Editing Richard Beeching (section)

== Legacy ==
{{more citations needed section|date=May 2013}}
The Beeching Report remains controversial. Critics have accused Beeching of ignoring the social consequences of his proposals (there is little doubt that rail replacement bus services were rarely a success<ref>Hillman, Mayer and Anne Whalley (1980) The Social Consequences of Rail Closures</ref>); encouraging car use; ignoring possible economies that might have saved lines; and, getting the figures wrong.

Some have accused him of being part of or even the scapegoat for a conspiracy against the railways involving politicians, civil servants and the road lobby.<ref>Henshaw, David (1994). The Great Railway Conspiracy. {{ISBN|0-948135-48-4}}</ref><ref>Faulkner, Richard and Chris Austin, (2012) Holding the Line – How Britain's Railways were saved {{ISBN|978-0-86093-647-3}}</ref> The report was commissioned by a Conservative government with strong ties to the road construction lobby and its findings were largely implemented by the subsequent Labour governments whose party received funds from unions associated with road industry associations.{{citation needed|date=April 2022}}

Others have argued that it was ministers, not Beeching, who were responsible for any shortcomings in assessing the social case for retaining lines and that economies had been tried and largely failed; also that the road lobby was less significant than the Treasury in making policy, and the Labour Party was funded by rail unions.<ref>Loft, Charles (2013) Last Trains – Dr Beeching and the Death of Rural England {{ISBN|9781849545006}}</ref> 

It is worth noting that the size, shape and level of service of the railway network in Great Britain was the subject of debate for many decades before the appointment of Beeching. The [[Salter Report]] of 1933 attempted to address the issue of growing abstraction of rail traffic by road and the low level of road pricing. At the appointment of the British Transport Commission in 1947, the question of uneconomic branch lines and their selection for closure was the subject of a Railway Executive branch line committee. The [[History of rail transport in Great Britain 1948–1994#The Modernisation Plan|British Railways Modernisation Plan]] of 1955 stated, "there will be a marked reduction in the stopping and branch-line services which are little used by the public and which, on any dispassionate review of the situation, should be largely handed over to road transport". Prime Minister [[Harold Macmillan]] stated in 1960, "the industry must be of a size and pattern suited to modern conditions and prospects. In particular, the railway system must be modelled to meet current needs".{{citation needed|date=April 2022}} In this respect, Beeching can be thus seen to have taken a courageous approach to implementing an unpopular policy which politicians had deferred for many decades.

On the other hand, Hardy points out Beeching's political naïveté, and Fiennes notes that because a passenger service was producing a loss did not mean that it would continue to do so in the future. Like Fiennes and Hardy, Terry Gourvish's business history of British Rail sees Beeching as having a positive effect on railway management while not achieving perfection.<ref name="Gourvish">Gourvish, T. R. (1974), British Rail 1948 – 1973: A Business History {{ISBN|978-0521188838}}</ref> There is a broad consensus that the detail of figures used in individual cases were imperfect, but a wide divergence of view as to the significance of and motives for this.

[[Ian Hislop]] commented in 2008 that history has been somewhat unkind to "Britain's most hated civil servant", by forgetting that he proposed a much better bus service that ministers never delivered, and that in some ways he was used to do their "dirty work for them". Hislop describes Beeching as "a technocrat [who] wasn't open to argument to romantic notions of rural England or the warp and weft of the train in our national identity. He didn't buy any of that. He went for a straightforward profit and loss approach and some claim we are still reeling from that today".<ref name=Hated>{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7644630.stm |title=Britain's most hated civil servant |work=BBC News |date=1 October 2008}}</ref>

Several ex-railway sites have been named after Beeching:
*There is a pub that was called Lord Beechings at the end of the [[Cambrian Railways]] at [[Aberystwyth]], which until its refurbishment by [[Brains Brewery]] was decorated with various railway memorabilia, in particular regarding the Aberystwyth – London and Aberystwyth – [[Carmarthen]] service, which he closed. It was previously called The Railway until the 1990s, and in 2022 its new owner renamed it The Hoptimist, claiming that it wanted to bring people together, not isolate them.
*The Beechings Way industrial estate at [[Alford, Lincolnshire]] is so named to commemorate the loss of the former [[Alford Town railway station|station]] - whose buildings lie within the estate<ref name="Subbrit">{{subbrit|a/alford_town}}</ref> - and line (formerly from [[Grimsby]] to London, via [[Louth, Lincolnshire|Louth]] and [[Peterborough]]) under the [[Beeching cuts]]. 
*The road Beeching Drive in [[Lowestoft]], [[Suffolk]], located on the site of the former [[Lowestoft North railway station|Lowestoft North station]] is also so named. Coincidentally, a smaller pedestrian area in the vicinity is known as Stephenson's Walk.
*The old station approach in the village of [[Upton, Vale of White Horse|Upton]], [[Oxfordshire]], is now a cul-de-sac called Beeching Close.<ref name=Karau>Karau, P., Parsons, M. and Robertson, K. (1984) ''An illustrated history of the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton Railway'', Wild Swan Publications, {{ISBN|0-906867-04-5}}</ref> 
*There is a cul-de-sac in the [[Leicestershire]] village of [[Countesthorpe]] about 7&nbsp;mi (11&nbsp;km) south of [[Leicester]] city centre aptly named Beeching's Close. [[Countesthorpe railway station]] was served by the former [[Midland Counties Railway]] line between Leicester and [[Rugby, Warwickshire|Rugby]], although this was closed in January 1962, well over a year prior to the publication of ''The Reshaping of British Railways''. The gardens of the houses on the west side of the close meet the boundary of the old line. 
*[[East Grinstead]], where Beeching lived, was formerly served by a railway line from [[Tunbridge Wells]] (West) to [[Three Bridges railway station|Three Bridges]], most of which was closed.<ref name="egnet"/> To the east of the current East Grinstead station, the line passed through a deep cutting. This cutting currently forms part of the A22 relief road through East Grinstead. Due to the depth of the cutting, locals wanted to call the road Beeching Cut, but it was decided to call it Beeching Way.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/wear/content/articles/2008/10/24/wear_beeching_feature.shtml|title=The Beeching axe|website=www.bbc.co.uk}}</ref>

In the late 1990s, a popular BBC sitcom, ''[[Oh, Doctor Beeching!]]'', was set at a rural railway station in the shadow of the Beeching reforms.