The missing 'Lines' and the sole survivor

摘要

Dr Richard Beeching was given a public roasting for his mass closures of rural lines in the 1960s. But the recent chance discovery of internal British Rail documents gives a fresh insight into what a parlous state many of those lines were in. Equally through poor management and better alternatives, passenger services across East Lincolnshire suffered wholesale withdrawal on October 4 1970 - half a century ago. While much has been published on the subject, some quite startling facts and figures -published here for possibly the first time - offer a new insight into what actually happened. We can now better understand the vision of three local authorities to hire no-nonsense former Eastern Region General Manager Gerry Fiennes to take on his old British Rail adversaries - and win. This resulted in the UK's first publicly subsided reopening - the now thriving Spalding-Peterborough service.