Oh, Doctor Beeching!

Story about rail passengers being sold tickets for trains which the rail companies know will not run over the Christmas period due to engineering works brought to mind an experience my Mum and I had back in the 60s.  I think I've mentioned before that my Mum had a schoolfriend who married a Welshman and they lived in Wales and every now and then we used to go and visit them.  We would catch the train and get off at a small one-man-and-his-dog station called Moat Lane Junction.  Well this one time we were there, sitting on the train, and suddenly realised it had gone straight through Moat Lane Junction without stopping.  So we found the guard (trains had on-board guards back then) and kicked up a fuss, only to be told that Moat Lane Junction had been closed down about six months previously as part of the Beeching cuts and we should never have been sold tickets to there.  We had to get off at the next station, which was Machynlleth, and my post dated 20-3-12 mentions what happened there!