The history of rail transport in Great Britain 1948–1994 covers the period when the British railway system was

nationalised Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization contrasts with ...

under the name of 'British Railways', latterly known as ''

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Comm ...

'' until its eventual

privatisation Privatization (rendered privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation w ...

in 1994. The railway system in this period underwent modernisation, reorganisation and

rebranding Rebranding is a marketing strategy in which a new name, term, symbol, design, concept or combination thereof is created for an established brand with the intention of developing a new, differentiated identity in the minds of consumers, investors ...

, some of which proved controversial. The use of

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, Fuel oil, oil or, rarely, Wood fuel, wood) to heat ...

s on the network also ended in this period. Due to falling passenger numbers,

rail subsidies Many countries offer subsidies to their railways because of the social and economic benefits that it brings. The economic benefits can greatly assist in funding the rail network. Those countries usually also fund or subsidize road construction, and ...

from the government were necessary to keep the railways financially viable. Concerns about the levels of these contributed to the

Beeching cuts The Beeching cuts, also colloquially referred to as the Beeching Axe, were a major series of route closures and service changes made as part of the restructuring of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain in the 1960s. They are named ...

that closed down many less well used lines.

The 1940s: Nationalisation

The

Transport Act 1947 The Transport Act 1947 ( 10 & 11 Geo. 6. c. 49) was an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Under the terms of the Act, the railway network, long-distance road haulage and various other types of transport were nationalised ...

nationalised nearly all forms of mass transport in Great Britain and came into effect on 1 January 1948.

ways came into existence as the business name of the Railway Executive of the

British Transport Commission The British Transport Commission (BTC) was created by Clement Attlee's post-war Labour government as a part of its nationalisation programme, to oversee railways, canals and road freight transport in Great Britain (Northern Ireland had the s ...

(BTC) on 1 January 1948 when it took over the assets of the Big Four railway companies. A few independent

light railways A light railway is a Rail transport, railway built at lower costs and to lower standards than typical "heavy rail": it uses lighter-weight track, and may have more Grade (slope), steep gradients and Minimum railway curve radius, tight curves to ...

and

industrial railway An industrial railway is a type of railway (usually private) that is not available for public transportation and is used exclusively to serve a particular industrial, logistics, or military site. In regions of the world influenced by British r ...

s, which did not contribute significant mileage to the system, were not included in British Railways; nor the Glasgow Underground and

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or as the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent home counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England. The Undergro ...

, already both public concerns, the

Liverpool Overhead Railway The Liverpool Overhead Railway (known locally as the Dockers' Umbrella or Ovee) was an overhead railway in Liverpool that operated along the Liverpool Docks and opened in 1893 with lightweight electric multiple units. The railway had a number o ...

, and non-railway-owned

tram A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which Rolling stock, vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some ...

ways. The

Northern Counties Committee The Northern Counties Committee (NCC) was a railway that served the north-east of Ireland. It was built to Irish gauge () but later acquired a number of narrow gauge lines. It had its origins in the Belfast and Ballymena Railway which opened ...

lines owned by the

London, Midland & Scottish Railway The London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMSIt has been argued that the initials LMSR should be used to be consistent with LNER, GWR and SR. The London, Midland and Scottish Railway's corporate image used LMS, and this is what is generally ...

were sold to the

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

government, becoming part of the Ulster Transport Authority as a result of the Ireland Act 1949. Under the BTC's Railway Executive, the railways were organised into six regions: * Eastern Region (ER) – LNER lines south of Shaftholme Junction,

Doncaster Doncaster ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England. Named after the River Don, Yorkshire, River Don, it is the administrative centre of the City of Doncaster metropolitan borough, and is the second largest se ...

''(region later amalgamated with the North Eastern Region)'' * North Eastern Region (NER) – LNER lines in England north of Shaftholme Junction ''(region later amalgamated with the Eastern Region)'' * London Midland Region (LMR) – LMS lines in England and Wales. * Scottish Region (ScR) – LMS and LNER lines in Scotland * Southern Region (SR) – Southern Railway lines * Western Region (WR) –

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a History of rail transport in Great Britain, British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, ...

lines The first priority of the Railway Executive was to repair the infrastructure of the railways damaged by bombing, clear the backlog of maintenance that had built up, and make good losses in locomotives and rolling stock. The next priority was to attempt to unify the inherited railways of four separate and competing companies into one national network.

