Television star Michael Palin accused Richard Beeching of leaving an unprecedented scar on Britain by forcing through his programme of railway closures, which affected virtually every part of Britain. He said Beeching and his now disgraced boss Ernest Marples were made barons, but they left the railway barren.

Despite the odds, the railway has won back the ground, if not all the lines, that many thought had been lost for ever. With determination, flair and vision the railway has become a success and people have returned to the train in spite of Government efforts to price them off. Michael was a guest speaker at a Campaign for Better Transport event at London’s Science Museum to mark 50 years since Beeching.

Fellow guest speaker Lord Faulkner said there had been astonishing anti-rail bias from the 1950s until recently. He was shocked by the depth of the conspiracy to undermine the railway.

Former Labour Transport Secretary Andrew Adonis explained how he had fought against the closure threat to the Cotswold line when he was a 13-year-old schoolboy who used the train to get to school at Kingham, Oxfordshire. He disproved British Rail’s bogus figures with the help of school friends by carrying out passenger counts. He added: “Now in 2013, the line is highly profitable.”

He said the big mistake, post Beeching, was to give up the railway rights of way, which is making it difficult to reopen the lines, particularly the eastern end of the East West Rail link. But another big mistake was not investing in high speed rail. The Japanese had done just that, when Britain was closing lines.

He also blamed the Government for not insisting that Siemens opened a train factory in Britain in return for the Thameslink rolling stock order. He said the previous Labour government had persuaded Japanese company Hitachi to open a train factory in Newton Aycliffe. Hitachi hoped to build trains there, both for Britain, and for export to Europe.

One positive achievement by Beeching said Lindsay Durham of Freightliner was to support container trains and trainload freight. She also said reopening the March-Spalding route would be welcomed by rail freight operators as an alternative to the East Coast main line.

Network Rail’s chief executive David Higgins said he hoped Britain would be able to manufacture more material for the railway where huge amounts of money were being invested in electrification and signalling. He said it was more difficult to get a Network Rail apprenticeship now than to get into Oxford and Cambridge universities. More than 10,000 young people applied every year.