| Long distance closures - [otd] 5th May 1968 Posted by grahame at 07:58, 6th May 2026 |     |
"On this day" has flagged up 5th May 1968 - as the day that the Okehampton to Bere Alston link was broken, and it got me thinking about longer distance main lines breached, and how some of them might have been bringing economic development and support sustainable transport to new swathes of England (and the other home countries) as we look to provide more houses in the UK - not necessarily because of an increasing population, but because households are 10% smaller these days which means we need 10% more homesteads
I think about ...
Plymouth to Exeter
Poole to Bath
Carlisle to Edinburgh via Hawick
London (Marylebone) to the East Midlands
Carlisle to Stranraer
Rhymney to Moat Lane
Many of these "open countryside" but then so was "The Met". Some of that worked; Brill was perhaps a branch too far
