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 4: BEECHING'S LEGACY
 
The final part of our story concludes with the often-painful experience of travelling on today's railways. With a myriad of operators taking rail travel into a future with a seemingly never-ending growth in traffic, it proves that Britain's railway network has a vital part to play in the transport industry of the future, just as it did over 60 years ago: truly, 'Beeching's Legacy'.
 
PUBLISHED   JUNE 2025