Beeching's Axe.

50 years ago Dr Beeching commissioned his report on the British railways. Thanks to this report, hundreds of lines were closed, taking away a vital transportation link to many towns and villages. Today people have been arguing that perhaps Beeching was right to axe all of these lines.

This is nonsense. Today there is a huge demand for rail transportation, for both passengers and freight. New lines are having to be built, some in areas Beeching previously cut. The railways in the 1960's were not profitable, but the answer was not to cut hundreds of lines. If the rail network was nationalised then profitable lines would subsidise lines that may be making a loss. If this was done then many businesses and tourist destinations that relied upon the railway may have been saved.

Today's economy undoubtedly requires an extensive rail network, which it would already have if Beeching didn't chose to cut so many lines. One new line, from Edinburgh to Tweedbank is currently being built, at a cost of around £10,000,000 per mile. This shockingly expensive figure only gets worse when you discover that Beeching axed the same Edinburgh to Tweedbank line in his cuts, after 120 years of service. Now even if Beeching did save money at the time, it appears that those savings are soon to be wiped out and that isn't taking into account the irreparable damage of 50 years of not having a local railway.

The argument that the amount of railway lines running in the 1960's could not be sustained is again nonsense. There are hundreds of tourist railways operating on extremely small budgets and are often built up from nothing, or at best the ruins that Beeching's cuts left behind. If volunteers and enthusiasts and even people with no experience can run a steam railway, whilst keeping everything authentic, then surely a government or even a private company can, with the same enthusiasm, provide the best railway service in the world.