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成人快手 North East & Cumbria explores Beeching's legacy with Wayne Hemingway
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The lost world of England's railway lines is explored on Sunday 26 October on 成人快手 One North East & Cumbria, as Wayne Hemingway investigates the impact across the North East of Dr Beeching and his 1963 report The Re-Shaping of British Railways.
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Wayne explores how the now infamous "Beeching axe" which proposed the closure of some 5,000 miles of the country's rail network, and changed the region forever.
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All corners of England were to suffer blows from the axe and the implications were to run much deeper than the loss of rail services. Landscapes, buildings, villages and towns now take a different shape because of events in the Sixties.
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The programme examines the winners and losers from this dramatic period in transport history.
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Wayne Hemingway has spent time in the last few years living and working in the North East.
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From his work across urban design and town planning, he's come to passionately believe that good public transport should be at the heart of every community as it was before the Beeching cuts in 1963.
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Wayne said: "In the 40 years since Beeching wielded his axe, all governments have poured money into Britain's roads at the expense of public transport.
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"So it's no surprise that cars dominate the landscape, even though we all know the cost to the environment. But in some places people have no real alternative."
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Wayne's journey begins in Tyneside as he speaks to Nexus Director General Bernard Garner about the success of the Metro.
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Although local towns served by the Metro have thrived, there are access problems for those who live in towns and villages not connected to the network.
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Wayne speaks to one frustrated resident in Washington, Zoe Muirhead, whose 10-mile journey to and from work in Newcastle takes two-and-a-half hours every day.
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Blyth was once a real railway town and a hive of industry but the mines and the shipyards gradually closed and after Beeching the railway station was flattened to be replaced by a supermarket.
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Wayne meets local MP Ronnie Campbell who calls for the Metro to be extended.
Wayne also meets Jeremy Sherlock, who runs the regeneration partnership trying to breathe new life into Blyth.
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Jeremy talks about the importance of connecting into the national rail network. "It's a feeling that if you don't have a station, you're not on the map," he says.
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Wayne visits Shildon in County Durham, a town with a unique railway heritage, due in part to one of the north's engineering pioneers, Timothy Hackworth.
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He finds signs of recovery on the Weardale line, where one stretch has recently reopened to the public and there are plans to extend the line to Eastgate.
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For months the Beeching axe hovered over the Newcastle to Carlisle line, but it was saved from closure and so Hexham is one town which has kept its rail link.
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There Wayne meets Paul Salverson from Northern Rail who argues that a good rail link is absolutely fundamental to the success of local economies.
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Notes to Editors
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The 成人快手 North East & Cumbria programme is one of 10 regional programmes each looking at the impact of the Beeching cuts on their areas.
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All programmes are broadcast on 成人快手 One, Sunday 26听October 2008, at 4.25pm, and form part of a 成人快手 Four-led season looking at The Golden Age Of Steam.
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