The 1950s: Modernisation

By the start of the 1950s, British Railways were making a working profit, albeit a small one. However, Britain had fallen well behind the rest of Europe in terms of dieselisation and electrification of its railways. There were political as well as practical reasons behind the resistance to dieselisation in particular: the Labour Government of

Clement Attlee Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee (3 January 18838 October 1967) was a British statesman who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951 and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955. At ...

did not want to significantly reduce the demand for domestically produced coal in favour of imported oil, thus both affecting the balance of payments and potentially causing unemployment. Robin Riddles, who was effectively the British Railways' Chief Mechanical Engineer, disagreed with the dieselisation programme, arguing that it would be too expensive to import oil given the large amounts of domestically available coal. He continued to order steam locomotives on a large scale and from 1948 to 1953, 1,487 steam locomotives were built. Although the initial focus was on repairing and renewing, some pre-war capital investment schemes that had stopped upon the outbreak of hostilities were restarted, for example the Manchester–Sheffield–Wath electrification over the Woodhead route and the Great Eastern suburban electrification. The new BR regions, formed largely around the management structures of the old "Big Four" companies, remained autonomous in terms both of organisation and production of locomotives and rolling stock, mostly continuing with pre-war designs – indeed, some designs were even older: the workhorse LNER Class J17 was designed in 1898. As a whole, the equipment of the new British Railways was outdated, often unreliable, and mostly in urgent need of a refurbishment. Only the Southern Region with its large electrified suburban network in

South London South London is the southern part of Greater London, England, south of the River Thames. The region consists of the Districts of England, boroughs, in whole or in part, of London Borough of Bexley, Bexley, London Borough of Bromley, Bromley, Lon ...

inherited from the Southern Railway operated a significant number of non-steam-powered trains. In 1951, the

approved a new series of standard locomotives and coaches incorporating design features primarily from the

but also the other pre-nationalisation companies. These standard designs were designed to be long-lasting but in the event few served to their full potential before being withdrawn during the 1960s. By the middle of the decade, however, it was clear that British Railways were in trouble, particularly in the freight haulage business to which they were losing ground to road and air traffic (the latter thanks to a postwar glut of available transport aircraft). The government ordered a review.

The Modernisation Plan

The report formally known as ''Modernisation and Re-Equipment of the British Railways'', more commonly the "Modernisation Plan", was published in December 1954. It was intended to bring the railway system up to date. A government

white paper A white paper is a report or guide that informs readers concisely about a complex issue and presents the issuing body's philosophy on the matter. It is meant to help readers understand an issue, solve a problem, or make a decision. Since the 199 ...

produced in 1956 stated that modernisation would help eliminate BR's financial deficit by 1962. The aim was to increase speed, reliability, safety and line capacity, through a series of measures that would make services more attractive to passengers and freight operators, thus recovering traffic that was being lost to the roads. The total cost of the plan was projected to be £1.24 billion (approximately £29 billion in 2020). The important areas were: * Electrification of principal main lines, in the Eastern Region,

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

, Birmingham and Central Scotland; * Large-scale

dieselisation Dieselisation (US: dieselization) is the process of equipping vehicles with a diesel engine or diesel engines. It can involve replacing an internal combustion engine powered by petrol (US: gasoline) fuel with an engine powered by diesel fuel, ...

to replace

steam locomotives A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...

; * New passenger and freight rolling stock; * Resignalling and track renewal; * Closure of small number of lines that were seen as unnecessary in a nationalised network, as they duplicated other lines; * Building of large freight marshalling yards, with automated shunting to streamline freight handling. The plan was reappraised in 1959 and a progress report was published in 1961. However, many railway historians including

Christian Wolmar Christian Tage Forter Wolmar (born 3 August 1949) is a British journalist, author, railway historian and Labour Party campaigner.wagonload traffic which they dealt with was in steep decline and being lost rapidly to the roads. Others have taken a different view. In her book ''British Rail: The Nation's Railway'', Tanya Jackson argues that the Modernisation Plan laid the foundations of the highly successful Inter-City operation as well as planting the seeds of modern industrial design in the railway organisation. This was to lead to British Rail producing its benchmark Corporate Identity Manual in the sixties. Above all, the Modernisation Plan endorsed the adoption and implementation of the 25,000v AC electrification system that has since been universally recognised as the modern standard.

