This is the story of how around 150 pre-Grouping railways of Britain evolved from their 'Golden Age' in the heady Edwardian era to become the less popular nationalised British Railways. In 1961 it fell to Dr Richard Beeching, then Chairman of the British Railways Board, to wield his axe in order to achieve the Government's ambition of turning the railways back into profit. With the use of extensive and rare archive footage, this series of four programmes tells the story of his dramatic ‘cuts’ and examines Beeching's legacy as we look back over the six decades since his infamous report ‘The Reshaping of British Railways’ was published.
 
DISC 3: THE BEECHING RAILWAY
 
In March 1963 Beeching's proposals popularly known as the Beeching Axe were, unsurprisingly, accepted in full by the Minister of Transport Ernest Marples, despite some opposition from within the Conservative party. Over the following years Beeching's cuts were gradually introduced and by the early 1970s Britain' s railways and passengers were seeing the benefits of his actions as The Age of the Train was ushered in.
 
PUBLISHED   JUNE 2025