Rail Atlas: The Beeching Era

The Beeching Report ‘The Reshaping of British Railways‘ was first published in 1963. This seminal document, about which much has been written and which remains highly controversial to this day, was one of the major influences in the creation of the railway industry in Britain today. The original report was produced in two parts: the first incorporated all the statistical analysis along with the schedule of stations and lines to close, whilst the second incorporated about a dozen maps that supplemented the information imparted by the written report. The original maps were relatively basic and designed to offer little more than a visual aide memoire to the actual report. These included maps recording the passenger lines destined to close in whole or in part, the coal freight flows not already carried by rail, the density of freight tonnage from each individual station and the freightliner routes and terminals then under construction. However, the combination of these two elements in conjunction with the cartographic database that has been the foundation of a number of railway atlases (including the recently reprinted 1955 volume), create a new, highly informative addition to the railway atlas series. The majority of this book consists of newly created maps drawn from the database, these maps show the following: · Passenger lines not threatened by the report · Those that were destined to retain only express services (where this was carried out) · Those destined to lose all services (where this was carried out) · Lines that were threatened with partial or complete closure that remained open · Lines that were closed despite being listed for retention under Beeching · Passenger stations that were scheduled for closure · Stations that were scheduled to close but which remained open or which were subsequently reopened The report is most explicit in its dealings with passenger services as these were undoubtedly the most ‘political’, but it also dealt with freight services. A wealth of supplementary maps further illustrate aspects such as the proposed freightliner network and much more.