Anyone remember Dr Beeching...?

[Shaun Haselden]

This place was Utterby Halt in Lincolnshire. A great, lonely little place in the heart of the northern part of Lincolnshire. It once formed part of the direct link from Grimsby to London Kings Cross. Way back in the early sixties, along with huge swathes of railway infrastructure, a certain Dr Beeching, a left over from ICI, decided to hack to death the invention that was steam railway. This was done of course on behalf of the government at the time, a part of British history known for making unbelievably stupid decisions such as the motorcycle industry and the British aircraft industry.

With thanks though, we now have decaying, derelict railway artifacts to photograph. Artifacts full of sorrow and melancholy.

 

[Pete Askew]

As I 10 - 14 year-old I used to roam and play on the old Bexhill to London line, another victim of the dismantling of the network by the government following the ‘conclusions’ of the Beeching report. In my very young years I even travelled on the steam trains that used to go to the old West Station terminus before we moved there. Most of that, as with so many others are now under housing and industrial sites.

It seems short-sighted now especially since places like Haverhill in Suffolk have become commuter towns, but without a station / line to commute from.

A very evocative image, Shaun.

 

[Gianluca Drago]

A very evocative photo, indeed (and I like the choice of framing from below).