Traction policy

The Modernisation Plan called for the large-scale introduction of diesel locomotives: a total of 2,500 locomotives for mainline service to be procured in 10 years at a cost of £125 million (£3 billion in 2020), plus the replacement of much of the existing pre-war passenger

rolling stock The term rolling stock in the rail transport industry refers to railway vehicles, including both powered and unpowered vehicles: for example, locomotives, Railroad car#Freight cars, freight and Passenger railroad car, passenger cars (or coaches) ...

with over 5,000 diesel or electric

multiple unit A multiple-unit train (or multiple unit (MU)) is a self-propelled train composed of one or more Coach (rail), carriages joined, and where one or more of the carriages have the means of propulsion built in. By contrast, a locomotive-hauled ...

s or new carriages at a further estimated cost of £285 million (£6.8 billion in 2020). The longer-term plan was to electrify all the major trunk routes, the important secondary lines and the remaining suburban systems, but the Plan initially called for the acquisition of 1,100 electric locomotives for £60 million (£1.4 billion in 2020) plus £125 million (£2.8 billion in 2020) for electric infrastructure. Diesel traction would therefore serve mainly as a stop-gap between steam and electric traction, remaining only for more minor routes, shunting and certain freight movements. This was a major change from BR's existing traction policy, drawn up immediately after nationalisation, which had been based on perpetuating

s: existing locomotive designs from the Big Four continued to be built post-nationalisation, and then BR designed a new series of standard locomotive classes. Entering service in 1951, the Standards were intended to have a service life of 30 years and would be superseded by a rolling programme of electrification. In its early years BR largely halted the work done by the Big Four experimenting with diesel traction – completing pilot orders for prototypes such as those from the Southern Railway that became BR's Class D16/2 – but not perpetuating them. The exception was the continuation of the introduction of a series of diesel-powered shunting locomotives such as what would be the

British Rail Class 08 The British Rail Class 08 is a class of diesel–electric shunting locomotives built by British Railways (BR). As the standard BR general-purpose diesel shunter, the class became a familiar sight at major stations and freight yards. Since the ...

and its variants, which entered service from 1951. The Modernisation Plan overturned this arrangement, even though many of the orders for the Standard steam locomotives were years from being fulfilled. Steam traction would now be replaced by diesels within a decade while the long-term electrification programme, while retained, would be slowed and scaled down. It was hoped that the rapid switch to diesel traction would deliver similar operational advantages and cost savings as electrification but at a faster pace and with much lower upfront capital costs. This committed many of the later-built Standard steam locomotives to be withdrawn having served only a third (or even less) of their intended service life. Although not laid out in the published Modernisation Plan, BR's initial approach to this huge acquisition task was to implement a pilot scheme, commissioning orders for 171 (later increased to 174) diesel locomotives from six independent manufacturers (due to currency and political considerations these were all British firms, even though several had little or no experience of diesel locomotive design and building) plus BR's own design offices and workshops. These designs were spread across the three power categories BR had decided would fulfil its mainline motive power needs. The designs commissioned deliberately represented a diverse range of engineering approaches (

electric Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter possessing an electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by Maxwel ...

and

hydraulic Hydraulics () is a technology and applied science using engineering, chemistry, and other sciences involving the mechanical properties and use of liquids. At a very basic level, hydraulics is the liquid counterpart of pneumatics, which concer ...

transmissions,

four-stroke A four-stroke (also four-cycle) engine is an internal combustion (IC) engine in which the piston completes four separate strokes while turning the crankshaft. A stroke refers to the full travel of the piston along the cylinder, in either directio ...

