To start our journey, we follow the path of Britain's railways from the pre- Grouping of the Edwardian era when steam was king, through to Beeching's appointment as Chairman of the British Railways Board in 1961. During that time two World Wars had drastically changed Britain and its railways had moved from a Golden Age to an industry experiencing heavy annual losses.
Picking up the story in 1961, the second part of this series follows the chain of events after Beeching was appointed as the first Chairman of the British Railways Board. His task was to draw up a plan to eliminate the network's losses and to reorganise the railways for the future. It was a job that would secure his place in British Railway history.
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.
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 50 years ago: truly, 'Beeching's Legacy'.
Nicholas Owen introduces an evening of special programming to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Beeching Report on the future of Britain's railways, which recommended closing 3000 miles of track and 2000 stations to help stem massive losses.
