Yes, often forgotten how poor the service was on many of the lines closed in the Beeching era, whereas buses could get much closer to people's homes and often destinations, and there weren't enough other vehicles to slow them down much. Commuting was a thing from the genteel suburbs served by the electrification, but the likes of the Blyth area weren't the sort of places people would travel from to work.
Like re-openings of the Robin Hood Line, in South Wales and elsewhere, they are a result of the economy becoming much more service-based with jobs moving from local pits and factories into city centres. Re-using the rail infrastructure that mostly carried freight to and from those facilities to take people to where the jobs are is a small part of regenerating those left behind communities (though by no means enough). And we have done very little to get people to the other sorts of jobs, in out-of-town premises that are hard to reach without a car.
