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Am I alone in thinking this article should start with a picture of the cover of the beeching report? Graldensblud 01:05, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
I agreee with the tone of this article on a personal level, but I think it could benefit from the attentions of somebody wearing their NPOV glasses... quercus robur 00:23 Mar 28, 2003 (UTC)
A link to the Transport Act, 1962 might be in order.
The bit about "marginal constutituencies" appears definitely POV. Unless someone can come up with evidence - remembering of course that Wikipedia doesn't allow original research - that is you'll need to quote EXISTING research or literature on the subject! Exile 22:00, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Read enough regional histories covering the Heart of Wales Line and you'll find it. Tern 20:02, 30 Jul 2005 (BST)
" Where some lines would never have been profitable in 1963 they could well be profitable now, and could even have a major impact on reducing road congestion and pollution in those areas. However in many instances it would be prohibitively expensive for lines closed by the Beeching Axe to be reopened; although it was not stipulated in the report, since Beeching there has been a policy of disposing of surplus-to-requirements railway land. Therefore many bridges, cuttings and embankments have been removed and the land sold off for development; closed station buildings on remaining lines have often been either demolished or sold."
Since there are virtually no passenger railways either in the UK or elsewhere that are "profitable" this is clearly nonsense. The re-opened railways are certainly not profitable, although they carry more passengers than they did when closed originally. BR certainly had no interest in keeping vacant land they no longer needed just for the sake of it. Had the government wanted to retain old rights of way free of building they could have done so by converting them to roads or pedestrian routes - but in most cases they didn't. Recently the building costs of both road and rail infrastructure has knocked most big transport schemes in the UK on the head - although, curiously, other countries still manage it,some of them a great deal less wealthy than Britain. That was POV by the way and I wouldn't put it in the article!
Exile 21:22, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
This will be a little bit off topic here, but I think quite relevant to a general debate. Given the cost of laying a new line against what the present Government calls the environmental creditials of the railways (I have not seen any facts to agree nor disagree with that) is it not interesting that the five proposed 'eco-towns' that the PM to be has proposed do not include railway lines? Obviously you can quotes Ashford etc. on High Speed Line 1 (correct?) but this is very much the exception to the rule. In essence it is a shame that the Government is not willing to spent a minute fraction of the annual budget to build a town with a railway. Adam To explain, before reading anything with a possible political element I like to read yje discussion first.
Exile 19:04, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
One thing this article doesn't cover too well are the often made accusations that the Beeching report was based on questionable data and understanding. I've read that it was based mainly on local ticket sales so branches that mainly took vistors to a place were screwed. And I've read the recollections of the campaign to keep Earlestown station open - the closure was based on "Earlestown" having a population of only about 3000, compared to 23,000 for Newton-le-Willows. However at the enquiry the BR officials were gobsmacked to learn that Earlestown, named after a railway director, is just a district within Newton-le-Willows (if even that at the time) and the station is much more centrally located. Timrollpickering 14:55, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Even today railway statistics are often prone to errors - for instance Dorking West railway station is currently listed as "4th least used", when it's actually "4th lowest number of tickets sold for this station" as it's almost impossible to actually buy a ticket specifically for Dorking West. Timrollpickering 14:55, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Well yes - but short of employing someone full time to count people getting on and off at Dorking West - how are we ever going to know? For the vast majority of stations the statistics are reasonable - but there are well known issues concerning undercounting of "travelcard/zone" type tickets either not being to/from a specific station, or "multi-modal", or both, and the arbitary allocation of journeys to/from towns with more than one main station. Exile ( talk) 13:13, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
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Would anyone object if I WP:SNOWed this? I think the outcome is a bit obvious. Homestarmy 20:35, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
'British spelling is a bit weird' <--- I am sorry, but that line made me chuckle. 135.196.157.83 ( talk) 12:28, 28 January 2014 (UTC) FW
"However in many instances it would be prohibitively expensive for lines closed by the Beeching Axe to be reopened"
Whilst i respect the comment above about profitability it would be interesting if a comparison with cited sources could be made into any existing studies into this against the total cost of something like the M6 toll road - a "from scratch" development with a number of toll areas (comparable perhaps to rail stations in size, scope and continued upkeep/wage bill) and new bridges and cuttings. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.108.42.194 ( talk) 14:36, 2 April 2007 (UTC).
