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Since the Beeching cuts, road traffic levels have grown significantly. As well, since privatisation in the mid-1990s, there have been record levels of passengers on the railways owing to a preference to living in smaller towns and rural areas, and in turn commuting longer distances [72] (although the cause of this is disputed). A few of the ...
The Beeching cuts were a reduction in the size of the British railway network, along with a restructuring of British Rail, in the 1960s.Since the mid-1990s there has been significant growth in passenger numbers on the railways and renewed government interest in the role of rail in UK transport.
In 1963 under its chairman Richard Beeching, British Railways produced The Reshaping of British Railways report, designed to stem the huge losses being incurred as patronage declined. [7] It proposed very substantial cuts to the network and to train services, with many lines closed under a programme that came to be known as the Beeching cuts.
In 1963, Richard Beeching's The Reshaping of British Railways report recommending the closure of 5,000 miles (8,000 km) of mostly rural branch railways, [27] led to the Beeching cuts and halted the manufacture of new vehicles. [28]
Beeching was a businessman rather than a railwayman and his high salary (particularly in a nationalised industry) caused controversy. His report The Reshaping of British Railways (commonly known simply as "The Beeching Report") issued in 1963, concluded that much of the railway network carried little traffic and should be closed down.
Beeching was undeterred and argued that too many lines were running at a loss, and that his charge to shape a profitable railway made cuts a logical starting point. [6] As one author puts it, Beeching "was expected to produce quick solutions to problems that were deep-seated and not susceptible to purely intellectual analysis."
The Beeching cuts, or "Beeching Axe" that followed resulted in the major closures for both stations and lines. It may not be entirely a coincidence that as Beeching was closing railway lines, the government was providing funding for the construction of motorways, which were being built by companies in which Marples had an interest. [7]
During the mid 1960s, many routes were closed under the "Beeching Axe", plus some after the resignation of Dr Richard Beeching - most notoriously the Waverley Line from Edinburgh to Carlisle. In 1974, cross-border electric Inter-City services from Glasgow Central to London Euston commenced, with the completion of the West Coast Main Line ...