and two stroke engines, high- or medium-speed engines etc.) with numerous constructors and suppliers of engines and electrical equipment. The intention was that the most successful designs and elements proven by the pilot scheme would form the basis of the large-scale orders called for by the Modernisation Plan over the next decade. This policy was overtaken by political and economic events. BR's financial position was worsening as costs rose and traffic and revenue declined. BR's accounts had shown an overall negative balance since 1954 (−£23 million then, worsening to −£62 million by 1956) and in 1956 the organisation's net revenue fell into the negative for the first time: a loss of £16.5 million. Costs were still climbing, market share and volumes of both passenger and freight traffic were falling rapidly, and BR was facing a perpetual manpower shortage as the high employment and rising working and living standards and wages throughout the economy in the 1950s made working on the railways – especially the dirty, labour-intensive steam locomotives – unattractive. The railways were still suffering from a general public image of being outdated, inefficient and run down. The

and BR management therefore decided to expand the pilot scheme to hasten the introduction of modern traction. In May 1957 – a month before the first locomotive ordered under the original pilot scheme (the first of the English Electric Type 1s) entered service – the total orders were increased to 230 and the power categories were expanded from three to five, introducing new mid- and high-power types that BR had not originally considered necessary. In late 1958, as BR's financial balance approached an annual loss of £100 million and still well before many of the locomotives ordered in 1955 under the original pilot scheme had been built, the BTC agreed to further accelerate the adoption of diesel traction by placing sufficient orders to introduce 2300 diesel locomotives by the end of 1963. Although some designs were not perpetuated in these bulk orders on the basis of the early experience with the pilot scheme, many of the types included in these orders had not yet entered full service and in some cases the prototype had yet to be built. Designs for the new Type 3 power rating – not present in the pilot scheme – were ordered in quantity 'off the drawing board' and only one Type 5 design was in existence (the production version of the DP1 prototype, the existence of which actually predated both the Modernisation Plan and the pilot scheme, even though it was not included in either). With numerous manufacturers being required to produce their own designs to meet the deadline, the standardisation intended in the Modernisation Plan could not be achieved. The three standard classes originally planned – and even the five proposed in the revised plan – were replaced by a total of 14 distinct locomotive designs from numerous manufacturers, incorporating many of the diverse (and incompatible) features intended to be tested and evaluated against each other. This limited the theoretical operational benefits and cost savings from the widespread adoption of diesel traction, and many – but not all – of the designs ordered under the accelerated Modernisation Plan were plagued by reliability and service issues, leading to poor availability from the brand new locomotives and leaving some areas of the BR network with a shortage of serviceable traction in the early 1960s. Ironically, in 1967 British Railways drew up a National Traction Plan that rationalised its stock of locomotives and multiple units. Designs that had proved to be the most reliable and operationally efficient were selected for retention and modernisation while the others were designated 'non-standard' and earmarked for quick withdrawal and replacement – a belated implementation of the original pilot scheme that saw many of the locomotives ordered in the late 1950s withdrawn after only a decade in service and in some cases even before the steam locomotives they were intended to supersede. There were some fundamental incorrect assumptions with the classes of new locomotives ordered under the Modernisation Plan. Steam locomotives were replaced by diesel types on a 'like-for-like' basis with BR ordering, for example, large numbers of light-duty diesels intended for local mixed-goods services (such as the Class 20 and Class 24), which failed to take into account the decline in local and branch line goods services that was largely switching to the roads. In conjunction with the new marshalling yards, large numbers of diesel shunters were ordered that soon became rendered virtually obsolete by the rise of container freight and, like the yards they worked in, often only served a few years before being scrapped.

Freight services

The Modernisation Plan failed to successfully redefine what the purpose of the railways was. British Railways remained bound by the Railway and Canal Traffic Acts that obligated it to provide carriage for virtually any type of goods, regardless of quantity (large or small) between any two stations on the network, at set and published rates. This legislation dated back to the 19th century to prevent the railways abusing their

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek and ) is a market in which one person or company is the only supplier of a particular good or service. A monopoly is characterized by a lack of economic Competition (economics), competition to produce ...

as the sole practical long-distance transport provider for much of the country, but the growth of

road transport Road transport or road transportation is a type of transport using roads. Transport on roads can be roughly grouped into the transportation of goods and transportation of people. In many countries licensing requirements and safety regulations e ...

had left the railways locked into a highly disadvantageous position. Road freight operators had no legal restrictions and could turn down work that was uneconomic, which BR could not, and could easily undercut BR's carriage rates which the railway could not alter without legal consent. The Railway and Canal Traffic Acts also saddled BR with the necessity to maintain thousands of goods yards and other facilities, plus rolling stock and staff to service them, even when there was ever-decreasing demand for those services and such traffic as did exist was rarely profitable. This issue had been identified during the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

