Where the Beeching Cuts justified (or a good idea)?

Question

The railway axe. Thirty years on, what is the verdict? Specify routes.

How will the proposed hospital cuts be seen in thirty years time (when you are old and in need of a hospital bed) ?

Answer 1

It's easy to be wise with hindsight.
(and wasnt it over 40 years ago ??)
I guess everyone supports the idea of local rail services......but, Lets be honest.
No one wants the cost of maintaining the infrastructure
No one wants to pay ever increasing fares
People like the comfort, convenience and cleanliness of their own cars.

Beeching was absolutely right, at the time.

when I am old and in need of a hospital bed, I'll be pretty p'd off if there are none available....at the moment I want the best service possible with the minimum cost for myself

Answer 2

I'd like to see more lines open, but I have to admit that in many cases there would be little point in some cases. I particularly mourn the loss of the Great central Line, this line was thought to replicate the Midland line too much. I wonder if it would have been better too keep this line open rather then the Midland line, as one of the last steam age main lines in this country it was better engineered then the midland route. The only thing the midland route has going for it is the location of St Pancreas being more central then Marlybone. It has been proposed to re open the Great Central route as a high speed line and more recently as a heavy freight railway, so maybe this was a cut too far. I also mourn the closure of the Woodhead route, again a parallel Midland railway route was kept instead, this decision I find particularly hard to understand as the Woodhead route was shorter and quicker, also it was electrified albeit at a now non standard 15000kv. This system could have easily been upgraded like the lines out of Liverpool Street station in London. I suspect there were former Midland railway men that were influential in making this decision as I can make no other sense in it.

Company proposing to reopen the GC line http://www.central-railway.co.uk/

History of the GC http://www.railwayarchive.org.uk/

Woodhead route http://www.thewoodheadsite.org.uk/

Answer 3

Ahh..The joys of hindsight. Given the need to attempt to regain some sort of profitability from a railway that was losing passengers to the car, most of the closures that Beeching proposed were a good idea at the time, though there were some which can best be described as insane, such as the entire North London Line from Richmond to Broad Street!

Having said that, then disposing of the land so that it couldn't be reused if traffic picked up was a very bad idea.

Answer 4

Beeching had some very good ideas, he proposed using the money saved from the branch closures to electrify and upgrade the remaining lines. But while the government of the time were interested in the cuts - they turned town the upgrading of the remaining lines

Answer 5

Very justified,
Who wants to travel to the middle of nowhere by expensive train when its cheaper and more convinient to drive.

Answer 6

This was a real Pi*s poor idea - a real no brainer.