Unfortunately a 10 mile stretch of new motorway is likely to be busier than a 10 mile rebuilt Beeching branch line. It will also, as will the new rail line, generate benefits in reduction of journey times, accidents and pollution. So my comment still holds I think.
When it comes to high speed lines the benefits are obviously much greater - but so are the costs. 70m per mile for CTRL1 I believe, double the cost of the average motorway (due mainly to tunnels insisted on by NIMBYs no doubt)
Don't get me wrong - I am pro-rail - but politicians need to be able to demonstrate that when they put their hands in our pockets they're going to spend the money wisely - and building a branch line for a dozen people per day to use may not be obviously a sensible choice.
Exile ( talk) 13:28, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
Having read this report it definitely does NOT recommend closure of the "not for development" routes (the question is left completely open as the Beeching report itself had dealt with closures per se). The focus of the report was on routes considered as duplicates (eg across the Pennines) and largely considered freight, not passenger traffic. Will reword this section unless someone else comments.
Exile 18:56, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
Exile ( talk) 13:06, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
With Beeching II. is map with year of editing 1984. I am not sure about correct it. Year 1984 should be more correspond with Serpell report from 1983. Please, can somebody check it? hydrolog
The year on the map is what the intended network would look like in 1984. Ie, the closures would take place between 1965 and 1984, until the network looked like that. It is definately from the Beeching II report. Dewarw 11:12, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Someone has done a pretty good re-write with plenty of references. However they haven't got so far as to remove the old superseded stuff from the bottom of the article, so the article is left a bit of a mess.
I've now removed the old stuff where the re-written text better covers things, generally tidied up the article and removed the cite tag as this is now pretty well referenced. Maybe it's a big step on the road to getting good article status back? BaseTurnComplete ( talk) 15:50, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
From "Overview" section": a number of the stations which were closed (such as those on the Mansfield line, above). So what was there above ? Mansfield reappears well below "Overview". NVO ( talk) 03:32, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
Does anyone have a map of the railways pre- and post- beeching that could be overlaid? Seems that it would be very useful to have a map in this article. - mattbuck ( Talk) 02:20, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Various commentators in opposition to the proposals at the time said that Beeching had fulfilled his remit as it had been defined by those who had appointed him and that the report within its limits was well done.
Perhaps the question should be - what else could, or should have been done (given the resources available at the time - political as well as economic)?
A number of the routes were no longer suited to existing needs, or could be replaced by alternatives (for example the route from West Drayton to Uxbridge High Street). Some of the routes should, probably, have been kept open, or arrangements put in place for their reconstruction or due replacement - the suggested bus networks etc.
There are also the benefits of hindsight and the Black swan theory - the 1970s oil crisis, the rise of the ecological movement etc. Jackiespeel ( talk) 16:56, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
It's likely that without Beeching the railways would have been starved of investment and gradually become unusable as the maintenance and repair backlog increased. The end result may well have been the bankruptcy of the BR board and the total closure of railways other than commuter lines in the London area which might have been taken over by London Transport and the occasional tourist route and freight-only lines. Look at America to see the alternative future.
Exile ( talk) 07:24, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure Beeching didn't prompt an influx of investment or any improvement in the maintenance and repair backlog. It's also highly improbable the US would have been a model for what happened in the UK:
1. The US has never had a "passenger rail network" as such. Some small areas have had them (and there still exists one to some extent between NJ and MA), but as a whole the country didn't have the kind of integrated, goes anywhere, type system common in Europe. American railroads are, and were, largely independent entities, that remembled airliners more than European trains. The collapse of passenger rail in the US (and Canada) is pretty much unrelated to anything going on outside.