, and the Big Four had campaigned for repeal of the Railway and Canal Traffic Acts as a 'Fair Deal' during the 1930s. However, this did not happen until the Transport Act 1962 gave BR freedom of contract, and until then the Modernisation Plan had to commission locomotives, rolling stock and facilities to manage the ever-declining but legally required

wagonload freight In rail freight transportation the terms wagonload or wagonload freight refer to trains made of single wagon consignments of freight. In the US and Canada the term carload refers to a single car of any kind, and manifest train refers to trains mad ...

traffic. The timing of the Modernisation Plan was also unfortunate, as just months after its publication the train drivers'

trade union A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

, ASLEF, called a strike that lasted for 17 days, causing major disruption to the network. Many of BR's long-standing freight customers – especially smaller business and industrial users which provided much of the remaining wagonload and less than carload freight traffic – were forced by necessity to start using road transport and never returned to the railways, which hastened the decline in railway freight traffic and rapidly undermined the logic and business case for the Plan's renewal and expansion of large marshalling yards.

Outcome

The Modernisation Plan was a hugely costly failure for BR. The total cost was greater than the estimate, eventually exceeding £1.6 billion (£33 billion in 2020), while the railways' financial losses (between £102 million and £68 million per year throughout the 1960s) increased as traffic volumes and market share continued to decline. While some of the new locomotives and rolling stock procured under the Plan were successful and would go on to have very long service lives, many proved to be embarrassing (and high-profile) failures. The modernisation of BR's freight-handling facilities was ineffective and even before the Plan was officially concluded, many of the large yards built a few years previously were mostly empty. The comprehensive failure of the Plan to achieve its goals created a deep-seated distrust of BR's internal management within the

Treasury A treasury is either *A government department related to finance and taxation, a finance ministry; in a business context, corporate treasury. *A place or location where treasure, such as currency or precious items are kept. These can be ...

and wider central government, causing BR's funding to be restricted and making any further large-scale investment to reform or modernise the railways virtually impossible – an attitude that was to dog BR for the rest of its existence. The Macmillan government responded to BR's financial issues and the failure of the Modernisation Plan by commissioning

Richard Beeching Richard Beeching, Baron Beeching (21 April 1913 – 23 March 1985), commonly known as Dr Beeching, was a physicist and engineer who for a short but very notable time was chairman of British Railways. He became a household name in Britain in the ...

to identify ways of stemming BR's losses and cutting operational costs, a very different premise from the large-scale investment and expansion of the Modernisation Plan.

Electrification

The Modernisation Plan called for significant suburban and main-line electrification. Despite investment in two 1.5 kV DC overhead schemes only a few years earlier, outside the Southern Region this was mostly done with the new standard 25 kV AC overhead line equipment (OLE), leaving these two older systems obsolescent. In the Eastern region the plan called for electrification of many routes to this standard. These included the London, Tilbury and Southend (LTS) line; suburban lines out of London Liverpool Street, recently partially electrified on the 1.5 kV DC system, were upgraded initially to a mix of 6.25 kV AC and 25 kV AC OLE and extended. The London King's Cross suburban lines were electrified at 25 kV AC in the 1970s. In the Scottish region electrification of large parts of the Glasgow Suburban was called for again at 25 kV AC OLE, which would over time grow into a large system. In the Southern Region the already extensive

third rail A third rail, also known as a live rail, electric rail or conductor rail, is a method of providing electric power to a railway locomotive or train, through a semi-continuous rigid conductor placed alongside or between the rails of a track (r ...

system was to be extended to the

Coast. In addition to the suburban electrification, main line electrification was called for, starting with the

West Coast Main Line The West Coast Main Line (WCML) is one of the most important railway corridors in the United Kingdom, connecting the major cities of London and Glasgow with branches to Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Edinburgh. It is one of the busiest ...

. This was done in stages from 1959 to 1974, initially connecting

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

and

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

to London, and going on to

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

. The continuing electrification programme of the 1980s which saw the electrification of the

East Coast Main Line The East Coast Main Line (ECML) is a electrified railway between its northern terminus at and southern terminus at . The key towns and cities of , , , , and are on the line. The line is a key transport artery on the eastern side of Grea ...

