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BBC iPlayer - Ian Hislop Goes off the Rails - for those that missed it

an Hislop brings his customary humour, analysis and wit to the
notorious Beeching Report of 1963, which led to the closure of a third
of the nation's railway lines and stations and forced tens of
thousands of people into the car and onto the road.

Was author Dr Richard Beeching little more than Genghis Khan with a
slide rule, ruthlessly hacking away at Britain's rail network in a
misguided quest for profitability, or was he the fall guy for short-
sighted government policies that favoured the car over the train?

Ian also investigates the fallout of Beeching's plan, discovering what
was lost to the British landscape, communities and ways of life when
the railway map shrank, and recalls the halcyon days of train travel,
celebrated by John Betjeman.

Ian travels from Cornwall to the Scottish borders, meeting those
responsible and those affected and questioning whether such brutal
measures could be justified. Knowing what we know now, with trains far
more energy efficient and environmentally sound than cars, perhaps
Beeching's plan was the biggest folly of the 1960s?

Watch again here http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00drtpj