WI No Doctor Beeching?

Doctor Richard Beeching closed massive swathes of the British railway network under Harold Macmillan and Harold Wilson in the 1960's. What if, for whatever reason, Beeching is never appointed Chairman of British Railways?

Thought this one would be something a bit different...
 
An interesting idea; I think we need The Dean for this one-his 'green and pleasant land' TL would give some guidance.
 
No Doc Beeching, might actually be able to take a train to work. Seriously cuts would have still gone ahead, but might not have been so extensive.
 
You Stole My WI... :rolleyes:;)

Well, I was going to post somrthing along these lines, but never mind.

I watched a programme about Dr. Beeching in which the man himself was interviews (something to BBC dug out of their archives from c. 1981) and he seems to come across reasonably- they were allegedly a necessary cut and didn't go far enough according to some! But I suppose in hindsight, it would have been better in environmental terms, taking a few cars off the roads. And I guess there might have had to be less investment in motorways to compensate, which might make things a little more difficult for goods but I don't know. And lastly, we'd have a lot fewer walks...
 
You Stole My WI... :rolleyes:;)

Well, I was going to post somrthing along these lines, but never mind.

I watched a programme about Dr. Beeching in which the man himself was interviews (something to BBC dug out of their archives from c. 1981) and he seems to come across reasonably- they were allegedly a necessary cut and didn't go far enough according to some! But I suppose in hindsight, it would have been better in environmental terms, taking a few cars off the roads. And I guess there might have had to be less investment in motorways to compensate, which might make things a little more difficult for goods but I don't know. And lastly, we'd have a lot fewer walks...

He used to live in East Grinstead, West Sussex and at the bottom of his garden was a railway line (one of those he closed). Local folklore is he proposed the cuts because he had become paranoid about the trains spoiling his afternoons in the garden.

The offending stretch of railway line became a road and is called Beeching Way.
 
The main rationale behind the Beeching cuts was pure economics rather than passenger service requirements or transport sustainability. The rationale behind him becoming the chair of British Railways was to return the UK rail network to profitability - which could have easily been achieved through other means and measures rather than axing services.

For the cuts not to have gone ahead, this would have meant that the construction of many motorways would not have gone ahead, indeed possibly only the M1, the M3, the M6 and the M25 might have gotten the go ahead and then again they could have been toll roads and bereft of all vehicles bar freight traffic as other road users continue to rely on the A & B roads.

A larger rail network would have meant fewer cars on the roads as there is little economic incentive for people to purchase cars to get from a to b. This might have had the (now radical) measure of convincing the government to consider switching driving on the left to driving on the right to bring us in line with Europe as it would affect fewer road users.

The BR R&D department wouldn't have been shelved which was quite well known for being very innovative and capable of producing many interesting designs. Whilst it's unlikely that the Shinkansu network of Japan would be reproduced in the UK, it's not wholly inconceivable that double-decker trains or even mag-lev would debut on key routes by the 1990s.
 
Is there any chance that the branch-line network would have staggered on for another 20 years, before being killed off by Margaret Thatcher? Or by then would profitability have started to return?
 
That would depend on what the non-Beeching chair of British Rail decided. One of BR's "mistakes" was to own huge swathes of property and do nothing with it. Selling off some of the land or leasing it to commercial developers could really have netted in some serious cash thus subsidy to branch lines might have continued.

Some branch-lines might have had serious reductions in services rather than being closed altogether or temporary closures in the event of the need for redeployment on busier sections of the network. But it's harder to envisage anyone other than Beeching ordering the wholescale tearing up of tracks and demolition of stations. Nottingham (speaking as someone who has family there) was changed forever when Nottingham Victoria station was demolished but that was a more widely used terminus compared with the station that survived.
 
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