, London St Pancras suburban system and further extension of the Southern Region network can be seen as a direct extension of this plan.

Other events

Two serious crashes, the Harrow and Wealdstone rail crash in 1952 (in which 112 people died) and the Lewisham rail crash in 1957 (in which 90 people died), led to the introduction of the

Automatic Warning System Automatic Warning System (AWS) is a railway safety system invented and predominantly used in the United Kingdom. It provides a train driver with an audible indication of whether the next Railway_signal, signal they are approaching is clear or a ...

across the network. In 1958 the region boundaries were redrawn to make them geographical rather than based on pre-nationalisation ownership. Former LMS lines in

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...

were transferred from the London Midland to the Eastern and North Eastern region: the London Midland region gained the former

Great Central Railway The Great Central Railway in England was formed when the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway changed its name in 1897, anticipating the opening in 1899 of its Great Central Main Line, London Extension. On 1 January 1923, the company ...

lines outside Yorkshire and

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (), abbreviated ''Lincs'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber regions of England. It is bordered by the East Riding of Yorkshire across the Humber estuary to th ...

from the Eastern Region in return. Former LMS lines in the south-west of the country, including the northern section of the

Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway The Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway (S&DJR, also known as the S&D, S&DR or SDJR), was an English railway line Joint railway, jointly owned by the Midland Railway (MR) and the London and South Western Railway (LSWR) that grew to connect Bat ...

, were transferred to the Western region. Some routes were closed during the 1950s to take account of changing transport patterns and to remove obvious route duplication. For instance, in

East Anglia East Anglia is an area of the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, with parts of Essex sometimes also included. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, ...

most of the former

Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway The Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway (M&GNJR) was a railway network in England, in the area connecting southern Lincolnshire, the Isle of Ely and north Norfolk. It developed from several local independent concerns and was incorporated i ...

was closed in 1959; long-distance passenger trains on the former Great Central Railway main line ended in 1960 as a prelude to its later closure. However, the route closures were just a small taste of what was to come.

The 1960s: Rationalisation

The Beeching reports

By 1960, the railway's performance was low, with a deficit of £68m. This increased to £87m in 1961 and still further to £104m in 1962 (£ billion in terms). Under the Transport Act of 1962,

Harold Macmillan Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986), was a British statesman and Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. Nickn ...

's Conservative government dissolved the British Transport Commission, and created the

British Railways Board The British Railways Board (BRB) was a State ownership, nationalised industry in the United Kingdom that operated from 1963 to 2001. Until 1997, it was responsible for most railway services in History of rail transport in Great Britain 1995 to d ...

to take over its railway duties from 1 January 1963. The railway's huge deficit and the reputation earned during the Modernisation Plan fiasco for bad financial planning led the government to take firm action. In 1961, the Transport Minister

Ernest Marples Alfred Ernest Marples, Baron Marples, (9 December 1907 – 6 July 1978) was a British Conservative politician who served as Postmaster General (1957–1959) and Minister of Transport (1959–1964). As Postmaster General, he oversaw the intro ...

appointed

as head of British Railways with a brief to cut the spiralling losses. Beeching was a businessman rather than a railwayman and his high salary (particularly in a nationalised industry) caused controversy. His report ''The Reshaping of British Railways'' (commonly known simply as "The Beeching Report") issued in 1963, concluded that much of the railway network carried little traffic and should be closed down. His report proposed a massive closures programme which would involve 5,000 miles of track, and 2,363 small stations being closed, which came to be known as the

Beeching axe The Beeching cuts, also colloquially referred to as the Beeching Axe, were a major series of route closures and service changes made as part of the restructuring of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain in the 1960s. They are named ...

. The report also proposed that British Rail electrify some major main lines and adopt containerised freight traffic instead of outdated and uneconomic wagon-load traffic. The closures recommended by the report were mostly implemented. They peaked in the mid-1960s and continued until the early 1970s. By 1975, the system had shrunk to 12,000 miles (19,000 km) of track and 2,358 stations. In the event, the closures failed to produce the hoped for savings, or to restore the railways to profitability. In 1965, Beeching issued a second, less well-known, report ''The Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes'', widely known as "Beeching II", which singled out lines that were believed to be worthy of continued large-scale investment. This did not recommend closures as such, but outlined a 3,000-mile "network for development". The fate of the remaining network was not discussed in the report.

