Do you remember the local campaign against Beechings’s proposed railway cuts?

In all the recent coverage in newspapers, online, on television and on radio of the fiftieth anniversary of Lord Beeching’s 1963 report on Britain’s railways, no mention has been made of two local railway stations which escaped his axe.

Charged by the Conservative government with re-designing the whole rail system in Britain so it could be run without losses, Lord Beeching’s two volume report The Reshaping of British Railways proposed the closing of 2,363 stations and halts – not to mention the loss of 5,000 miles of track and tens of thousands jobs.

In articles about his plan, Lord Beeching has been called a ‘vandal’ for his swingeing attack on the nation’s rail network.  But like most vandals, Beeching did not entirely get his own way.  His list of stations to be closed included Bedwyn and Pewsey.  They are still open – and are now the subject of a fervent campaign to maintain the current level of passenger trains that serve them.

Marlborough’s two railway stations had already been closed in 1961, with the goods yards closing in 1964.

Other stations in the area did not fare so well under Beeching’s closure programme. The Devizes Branch Line was closed by 1966.  And Patney-and-Chirton station was closed with it.

The aim of Beeching’s plan was to produce a rail system that did not run at a loss and would enable the Railway Board’s huge deficit to be cleared.  As Lord Beeching summed up his hopes for the plan’s success: “If the whole plan is implemented with vigour…much (though not necessarily all) of the Railway deficit should be eliminated by 1970.”  A statement that has a certain resonance with current plans for deficit elimination.

If you have memories or mementoes of the local campaign in the 1960s to keep Bedwyn and Pewsey stations open – please contact Marlborough News Online: tony@marlboroughnewsonline.co.uk