2. In the US passenger numbers were declining, and were declining since the 1920s. In Britain, even in 1962, passenger numbers continued to increase. I don't have the figure for 1962 handy, but 1960 saw an increase in passenger miles of 3.4% over 1959, and of 8% in ticket receipts, and everything was up over pre-nationalization. The issue with British Railways was that its costs rose far more quickly than its receipts.
Beeching went in with a view that the network was too large. That's why Marples appointed him. That's why he used the somewhat simplistic methodology (based on the notion that any mile of line with less than 15,000 passengers per week is unprofitable) he did.
The more I've read of the report, the more convinced I am - albeit with hindsight - that much of it was to justify an agenda of what Beeching already thought was wrong, rather than to find out what was wrong with an open mind. Beeching felt the network was too large. The reality is that it probably needed a mixture of fixes, from a rearrangement of the network to reflect population shifts, to massive cuts in staffing levels making use of improvements in technology, turning many stations into halts and making better use of railbuses and other light rail concepts.
But if Beeching had understood the system better, and still been convinced the only way to make BR profitable was to cut lines, he'd probably have made a slightly different decision, and arguably one that would have been just as controversial. A smarter Beeching would have left most of the network (some redundant lines aside) alone in England and Wales. But as the branch lines didn't cover the costs of the trunk lines in Scotland, and had no effect on the trunk lines in England, he'd probably have removed British Rail from Scotland altogether. -- 66.149.58.8 ( talk) 01:03, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
The following text was removed today (08:36, 28 April 2009 (UTC)) as being in the wrong section ("Serpell Report") and for having other issues (reproduced here, indented for clarity, no other text changed):
The first paragraph was in the wrong place, and the second -- written by a different author -- built on the first. The new paragraph has the additional problems of POV and OR.
I could not see where these paragraphs should fit logically within the text (besides, they are unreferenced) and hence moved them here for consideration by other editors.
EdJogg ( talk) 08:36, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
I don't see what is wrong with the passage. The second paragraph has been expanded to include an example. Btline ( talk) 18:09, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
I've removed some of the hyperbole in the "Aftermath" section, largely because the authors don't appear to have read the report itself. The report does, in fact, cover light railway concepts, specifically railbuses, indeed Beeching really covered six potential criticisms of his report within it, asking these five questions:
and also, in other sections, disagreeing with the sixth view that there are social reasons to keep the lines open, Beeching arguing buses can easily take over the role the railway had taken.
Now, to add to that, I'd like to know where a couple of things in the aftermath section comes from:
Much as I agree with the sentiments expressed in the section, it really needs to be a little more solid. -- 66.149.58.8 ( talk) 21:07, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
I added this inner city picture as proof that it did not just hit the countryside or suburbs as the plethora country images and the Rugby picture surgest.-- Wipsenade ( talk) 15:51, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
Does anyone have or know of comparitive maps of the railway network before and after the Beeching Axe? I think it would be good for the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.45.19.42 ( talk) 18:38, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
At the moment, there is quite a nice graphic of the proposed "Beeching II". However, as that was never implemented, what would be perhaps more useful would be a comparative map showing the actual cuts of the first wave (before and after, as it were). I don't know if such a map exists anywhere (?) Bob talk 10:19, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
I've nominated this page to be checked for neutrality because it's pretty obviously full of POV, especially in the Aftermath section. I note above that there's been some pretty passionate debate about whether or not Wikipedia articles should be NPOV, but I hope people can accept that it's not particularly relevant in the context of this article. DarkshineDF ( talk) 08:59, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
I have removed the Neutrality banner following recent work on the article and the move to 'Beeching cuts'. I am not saying the article is perfectly 'neutral' yet, but I don't think that the issues warrant a banner. Feel free to add it back if you feel it is still needed. PeterEastern ( talk) 09:15, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
I suggest that this article should be moved from 'Beeching Axe' to a name that relates to the report itself and not the cuts directly. I suggest that the 'Beeching Report' or 'The Reshaping of British Railways' would be suitable than the current 'Beeching Axe' title (which is loaded with POV as has already been noted on this talk page a few times). A quick Google search shows the following usage of terms on the web in order of frequency:
Clearly 'Axe' and 'Cuts' are more common that 'report' or the formal title of the report. My current preference is therefore for 'Beeching Report'.
