ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Beeching cuts

Beeching cuts were a decision made a long time ago in the United Kingdom. Imagine if you have a toy box with many toys in it, but some of them are not played with so much, and they take up a lot of space.

The toy box is like the train system and the toys are different train stations. The Beeching cuts were a way of removing some train stations that weren't used as much to save space and money.

But much like when you take out toys from your toy box, sometimes you regret it, and other toys might not fit or work as well. This is what happened with the Beeching cuts, some people felt sorry and thought it was better to have kept those train stations.

That's why some people still talk about Beeching cuts today, because they were decisions made a long time ago, and they still impact the train system's layout and connections.