Oh, Dr. Beeching!

In the mid-2010s, I watched Oh, Dr. Beeching!, a British situation comedy from the mid-1990s describing life at a small railway station (Hatley) in the mid-1960s awaiting news about the Beeching Axe chopping away a line built in the mid-1860s.

Dr. Richard Beeching led the British Railways Board and prepared The Reshaping of British Railways which controversially rationalized the network by eliminating many routes and stations. He remains an off-screen character in the series, who is talked about, and rumored, but never seen.

One of the creators, Richard Spendlove, had worked his first career as a Station Manager, and so this show has a level of detail about the workplace that is far richer than anything else I have seen, including Thomas, the Tank Engine. It is a comedy, so the goings on in this small town (little more than a station and some railway cottages where the staff reside) are farcical. And it is a period piece, so you can examine elements of British culture, including high-quality culinary dishes, the Beatles, the Mods, short skirts, and references to Swinging London.

If you are looking for a way to spend 10 hours watching television about transportation, Series 1 and 2 of this show (Series 3 was never produced, leaving the fate of the station unclear) are entertaining. It is commercially available on Region 2 (UK) DVDs from BBC. I don't believe it is commercially available to play on unhacked US DVD players (DVD player hacking is legal, just frowned upon by Hollywood).

It is un-commercially available elsewhere, one supposes.