Beeching's infamous 1963 report, which led to the mass closure of railways 50 years ago, was satirised in a play at a fundraising party.
Golcar councillor and railway expert Paul Salveson organised the low-key production lampooning the 1963 Beeching Axe, which recommended the closure of thousands of miles of railway and thousands of stations.
The railways are now being developed to meet passenger demand - at considerable capital cost to present governments - reversing the Beeching plan.
Beeching planned closure of all its stations which would have destroyed the tourism industry.
'With the railways more popular than ever and more trains now running than in the year before the Beeching report, opinion remains divided as to what long-term effect his recommendations had.
While some point to the modern successes in terms of passengers carried and smarter trains and stations, others, including the rail unions, see Beeching as the archetypal evil axeman.
Five decades on, figures from Network Rail show that more trains now run than before the
Beeching axe and far more passengers are using the network than before the report.
The popular conception in many people's nostalgic view of the railways prior to
Beeching is that Britain possessed a cosy rail system, which provided much needed services to rural communities.
After all, it's half a century since
Beeching was our prime bogeyman.
On March 27, 1963, Dr
Beeching produced what has now become his infamous two-part report, The Reshaping of British Railways, which recommended the closure of 5,000 miles of track and a third of the 7,000 stations and the loss of 70,000 jobs.
Pete Waterman worked on the railways before finding fame producing music hits for the like of Kyle Minogue and Rick Astley and his job on the railways was axed as a result of Dr
Beeching's changes.
What does
Beeching find most encouraging about the students in her courses?
Shortly thereafter,
Beeching writes, "the wind that morning turned right around." For propulsion, both fleets relied primarily on the muscle power of galley oarsmen--slaves, prisoners, or volunteers.
One
Beeching critic said: "I'd love to stick him on just about any of our motorway overbridges on a typical Friday afternoon and show him just what he's responsible for.
SIR - I gather from the TV and local papers in East Anglia where I am staying that train-operating companies propose to reopen many of the branch lines closed by Dr
Beeching in the sixties.
