craigmason
02-10-2008, 14:13
who's going to watch tonight
Hindsight: Lord Beeching
Thursday 02 October
8:00pm - 8:30pm
BBC4
Eric Robson talks to Lord Beeching about his time as Chairman of the British Railways Board between 1961 and 1965, asking if he would have done things differently with hindsight.
then
Railway Walks
Highlight
Thursday 02 October
8:30pm - 9:00pm
BBC4
The Peak Express
Warm up for Ian Hislop's Beeching Report doc at 9pm with this bucolic new series, in which Julia Bradbury tries to look on the bright side of widespread rail closures by hiking along the disused lines. She begins by trekking from Bakewell to Blackwell Mill, in Derbyshire.
then
Ian Hislop Goes off the Rails
Highlight
Thursday 02 October
9:00pm - 10:00pm
BBC4
A night of locomotive nostalgia centres on this wistful film about the 1963 Beeching Report, which led the Government to "modernize" Britain's rail network by shutting half of it down. With his chummy scarf and endearing love of trains, Ian Hislop avoids political rancour but still reveals the incompetence and skewed priorities that drove the reforms. Surveys of train traffic were hasty and incomplete, and some shameful spin was used by a Minister of Transport with a background in road construction. Aside from questioning the idea that public services have to "pay their way" - an old argument that's lost none of its relevance - Hislop documents the lasting effects on local economies and the nation's cultural heritage. But he also points out that trains pre-Beeching weren't as pleasant and efficient as you might wish to imagine.
Hindsight: Lord Beeching
Thursday 02 October
8:00pm - 8:30pm
BBC4
Eric Robson talks to Lord Beeching about his time as Chairman of the British Railways Board between 1961 and 1965, asking if he would have done things differently with hindsight.
then
Railway Walks
Highlight
Thursday 02 October
8:30pm - 9:00pm
BBC4
The Peak Express
Warm up for Ian Hislop's Beeching Report doc at 9pm with this bucolic new series, in which Julia Bradbury tries to look on the bright side of widespread rail closures by hiking along the disused lines. She begins by trekking from Bakewell to Blackwell Mill, in Derbyshire.
then
Ian Hislop Goes off the Rails
Highlight
Thursday 02 October
9:00pm - 10:00pm
BBC4
A night of locomotive nostalgia centres on this wistful film about the 1963 Beeching Report, which led the Government to "modernize" Britain's rail network by shutting half of it down. With his chummy scarf and endearing love of trains, Ian Hislop avoids political rancour but still reveals the incompetence and skewed priorities that drove the reforms. Surveys of train traffic were hasty and incomplete, and some shameful spin was used by a Minister of Transport with a background in road construction. Aside from questioning the idea that public services have to "pay their way" - an old argument that's lost none of its relevance - Hislop documents the lasting effects on local economies and the nation's cultural heritage. But he also points out that trains pre-Beeching weren't as pleasant and efficient as you might wish to imagine.