Any thoughts?
-- PeterEastern ( talk) 04:23, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
Thanks DBaK, I have now done the move. It was a bit scary because Wikipedia threw an SQL error at me in the middle, but I think it has worked and that all the watchers are now watching this one etc. I moved the talk page manually. Do let me know if there are any issues. PeterEastern ( talk) 09:18, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: not moved, not a wiki-neologism. -- JHunterJ ( talk) 16:56, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
Beeching cuts → Beeching Axe – Beeching Axe has vast currency with UK rail, either commercial or enthusiast. You can source this from Hansard if you wish, which is about as WP:RS as it gets for UK matters. Even uninterested pensioners in little villages with closed railways will still recognise it under just that name, 50 years on. Beeching cuts is some feeble wiki-neologism that confuses neutrality with a weak inability to make any statement whatsoever. Worst of all, it's an invented WP:NEOlogism. This term simply isn't in common use, compared to Axe. If Axe is unacceptable (because Axes sound nasty and we might offend poor old Dr Beeching), then there's always Beeching report. However that's a report, not the results of the actions taken upon it. It's also poorly recognised by the UK general non-gricer populace. Andy Dingley ( talk) 10:33, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
That's neat, hadn't seen that Google service before. Can I suggest that the outcome of this proposal is now clear and that is has been opposed. Personally I think the discussion has been useful, but that we should now move on from it? PeterEastern ( talk) 05:10, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
I have created a new 'critical analysis' heading holding all the err.. critical analysis, much of which already exists. I think this is a good way to allow people to articulate the problems that the Beeching cuts created without unbalancing the article. I will strengthen his case in the reports section, which was that without major and urgent surgery the patient (the railway system in it entirety) would have died, or as he put it: The real choice is between an excessive and increasingly un-economic system, with a corresponding tendency for the railways as a whole to fall into disrepute and decay, or the selective development and intensive utilisation of a more limited trunk route system. PeterEastern ( talk) 18:35, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
I am aware that there is considerable danger on WP:SYNTH in relation to this article which is explained as being "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. If one reliable source says A, and another reliable source says B, do not join A and B together to imply a conclusion C that is not mentioned by either of the sources. This would be a synthesis of published material to advance a new position, which is original research".
I am being careful to only add content that I believe is notable and relevant. We may however have to then organise the content to avoid implying more that the facts can prove. In particular the content I have just added about Marples and his links to construction companies is I believe notable, but could easily become SYNTH if not integrated appropriately. I suggest that it will be a matter of organising the information appropriately under suitable headings rather than removing it.
-- PeterEastern ( talk) 07:28, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
I worry greatly about this article. There has been a lot of discussion and no doubt a lot of improvement, but if an interested newcomer came here looking for information, he would find it pretty unhelpful.
The report comes way down the page after a huge amount of background material -- my hypothetical reader would have lost interest before getting there. The Report section needs to come immediately after the summary.
The POV issues have been exhaustively debated, but the whole article still comes across as whingey, as if any rail closure is automatically some kind of conspiracy..
There is far too much marginal detail. After all, the government had to do something, (£300k a day losses!) and whether Marples was described as cocky or not is irrelevant. Incidentally, I see that he "would earn £X a year". Don't we mean he did earn it? (OK, he received it, if you prefer.)
In the section headed Closures we read that the Waverley route is going to be reopened.
Oh and how about: "3,318 miles of railway were closed between 1948 and 1962. Closures in this period included: the Charnwood Forest Railway, closed to passengers in 1931, the Harborne Line in Birmingham, closed to passengers in 1934".
The whole article still comes over, despite a lot of hard work, as full of political bias and amateurish drafting.
