Rail chiefs should restore key train links, including one in Oxfordshire, and return major towns to the rail network, a report from passenger groups urged today.

Re-opening old tracks is generally cheaper than building major roads, the report added. Many viable schemes for re-opening disused tracks had got stuck at the planning stage.

The report is entitled Beeching in Reverse - a reference to the huge rail cuts made in the early 1960s by Dr Richard Beeching.

Among groups supporting the report are the Rail Passengers, Transport 2000 and the rail industry umbrella body, the Railway Forum.

Among the lines they argued should be reopened by the Strategic Rail Authority were:

**The east-west route, linking Oxford, Bicester, Cambridge and the east coast.

**The first stage of the Borders railway from Edinburgh to Galashiels on Scotland

**The former Midland main line through the Peak District National Park from Matlock to Buxton in Derbyshire.

The Strategic Rail Authority recently expressed doubts about the numbers of passengers a new east-west route would attract. The project is on hold.

The report recommended that regional audits should be carried out to identify all towns of 20,000 inhabitants or more without a direct rail service as a precursor to providing dedicated rail-link buses or direct rail services.

Report author Paul Salveson said: "What we need now is for the Strategic Rail Authority to actively promote line and station openings as part of a programme to restore missing links and put back on the map the major towns that Dr Beeching left stranded."