The 1960s swept away both the steam locomotive and a third of the railway network itself. It was the most wrenching decade in the railway's history — and its scars are still debated today.
Dieselisation
The 1955 Modernisation Plan's commitment to diesel and electric traction was now carried through at speed. New diesel classes poured from the works, and serviceable steam locomotives — some only a few years old — were withdrawn and sent for scrap in ever-greater numbers.
The Beeching Axe
As road competition bit and losses mounted, Dr Richard Beeching's 1963 report The Reshaping of British Railways — the “Beeching Axe” — recommended closing thousands of miles of rural lines and more than two thousand stations. The closures that followed reshaped the map of the railway and remain controversial to this day.
The end of steam (1968)
Steam's final years were a rout. The great scrapyards filled — above all Woodham Brothers at Barry in South Wales. On 11 August 1968 the last regular British Railways main-line steam train ran, commemorated by the famous “Fifteen Guinea Special”. After 164 years, the age of steam on Britain's national network was over.