Modernisation continues

The late 1950s to the end of the 1960s saw first a reduction, then the final withdrawal of Britain's fleet of steam locomotives. Mass withdrawals of older classes started towards the end of the 1950s, with many of the pre-grouping companies' engines being scrapped. BR built its last steam engine, appropriately named '' Evening Star'' at

Swindon Works Swindon Works was opened by the Great Western Railway in 1843 in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. It served as the principal west England maintenance centre until closed in 1986. History In 1835, Parliament approved the construction of the Great ...

in 1960, by early 1966 the Western Region was the first to have no steam locomotives at all and the last pocket of steam traction was withdrawn in the North-West of England in 1968. The short narrow-gauge

Vale of Rheidol Railway The Vale of Rheidol Railway () is a Narrow gauge railway, narrow gauge heritage railway in Ceredigion, Wales, between Aberystwyth and Devil's Bridge, Ceredigion, Devil's Bridge; a journey of . It opened in 1902 and, from the Withdrawal of ste ...

Aberystwyth Aberystwyth (; ) is a University town, university and seaside town and a community (Wales), community in Ceredigion, Wales. It is the largest town in Ceredigion and from Aberaeron, the county's other administrative centre. In 2021, the popula ...

in Wales was the only exception: it was still steam-operated on its sale by BR in 1989. The new diesel locomotives, so troublesome during the Modernisation Plan years, were becoming more reliable and the closure of so many routes after the Beeching Report meant that the required fleet reduced significantly, and by the end of the 1960s, all the pre-nationalisation rolling stock had been replaced with the new standard patterns. In the early 1960s yellow warning panels, now characteristic of British railways, were added to the fronts of diesel and electric locomotives and multiple units in order to increase the safety of track workers. The Transport Act 1962 converted British Railways from being the

trade name A trade name, trading name, or business name is a pseudonym used by companies that do not operate under their registered company name. The term for this type of alternative name is fictitious business name. Registering the fictitious name with ...

of a BTC activity to a separate public corporation, as the

. As the last steam locomotives were withdrawn, the corporation's public name was re-branded in 1965 as British Rail (see

British Rail brand names British Rail was the brand image of the nationalised railway owner and operator in Great Britain, the British Railways Board, used from 1965 until its Privatisation of British Rail, breakup and sell-off from 1993 onwards. From an initial stand ...

for a full history). This re-branding introduced the double-arrow logo to represent the industry as a whole; the standardised

Rail Alphabet Rail Alphabet is a Sans-serif#Neo-grotesque, neo-grotesque sans-serif typeface designed by Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert for signage on the British Rail network. First used at Liverpool Street station, it was then adopted by the Design Res ...

typeface A typeface (or font family) is a design of Letter (alphabet), letters, Numerical digit, numbers and other symbols, to be used in printing or for electronic display. Most typefaces include variations in size (e.g., 24 point), weight (e.g., light, ...

used for all communications and signs; and the BR blue livery, which was applied to nearly all locomotives and rolling stock. A minor reorganisation in 1967 saw the North Eastern region become part of the Eastern region.

The 1970s: HST and APT

The 1970s saw British Rail successfully introduce high speed diesel train services, as well as major resignalling projects designed to increase operational efficiency. In 1976, the

InterCity 125 The InterCity 125 (originally Inter-City 125) or High Speed Train (HST) is a diesel-powered High-speed rail, high-speed passenger train built by British Rail Engineering Limited between 1975 and 1982. A total of 95 sets were produced, each com ...

High Speed Train (HST) was introduced on some services and the InterCity brand was adopted. This created an increase in passengers using the railways and improved British Rail's finances. British Rail also started development of the world's first

tilting train A tilting train is a train that has a mechanism enabling increased speed on regular rail tracks. As a train (or other vehicle) rounds a curve at speed, objects inside the train experience centrifugal force. This can cause packages to slide about ...

– the Advanced Passenger Train (APT). However, lack of money, political pressure and the launch of the prototype into passenger service before technical problems were fully overcome led to the project being cancelled in the early 1980s. The major engineering works of BR were split-off into a separate company,

British Rail Engineering Limited British Rail Engineering Limited (BREL) was the rolling stock manufacturing and maintenance subsidiary of British Rail. It was established on 1 January 1970 by the British Railways Board to operate its 14 rolling stock maintenance centres and ...

