Beeching: The Inside Track
2012 | English | ISBN: 1906167842 | True PDF | 132 pages | 23 MB
2012 | English | ISBN: 1906167842 | True PDF | 132 pages | 23 MB
To mark the half centenary of The Reshaping of British Railways, the famous watershed report by Dr Richard Beeching which led to lossmaking lines across Britain being axed, here is a fresh, unique and historic exclusive insight into what went on – compiled with the help of perhaps the last surviving member of his planning team who helped process the closures and plot a new future for the network.
• Find out about what went on inside British Railways headquarters at 222 Marylebone Road while the closures were being planned and progressed.
• Learn about the highly-confidential Blue Book of Maps which was packed with highly- sensitive information about key British industries of the day and which was used to help redraw the UK rail network in the mid-Sixties.
• Read about Beeching’s major and lasting successes in the rail freight sector and how the Great Central Railway might have had a future as a Freightliner route.
• Look at how Britain’s railways evolved from the huge losses of the pre-Beeching era into today’s successful network with the highest passenger levels since the Twenties.
• Discover the lines which might, with hindsight, have been saved and why.
• See how people power saved the Settle & Carlisle line.
• Find out why an obscure Norfolk freight branch had top priority for retention.
• View the last days of the Somerset & Dorset Joint system plus much, much more.
Robin Jones is a widely published and highly respected journalist who specialises in heritage transportation and industrial archaeology subjects.
Robin contributes news and feature material on a regular basis across a wide range of railway titles and has written many books on Britain’s railway history.
He is currently the editor of Heritage Railway Magazine.