CALL ATTENTION

Losses and gains – well reprieves, at least

I’m not sure that railway enthusiasts of my generation will ever get over witnessing the awful destruction that took place post Beeching. We saw every aspect of some rail routes erased from the landscape, to disappear under roads or supermarkets or housing developments. Insult would sometimes be added to injury by naming a new street Beeching Close or something equally thoughtless.

I was reminded of it recently by the news that North America’s last logging railway, the 56-mile long Englewood Railway on Vancouver Island has been dismantled. I