As Niels Bohr said, "Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future." This was the Railway Magazine's reaction to the Beeching Report in their May 1963 editorial:
Whether or not one agrees with all the details of "the plan" or not, it has to be admitted that Dr. Beeching^s report, "The Reshaping of British Railways" (referred to elsewhere in this issue of The Railway Magazine), is basically correct and backed by such a weight of carefully-prepared evidence as to be almost unassailable. It has been described as brutal, brilliant and right and if carried out in toto will, in a few years, produce a change in the railway scene which few people could have envisaged.
[...]
We wonder how many of our readers noticed the odd coincidence that the already famous Beeching report appeared on the centenary of the birth of Henry Royce of Rolls-Royce fame. When Royce joined forces with Rolls it was to pioneer a new development which appeared to have a future. That future has now provided the dimming of what appeared to be the unending high noon of the railways.
With hindsight it's an astonishingly defeatist attitude from the railway's friends but it reflects the powerful intellectual currents of the time - continuing deference to authority, disdain for the "old ways" and an enthusiasm for radical experiments. We will probably seem equally foolish in 50 years time. In fairness it must be pointed out that not everyone swam with the tide. For example, from the Letters page of the June 1963 issue:
SIR ^ I am very surprised and disappointed to read your last number and your tame acceptance of the findings of Dr. Beeching^s Report. You present his findings, which are only one side of a many sided question, and you produce none of the reasoned and sensible arguments of many opponents of the scheme up and down the country^ C. Leslie W. Smith
Show Posts
