopping and branch-line services which are little used by the public and which, on any dispassionate review of the situation, should be largely handed over to road transport". - the railway axe man. The Beeching cuts (also Beeching Axe) was a plan to increase the efficiency of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain. Mr Spaven, who has written a book called Waverley Route: the life, death and rebirth, insists his longstanding interest in the line did not influence his decision to choose it as the worst Beeching cut. Beeching cuts Wikipedia Tim Dunn on Twitter: "Oh, Dr Beeching! Fifty years ago, the Beeching Report was published, spelling the end for thousands of stations and hundreds of branch lines. Many redundant structures from closed lines remain, such as bridges over other lines and drainage culverts. Dozens of branch lines. [26] As a result, some lines it had not recommended for closure were subsequently shut down, such as the Woodhead Line between Manchester and Sheffield in 1981, after the freight traffic (mostly coal) on which it had relied declined. Cash is also being provided for another round of the New Stations Fund which has already seen ten brand new stations in England and Wales. Beeching was recruited by the government from a very successful business career at ICI, to make the railways profitable again. 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. [note 13], In April 1960, Sir Ivan Stedeford established an advisory group known as the Stedeford Committee at the request of Harold Macmillan to report on the state of the British Transport Commission and to make recommendations. It had very profound effects in our city," he added. The lyrics of the I Like Trains song "The Beeching Report" are a criticism of Dr Beeching and the Beeching cuts. There are doubts over his figures and in the end the railway never did make the savings he promised. [20] The government argued that many services could be provided more effectively by buses. His solution, announced on 27 March 1963, was equally straightforward - massive cuts. [21], He died at Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead, in March 1985. Passenger and goods traffic was also declining in the face of increased competition from the roads; by 1960, one in nine households owned or had access to a car. 1963-65 plan to rationalise the British railway system, Replacement buses and proposed alternatives. "Beeching has become a handy scapegoat for our frustration at the failings of the transport system and the destruction of 'traditional' branch line England by modern car culture," said Charles Loft, author of Last Trains, Dr Beeching and the Death of Rural England. Not all the recommended closures were implemented. His response was the notorious report "The Reshaping of British Railways". It was a shocker. Rather surprisingly this was the first time this had been undertaken in the railways' history. Beeching had also written a part 2 of his report, which was meant to follow on from the closures and build new high speed rail links. Dr Richard Beeching an Imperial Chemical Industries director, was appointed chairman of the new British Railways Board at a salary of 24,000 a year. By David Lynch. Henshaw, David (1994). "Towns of the size of Galashiels - which has a population of 13,000 - and Hawick which had a population of 16,000 - ended up further from the rail network than any other towns of their size in Britain. Perfect gift for a fan of branch lines, or other train Millions of unique designs by independent artists. Beeching forecast that his changes would result in an improvement in British Railway's accounts of between 115M and 147M. Some have accused him of being part of or even the scapegoat for a conspiracy against the railways involving politicians, civil servants and the road lobby. Hislop describes him as "a technocrat [who] wasn't open to argument to romantic notions of rural England or the warp and weft of the train in our national identity. At the appointment of the British Transport Commission in 1947, the question of uneconomic branch lines and their selection for closure was the subject of a Railway Executive branch line committee. Critics of Beeching argue that the lack of recommendations on the handling of closed railway property demonstrates that the report was short-sighted. However, lines were sometimes uneconomic, and several Members of Parliament had direct involvement with railways, creating a conflict of interest. For all the suspicion it aroused, the committee had little to say on this and the government was already convinced of the need to reduce the size of the rail network. RAIL services axed as part of a costing-cutting initiative named after British Rail chief Dr RichardBeeching who proposed it could now be reinstated. His brief was to stem the losses and plan for the future of rail as part of a national transport system. It is a powerful weapon to add to our transport system." Graeme Bickerdike Reports. But he added: "The real instigators of rail closures were civil servants trying to work out how you adapt a country that was built around the horse and cart and steam train, to accommodate the cars people wanted to drive and the lorries business wanted to use.". The bids to build or reopen lines and stations in the region are among 50 from across the UK that are . Using criteria such as the length of line closed, the population of the affected towns and their distance from the rail network, Mr Spaven analysed 15 significant British lines which were lost in the Beeching restructuring. [8] In contrast, railway traffic remained steady during the 1950s[9] but the economic situation steadily deteriorated, with labour costs rising faster than income[7][9] and fares and freight charges repeatedly frozen by the government to try to control inflation. Video, Jeremy Bowen on reporting from Ukraine's frontline, the line Beeching suggested cutting 50 years ago, French parliament stopped over 'racist' remark, Dutch wolves to be paintballed to scare them away, Why Scholz's trip to China looks out of step for EU, Black Panther stars arrive at European premiere, Donald Trump sues top NY lawyer for 'intimidation', Lapid congratulates Netanyahu on Israel election win, FBI warns of 'threat' to New Jersey synagogues, Twitter to lose 'magic' with 7 blue tick fee. The plan was outlined in two reports: The Reshaping of British Railways (1963) and The Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes (1965), written by Richard Beeching and published by the British Railways Board . In practice, having left home in their cars, people used them for the whole journey. View our online Press Pack. [41] Beeching, with a PhD in Physics, had been appointed to the main board of ICI at the age of 43. This included hundreds of branch lines, 2,363 stations and tens of thousands of jobs. Age of the train: Dr Beeching's cuts failed to kill off love of rail transport. It had been built in Victorian times and took the most direct route to the coast, missing out many of the local towns, he says. Dr. Beeching visited the Island of Sodor in 1961 to investigate the railway for his report. There were also protests at Melrose and Hawick, where they loaded a replica coffin on the train addressed to the transport minister. "The Dumfries-Stranraer line certainly fell into that category. No need to register, buy now! Michael Williams' book On the slow train takes its name from the Flanders and Swann song. [29] Kinross-shire, and Fife especially, suffered closures not included in the Report, including the main line from Edinburgh to Perth. : Lessons from British Transport Policy 194599 Dudley and Richardson, "Britain's most hated civil servant" (BBC website), "16 February 1965: Beeching plans for 'bloated' railways", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Richard_Beeching&oldid=1114942262, There is a pub called 'Lord Beechings' at the end of the, The old station approach in the village of, This page was last edited on 9 October 2022, at 02:24. director to be first rail board chairman", 16 March 1961, p. 14. I met a famous trainspotter from Sheffield at an event to "celebrate" the 50th anniversary of Beeching's report. Many closures went ahead; some sensible, others far less so. ; The line closed on 3 October 1966 as part of Dr Beeching's railway cuts. 09:17 . [citation needed] In this respect, Beeching can be thus seen to have taken a courageous approach to implementing an unpopular policy which politicians had deferred for many decades. This policy would result in traffic being routed along nine lines. The Conservative government welcomed the . It is a matter of debate whether Beeching left by mutual arrangement with the government or if he was sacked. He didn't buy any of that. [2] The network had opened up major travel opportunities for the entire country that had never been available before. [45], The Transport Act 1962 dissolved the British Transport Commission (BTC), which had overseen the railways, canals and road freight transport and established the British Railways Board, which took over on 1 January 1963, with Dr Beeching as its first chairman. The line covered 80% of its operating costs, but he calculated that it could be closed because there was an alternative, but less direct, route. Boris Johnson will reinstate local railway lines axed under the Beeching cuts in the 1960s as part of a package of measures to rejuvenate provincial towns. The first was entitled The Reshaping of British Railways and published in 1963. The 'Beeching Report' is one of the most notorious government reports of the 20th century. "The line through from Sheffield to Manchester where we lived and grew up, which had the great Woodhead tunnel, one of the longest tunnels in the world, three miles long, the tunnel was closed while they built a motorway over the Pennines. [26], Section 39 of the Transport Act 1968 made provision for grants to be paid in relation to loss-making lines and services,[48] but many of the services and railway lines that would have qualified had already been closed. He is backed up by the man running the railways today, Network Rail boss Sir David Higgins. The report was published on 20 January 1983 and received an immediate backlash from the media. . The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. In particular, the railway system must be modelled to meet current needs". On the other hand, retaining a railway on these routes, which would obviously have increased maintenance costs, might not have earned enough to justify that greater cost. [7], The Marshlink line between Ashford International and Hastings, threatened with closure in the Beeching Report, is now seen as important due to the opening of the Channel Tunnel and High Speed 1. VideoJeremy Bowen on reporting from Ukraine's frontline, UK faces record two-year recession, Bank warns, The conspiracy theorists who could run US elections, Why the latest UN climate conference matters. In a public information film at the time he said: "On one half of the whole route mileage of British Railways, there is only one 20th of the traffic the real question is whether you, as owners of the railways, want us to go on running these services at very high cost when the demand for them has very largely disappeared.". Smith declined but recommended Beeching in his place, a suggestion which Marples accepted. Some closed stations have reopened, and passenger services have been restored on a few lines where they had been removed. [44] It was later suggested that Stedeford had recommended that the government should set up another body "to consider the size and pattern of the railway system required to meet current and foreseeable needs, in the light of developments and trends in other forms of transport and other relevant considerations". Luckily he was sacked after his first butcher's job on the railways and before he could do more damage. [9], Unsurprisingly, Beeching's plans were hugely controversial not only with trade unions, but with the Labour opposition and railway-using public. The axing of the 98-mile. The fact remains, Beeching and Marples were the architects of the destruction of this country's railway system. In 1963, Dr Richard Beeching took an axe to the British rail system - and made getting around Wales by public transport significantly more difficult. Some lines closed under the Beeching cuts have reopened as private heritage railways. Upon returning to ICI, Beeching was appointed liaison director for the agricultural division and organisation and services director. Also Known As (AKA) (original title) The End of Steam: The Story of Dr Beeching's Railway Cuts. It has been suggested that by closing almost a third of the network Beeching achieved a saving of just 30 million, whilst overall losses were running in excess of 100 million per year. 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