Is there support for some major work along these lines?
-- Afterbrunel ( talk) 09:26, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
In the section detailing closed lines that have been brought back to use, it mentions the recently opened Crossrail project making use of the former North London Railway's Kingsland Viaduct. Whilst it is certainly true that this is an example of a 'closed' line being brought back to use, I do not see how it is relevant to an article on the Beeching Report/Cuts/Axe. 'Beeching' was published in 1963. Broad Street and the line to Dalston Junction didn't close until 1986, so I don't see how this can be attributed to teh Beeching Report in any way. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.222.82.28 ( talk) 08:54, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
I realise that the issue has been raised before but the title "Beeching cuts" seems quite inappropriate for this article. Beeching never in fact "cut" anything, all he did was make recommendations to the Minister of Transport who took the decisions. Going back over the sources given above, Hansard shows seven instances of the term "Beeching cuts" during the 1960s, compared with eight for "Beeching axe". Google Books also shows "Beeching axe" (2,030 results) more than double "Beeching cuts" (1,040 results). Given that "Beeching axe" has pejorative overtones, I would propose "Beeching plan", 2,820 results in Google Books and 204 in Hansard. As a comparison, "cuts" has 70 results in Hansard and "axe" has 43. If we are going to get this article up to scratch, the first step would be to get the title right. Comments? Lamberhurst ( talk) 21:29, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
The page states (under subsection Disposals of land and structures) demand has grown for rail over the past twenty years. It would make better chronological sense to give the year demand started to grow again, as we might be more than one year on from the time the statement was written on this page. I notice the citation is undated. Cloptonson ( talk) 20:56, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
Would it be possible to have a list of all lines closed under the Beeching Axe? I realise this may not be an exact science, but it would be a useful list. And from my pottering about Wikipedia, most if not all lines seem to have an article to link to. 5.148.89.228 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:37, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
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I'm sure that most editors of this article are well aware of the scale of the closures of lines and stations (too large to list in article) when compared with the carefully detailed re-openings, but someone reading this (especially internet skim reading) without background knowledge and maybe informed by recent news, might think that a third or so of the closures had been reversed or were planned to be. I think that this part would be better summarized in a few sentences here and the detailed discussion of individual stations and lines to be moved to a separate article. -- FDent ( talk) 21:42, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
Apart from the first proper railway, two events more than any others are known in Britain as part of British railway history. They are Beeching cuts and the Great Train Robbery (1963) a mere five months later. It ought to appear in the See also section for this reason, especially if American events such as General Motors Streetcar conspiracy appears.-- Darrelljon ( talk) 09:38, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0015kqr gives details about the leaking of a secret report:
The extraordinary untold story of a very British hero. A man called Reg, who risked his life and liberty to save Britain’s railways. The secret document he leaked became known as Britain’s Pentagon Papers - and what started out as an attempt to expose the truth soon became a fight for the freedom of the press.
Fifty years on, Lines of Duty tells the incredible story using the whistleblower’s own unpublished account, brought to life by actor Toby Jones, alongside interviews with many of those involved.
-- Brian Josephson ( talk) 21:27, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
I note that the name of the retired ICI chief engineer who was offered a role on the transport advisory group but stood aside in favour of Dr Beeching is wikilinked to the physicist Sir Frank Edward Smith, whose wikipedia article makes no mention of involvement with ICI or Beeching. I am also suspicious of the correctness of wikilinking because FES - born 1876 - would have been reaching his mid 80s in the early 1960s so would have been rather elderly to hold such a post. I contend it is possibly another Frank Smith who stood aside for Beeching and if so, the name should be de-linked. Cloptonson ( talk) 07:01, 8 April 2022 (UTC)
At Sturminster Newton we have Beeching Axe. How many other articles prefer this name? If the vast majority use "Beeching Axe", doesn't that suggest the need to move? Would it matter if it was "Beeching Axe" in every instance? Martinevans123 ( talk) 20:46, 1 May 2024 (UTC)