In the immediate post-war period there was a need to rebuild the destroyed stations in London and along the busy East Coast Main Line and former Great Central Railway.

In the 1960s the Eastern became one of the regions most affected by the Beeching Axe, losing route miles in every county served and seeing the closure of previously important (but "duplicate") lines such as Harrogate to Northallerton via Ripon.

The Region continued the LNER's programme of electrification, using the then-standard 1500 V overhead DC system, in the London suburbs, allowing for the removal of steam services from Essex by the mid-1950s, and on the busy Woodhead route between Manchester and Sheffield.

However, the British Transport Commission felt that many Eastern Region routes would not benefit from this; indeed, many of the rural lines proposed for electrification were in fact closed entirely by Dr Beeching.

The premier East Coast Main Line was not electrified throughout until the late 1980s, by which time the Eastern Region had been abolished with the coming of sectorisation.