Thanks for the reassurance -- but I can be awfully forgetful. My idea concerned the Wick & Lybster; and Cairn Valley (Dumfries -- Moniaive); lines -- in Scotland, both LMS (but ex-Highland and -GSWR respectively). The former was closed to all traffic, fair and square, in 1944. The Cairn Valley / Moniaive branch lost its passenger service in 1943 -- in my haste to set a question, I had in head, its closing completely then; but recollected some hours later that I actually knew that freight on the branch lasted till 1949 -- which I felt killed any symmetry or close likeness in the question; which was supposed to be about those qualities !
Going off at a tangent re the more southerly of the two lines: until a couple of months ago, to the best of my recollection the only references to Moniaive which had ever come my way, were to do with having been the terminus of an ill-fated and rather early-closed branch line; and I had only read the name, never heard it said aloud -- from reading it, I had (not being a Scot) no idea how it might be pronounced. Was intrigued to hear by chance, a radio current-affairs item this May, concerning this village. One learns that it hosts annually in late spring, a quite big folk-music festival which attracts many people from far and near and brings in much-needed cash to the locality; of course that function had to be cancelled this year, causing a problem for the local inhabitants. I fond out that the name is pronounced to rhyme with "bonny hive".
