One of the lines problems was it passed through 3 regions - Western, Midland and Eastern. It was uneconomic to operate as whilst the Eastern and the Western, IIRC, wanted to de-man all of the stations to reduce costs and introduce pay-trains the Midland didn't. So eventually the eastern and western ends were closed to passenger traffic, the western end remian open for freight (but has recently been severed near Bicester). The central section remains open between Bedford and Bletchley.

Work has already started to upgrade the flyover at Bletchley being carried out by Network Rail and it be another 4 years until the line is reconnect with Bicester Village, Due to start rerunning in 2024, Follow this link to see the work in progress kzfaq.info/get/bejne/lZiHptyVybyznIU.html

When Beeching was put in control in 1960 the railways were, using around £100,000 per day, that'll be close to £2.3 Million today (2020). 60 years have passed since Beaching was put in control and in that time we've had 3 financial crises that I can think off (including the one that resulted in Sterling being devalued by 14%), 4 recessions, and too many strikes to remember. The doubling of passenger numbers over the same period isn't that difficult to calculate as the population was growing at 0.62% in 1960 and had been growing since at least 1950. The population growth rate has been falling since 2008. Eventually passenger number. According to figures published by the ONS, passenger levels have been falling since 1957 when 42 Billion passenger kilometres were recorded. 1960 saw 40 Billion passenger kilometres recorded, which fell year on year until 1982 when only 6 Bilion passenger kilometres were recorded. 1983 to 1986 szw 7 Billion passenger kilometres recorded each year befor the decline continued to 5 Billion passenger kilometres, where it stayed until 1996 since when it has slowly risen to 10 Billion passenger kilometres being recorded (2018 is the last year for figures). In the same period have gone from 72 Billion passenger kilometres to 673 Billion passenger kilometres. Bus and coach travel has gone from 92 Billion passenger kilometres to 4 Billion passenger kilometres in the same period. If you prefer passenger numbers 1960 saw 1,037,000,000 passengers which was down from the 1957 level of 1,191,000,000 passengers. The downward trend, exacerbated by the line closures continued until 1977, between 1978 and 1980 passenger numbers increased, only to fall in 1982 to their lowest level of 630,000,000. After a period until 1986/87 when passenger, levels started to rise again until 2018/19 and we have 1,759,000,000 passengers. However the average time spent on a train to co mute to work is now around the 65 minute mark; which means more long distance commuting being done.

Music is "Argier" by Mike Oldfield,

Single Line from just north of Sandy Station to site of the former Goldington Power Station in Bedford. Passing llops at Blunham & Willington stations

+james fuller Taken from the Brickhill Road overbridge in Sandy, looking back South to where the bridge carrying Bedford-Cambridge line over the East Coast Mainline

Just down the track from the main line at Sandy 7:13. You can see the rising trackbed of the branch line crossover here 6:09 and then the other side of the bridges here 7:09

There were only 4 trains on the line on week days to traverse the entire route. The only section used at anything close to capacity was the Bletchley to Bedford section, ie the bit that is still in use.

Readers should bear in mind that BR deliberately ran down lines, eg, by inconvenient timings with poor or non-existant connections, to make the case for closure easier. The Great Central line was a famous example, and I have no doubt this applied to the Oxford - Cambridge also.

Graham LEES the Bradshaws for 1960 shows 1 train per hour each way, which is pretty healthy, but timetables are only part of the issue and this line closed before long distance commuting from smaller towns by train in to major towns and cities was as common as itbis today. This line only reallt served as a passenger line as there is little freight, othrr than Bedford's brick works on the line. Once the outer circle freightline concept was abandoned this line was libpvi get on borrowed time. Most of the locations this line served are little larger today as they were when tne line closed, and no where closer to their former stations.