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Written Analysis And Communication
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Introduction: Richard Beeching, Baron Beeching.
Richard Beeching, Baron Beeching was a physicist and engineer and later became the chairman of British Railways. He led to far-reaching changes in the railway network, popularly known as Beeching Axe which he proposed in his 1960s report, “The Reshaping of British Railways". As a result of "The Beeching Report" just over 4,000 route miles were cut on cost and efficiency grounds, leaving Britain with 13,721 miles (22,082 km) of railway lines in 1966. A further 2,000 miles (3,200 km) were lost by the end of the 1960s.
Beeching was born in Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent. His father was a reporter with the Kent Messenger newspaper, his mother a school teacher and his maternal grandfather a dockyard worker. He attended the local Church of England primary school, Maidstone All Saints, with his other three brothers. Beeching won scholarships to Maidstone Grammar School, where Richard was a prefect. Later Beeching attended Imperial College of Science & Technology in London where he read physics and took First Class honours degrees. He remained at Imperial College where he undertook a research Ph. D under the supervision of Sir George Thomson.
Beeching Report: Background
After growing rapidly during the period of Railway Mania in the19th century, the British railway system reached its height in the years immediately before the First World War, with a network of 23,440 miles (37,720 km) of railway. After World War I the railways faced increasing competition from a growing road transport network, which led to the closure of some 1,300 miles (2,100 km) miles of passenger railways between 1923 and 1939. Some of these lines had never been profitable and were not subject to loss of traffic in that period. The railways were then busy during World War II. At the end of the war they were in a poor state of repair, and were soon nationalised as British Railways.
The 'Branch Lines Committee' of the British Transport Commission (BTC) was formed in 1949 with a brief to close the least used branch lines; a total 3,318 miles (5,340 km) of railway were closed between 1948 and 1962. Closures in this period included: the Charnwood Forest Railway, the Harborne Line in Birmingham, and the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway, closed in 1959. This period saw the beginning of a closures protest movement led by the Railway Development Association, whose most famous member was the poet John Betjeman. They went on to be a significant force resisting the Beeching proposals.
Stedeford Committee
Sir Frank Smith, who had retired in 1959, was asked by the Conservative Minister of Transport, Ernest Marples, to become a member of an advisory group on the financial state of the British Transport Commission to be chaired by Sir Ivan Stedeford. Smith declined but recommended Beeching in his place, a suggestion which Marples accepted. Stedeford and Beeching clashed on a number of issues connected with Beeching's proposal to drastically prune Britain's rail infrastructure. In spite of questions being asked in Parliament, Sir Ivan's report was not published until much later.
ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF THE BEECHING CUTS
Beeching Report (a.k.a The Reshaping of British Railways) was published on March 27th, 1963 by Dr. Beeching. The report was a result of efforts of the British Government cut down the losses incurred by the British Railways.
In 1952, £1.2 billion were proposed for modernization of rail network in Britain, but this proposal failed to focus on the huge fiscal deficit which Britain would be incurring. This led Minister of Transport, Ernest Marples, to believe that spending money on re-equipping British Rail with modern gadgets is not the solution for the sorry state of the railways in the country and a more dynamic approach is requires. The result was the appointment of Dr. Richard Beeching as chairman of British Railways, to work to find out the way ahead for British Rail.
SECONDARY ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF THE BEECHING CUTS
As per the report: “The plan is not designed merely to make our railway system self-supporting; it aims at producing far-reaching benefits for the economy of the country as a whole and for better ordering of the transport arrangements.” The cuts proposed by the Beeching report have had adverse consequences on the economy of the country as many of the industrial regions were cut-off from the major cities. Also, as previously mentioned around 70,000 railway employees lost their jobs.