ELR50 marks 50 years since ‘worst’ Beeching closure

‘IT never should have closed’is a remark often made about a particular railway line that fell victim to the Beeching Axe or its aftermath. However, the closure of the East Lincolnshire main line from Grimsby to Boston half a century ago remained top of the‘regrets list’ for none other than a member of the late British Railway chairman’s planning team.

John Edser, who joined Dr Richard Beeching’s planning team 10 weeks after the infamous 1963 report The Reshaping of British Railways was published, said the line – part of the Great Northern Railway’s main route from Grimsby to London – was earmarked for closure because of the sparsely-populated