THE impact of the most radical reshaping of Britain’s railways will be explored in an exhibition to mark the 50th anniversary of the Beeching Report.
The display at the National Railway Museum, in York, will explain what led British Railways chairman Dr Richard Beeching to propose that 5,000 miles of railway line should be closed.
A resulting drive to stem losses of £300,000 a day saw Britain left with 13,721 miles of railway in 1966.
The exhibition will also feature a film commissioned by the museum to examine the closure of the Carlisle to Edinburgh Waverley route, which was one of the first lines to be axed.
The documentary It’s Quicker By Hearse The Tale of the Petitioning Housewife, the Protesting Schoolboy and the Campaign Trail Student reveals how no other line closure left a population so far from a rail network.
It tells the story of Madge Elliot, who marched in protest over the cuts to Downing Street with her 11-year-old son, a piper and Edinburgh University Railway Society president.
Beeching 50 Years On will run in the museum’s art gallery until June 16.
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