The closures database records the individual line and station closures of the Reshaping era: what was proposed, the date of the last advertised passenger service, the date of the last freight, the London Gazette closure notice where one exists, and what remains on the ground today. It is compiled entry by entry against primary sources, so it is published in stages rather than all at once.
Closure has more than one date: the last advertised train, the formal date of withdrawal, and the date the track was lifted are often different. Each entry states which date it gives and the source for it. Where a date is uncertain, the entry says so.
How the database is built
Entries are drawn from the British Railways Board closure notices, the London Gazette, the Ministry of Transport records, and cross-referenced with Nick Catford’s Disused Stations project, to which this archive links from every station page where Catford’s team has published a comparable entry. Line-level detail is linked from the individual line pages as they are published.
See also the Reshaping Report for the 1963 proposals in full, and the year-by-year chronology of closures as it is compiled.
- British Railways Board closure notices and the London Gazette.
- Disused Stations (Nick Catford, Subterranea Britannica).
- Awdry, C. (1990) Encyclopaedia of British Railway Companies, PSL.