Ed -Your recounting of Beeching contains some valid points, BUT... It is more than a little
telling that Richard Beeching Ph.D, before being called on by the Conservative and Unionist party Government, was a managing director/chairman of Imperial Chemical Industries (aka ICI), which was big into making additives for gasoline (petrol in the parlance) Not exactly disinterested.
Too, the contribution to the present road traffic,especially on the motorways is directly due to My Lord Beechings (He was ennobled for his hatchet job) severe cuts to the branch lines which, like pre-Amtrak passenger service, served countless small places. There as here, those branch line operations were tributaries to the mainlines and shutting them helped starve them. And this is not to mention the exponential increase in the deleterious effects from an overabundance of cars now as compared with '60s Britain, more specifically England. If you liked Beeching, you'll love all the knock-on effects wrought by the Tories, beginning with re-privitisation under John Major. I've been using what was BR since the early Eighties, lived in Britain in the Ninetiesand, and can testify to the rot. And don't get me started about ticket prices!
The respected transportation writer Christian Wolmar (www.christianwolmar.co.uk) is a good starting point for informed commentary (full disclosure, his politics are Labour. but he knows whereof he speaks when it comes to the railways.


Yours, aye brains