STAR LETTER
Beeching’s final dozen
YOUR article on the last 12 Beeching closures (April issue) unaccountably has omitted Haltwhistle to Alston, which closed on May 3, 1976, having been proposed for closure in 1969, and so after the Bridport branch but before the Kilmalcolm service.
The closure was allegedly delayed due to the difficulty in arranging a replacement bus service over the roads into Alston, particularly in the winter – the same problem that kept Middlesbrough to Whitby and the Gunnislake branch open to this day.
As with some of your listed entries, the Alston branch does again carry trains if only as far as Slaggyford, and on a much narrower gauge, on the line of the South Tynedale Railway.
Tom Kane By email
In compiling our list of the final 12, it was complicated by the other lines that closed before, during and after the Beeching period, and so we had to be quite precise in our definition. In the case of Alston, the branch had already been marked for closure before the 1963 report – therefore we ruled it as not one that Dr Beeching himself listed for closure, even though it was mentioned in the appendices. It could be argued he would have listed it had it not already been identified, but the fact remains that technically he did not, and so we left
