The future of British Rail | British rail | Beeching cuts | This Week | 1969

What a turnaround as of 20th November 2021 the Exeter to Oakhampton line will reopen😊😊

Lots of closed lines in the West Midlands are now opening and being used by trams

Closing down lines because they're "not profitable" is to miss the point. Feeder lines make the bigger lines much more profitable. Expecting all necessary lines to make money is like putting the cart before the horse.

they should of moth balled them not sell the land and rip bridges down we need all these railways now.

Sir Henry Johnson was like pinocchio. Trains were deliberately retimed to miss connections. Point in case being the S+D at templecoombe. They actively discouraged passengers in order to close the lines that they did not want.

Wonderfully clear and succinct explanation from Geoffrey Freeman Allen of how rail cuts increase the costs to the remaining traffic and helps deter their custom. A vicious cycle indeed.

"We do not close any passenger lines. At least we only do so at the behest of the Minister". What a classic politician's answer

The ironic thing is, the line to Oakhampton has now Re-opened to passengers, Network Rail bought the line from Cowley Bridge junction to Meldon Quarry from it's last (private) owner & then spent a fair amount of money relaying the track, I would rather see closed lines reopened than Billions of pounds of Taxpayer & (some) private money being spent on HS2.

Nice cab view from the Bubble Car passing the Warship on the ballast train

Interesting to see Geoffrey Freeman Allen, one of the great railway journalists. Being interviewed in the Ian Allan Group's Pullman car Malaga, at Shepperton I believe

They closed the Waverley line a year later. They had previously closed all the branch lines connected to the Waverley route. The line has been reopened to Tweedbank.

TOPS did a lot to stop the rot of the freight traffic handling but it arrived too late to reverse the exodus of cutomers to road haulage.

Fascinating look at the way of life 50+ years ago

At the same time that we rippes up our railway Japan invested in there's. We had the same problem and their solution worked and ours didn't. Let alone how obvious the corruption was with people involved owning shares in car companies. With so many cuts made to inconvenience, not to save money. Look at the Aberystwyth to Carmarthen line, which connected Cardiff with central wales they got rid of that for unknown to this day reasons (apart from if you want to make lots of money in road construction) meaning to get to mid wales on the train, you have to leave wales and to go a 1 and half hour car jounrey from Camarthen to Aberystwyth can take up to 7 hours by train!

The beeching cuts are now viewed by the majority of people as a complete disaster.

Just shows how the government had a real disinterest in Railways in 1969. The myth that the railways was safe uunder Labour shows it to be no better than what went before.

This is the first time in my life that I have ever watched anything recorded in black & white & yellow.

The private company’s were never keen on investing in the wagon fleet, the majority on nationalisation only had hand brakes. Marsh was a disappointment showing his true colours when he publicly supported Thatcher and joined the Tory party.

wow, I've never seen the Thames logo like that, in B&W and not filling the screen. (Googled...) used in '68 and '69 then Thames began colour broadcasting colour in November '69. This clips looks like some scenes where recently digitally tinted with colour, like the reporter's coat and the overalls. 13:51 Maybe early colour TV varied depending on the technology of the cameras used to film... looks nice though!

The common carry act was instrumental in taking business away from the railways and putting it on to the roads. The road hauliers cherry picked all the profitable business and left the railways with the unprofitable business.