Topic summary
Beeching axe
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Beeching cuts.
The Beeching cuts, also colloquially referred to as the Beeching Axe, were a major series of route closures and service changes made as part of the restructuring of the nationalisedrailway system in Great Britain in the 1960s. They are named after Richard Beeching, then-chair of the British Railways Board and the author of two reports – The Reshaping of British Railways (1963) and The Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes (1965) – that set out proposals for restructuring the railway network, with the stated aim of improving economic efficiency.