| I don’t know if you managed to catch Ian Hislop’s BBC Four documentary last week, examining the contribution or otherwise of Dr Richard Beeching to Britain’s railways. Alongside the fanatics, quite a few non-gricers have mentioned it to me in the last few days, and understandably even they were gripped by the story.
 It’s a subject I could write about every night. But what’s interesting about others' responses is a gradual reshaping (if I may use Beeching’s own euphemism) of the way we’re coming to view what Beeching did, and our railways in general.
Romantics and railway enthusiasts, not to mention any one of the millions of unfortunates who surrendered 2363 railway stations in the ‘60s, have long been aware of precisely what was lost to the notorious axe. But against a background of rising fuel prices and heightened concern for the environment, people are at last starting to attach some sort of present day value to that loss; a realisation of what we could have had today had it not been for the politics of the time. In complete contrast to the unstinting belief in the private car of Beeching's time, we’re now genuinely starting to view the railways as a tool for our future.
 This weekend I found myself in Barnstaple, for reasons not dissimilar to the last visit I told you about. Pop down for the weekend pre-1966, and you’d find a busy railway town, where the Great Western’s line from Taunton joined the London & South Western Railway’s line from Exeter towards Ilfracombe, Bideford, Bude and Padstow (to say nothing of the little line to Lynton, closed in 1935).
Barnstaple’s a remarkable survivor of the railway map. Today, it’s the remote, northern-most extremity of Devon as far as trains are concerned, the end of ‘The Withered Arm’, a mere branch line from Exeter. The lines north and west, though main-line holiday routes from London (and the very things that kept resorts alive on the northern coast of Devon and Cornwall), were casualties of Beeching’s report. They may have done an immeasurable turn for the public, but they didn’t turn a profit for a government which demanded that its nationalised railway should.
 For similar reasons, perhaps more understandably in the privatised era, passengers on the remaining portion have had to fight hard to keep their railway. How thoroughly satisfying, then, that we weren’t able to get a seat…
In marked contrast to my visit eighteen months ago (when clipboards were out noting passengers by the handful), a rainy October’s morning produced loadings to die for. Apparently it’s entirely typical of the railway today, to the point that we were warned by local people to “get to the station early”. Who knows, the line might even turn the kind of profit that Beeching and his superiors were looking for (his ‘reshaped’ railway never did, incidentally).
 For the punter, the attractions of this beautiful line are many, though in recent times I suspect fares have waved the winning hand. My £4.60 return fare between Barnstaple and Exeter (which, by the way, I can break as many times to enjoy local villages… and pubs), compares to costs of something like £17.50 for fuel alone for the same journey by car. Throw in parking in Exeter, plus the wear-and-tear of an arduous journey, you wouldn’t get much change from £25. On average, it’s a minute faster by train, too…
Granted, not every part of our railway offers such value for money these days. But here’s an obvious example of where Beeching’s sparing has proved such a blessing that it makes one shudder to think how much else he might have usefully kept for the future. Given the chance, how many people in nearby Bideford might have used their line today? Or Bude? Or Padstow? Or Ashburton, Buckfastleigh, Churston, Dorchester West, Evercreech Junction, Freshford, etc…
The people of Barnstaple, as elsewhere, view the railway as a good thing; it’s something they want to use. They’ve started to look to the future in a way that Beeching never did; his short-sightedness could never foresee the transport dilemma people face today, just as it could never envisage railways as the solution. The faith and money invested by the government of the time in promoting the private motor car has quite literally backfired into the world of today’s motorist. Alongside the crippling price of fuel, we drive through cities, towns and villages – from Chesterfield to Tiverton, from Gloucester to Loudwater - quite literally using the course of the old railway lines we should be riding by train today. What a double whammy.
I should mention that you can see Hislop’s thoughts on the BBC iPlayer if you didn’t catch them first time around. If only everything was so easy to reclaim…
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