, in 1970. This was subsequently split further, becoming British Rail Maintenance Limited, whose ownership was retained by British Rail; and British Rail Engineering (1988) Limited, which was prepared for privatisation. The latter went through a series of owners, mergers and take-overs and now resides with Canadian transport company Bombardier. In 1973, the TOPS computer system for managing locomotives and

owned by a rail system, was introduced. Hauled rolling stock continued to carry numbers in a separate series. The adoption of the TOPS system made for some changes in the way the railway system in Britain worked. Hitherto, locomotives were numbered in three different series.

Steam locomotives A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...

carried unadorned numbers up to five digits long.

Diesel locomotive A diesel locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover (locomotive), power source is a diesel engine. Several types of diesel locomotives have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is con ...

s carried four-digit numbers prefixed with a letter 'D' and

electric locomotive An electric locomotive is a locomotive powered by electricity from overhead lines, a third rail or on-board energy storage such as a Battery (electricity), battery or a supercapacitor. Locomotives with on-board fuelled prime mover (locomotive), ...

s with a letter 'E'. Thus, up to three locomotives could carry the same number – steam loco 4321, diesel D4321 and electric loco E4321. TOPS could not handle this and it also required similar locomotives to be numbered in a consecutive series in terms of classification, in order that they might be treated together as a group. A new classification system was devised in which, for example, all Brush Type 4 locomotives were now called Class 47 and all had numbers beginning 47xxx.

The Intercity 125 High Speed Train

The

was planned as a stop gap measure, meant to fill until electrification was spread across all main lines and the Advanced Passenger Train (APT) was in service. Research had begun for the tilting train but it was not possible to predict when the APT would enter service. The HST applied what had been learned so far to traditional technology – a parallel project to the APT development, based on conventional principles but incorporating the newly discovered knowledge of wheel/rail interaction and suspension design. The class holds the

world record A world record is usually the best global and most important performance that is ever recorded and officially verified in a specific skill, sport, or other kind of activity. The book ''Guinness World Records'' and other world records organizatio ...

for diesel traction, achieving 148.4 mph (238 km/h) with a shortened set running speed trials between Darlington and York. Unlike the APT, the InterCity 125 was an outstanding success and was still in widespread use in . The HST was introduced from 1976 on the

Great Western Main Line The Great Western Main Line (GWML) is a main line railway in England that runs between London Paddington and . It connects to other main lines such as those from Reading to Penzance and Swindon to Swansea. The GWML is presently a part of t ...

between London Paddington and Bristol Temple Meads/

Swansea Swansea ( ; ) is a coastal City status in the United Kingdom, city and the List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, second-largest city of Wales. It forms a Principal areas of Wales, principal area, officially known as the City and County of ...

, at a time when the maximum speed of British trains was 100 mph (160 km/h). A radical update of the standard BR livery was complemented by the 'InterCity 125' branding which also appeared on timetables and promotional literature. By May 1977 the full complement was in service on the GWML and they completely replaced locomotive hauled trains on the Bristol/South Wales routes. Production continued, allowing the InterCity 125s to take over routes on the

from 1978. They soon displaced the Class 55 locomotives to lesser workings and reduced the journey time to Edinburgh by up to an hour. The HSTs also took over routes on other West of England services from 1979, Cross-Country express trains from 1981 and finally the

Midland Main Line The Midland Main Line (MML), sometimes also spelt Midland Mainline, is a major Rail transport in Great Britain, railway line from London to Sheffield in Yorkshire via the East Midlands. It comprises the lines from London's St Pancras railway ...

services. The increased speed and rapid acceleration and deceleration slashed journey times around the country. BR enjoyed a boom in patronage on the routes operated by the HSTs and InterCity's profits jumped accordingly – with cross-subsidisation in turn safeguarding the future of remaining rural routes which had been under threat of closure since the Beeching Axe of the 1960s. However, by 1986/87, InterCity was losing £100m a year before interest, contributing to British Rail's £720m deficit.

The Advanced Passenger Train

In the 1970s, British Rail developed

technology in the Advanced Passenger Train; there had been earlier experiments and prototypes in other countries, notably Italy. The objective of the tilt was to minimise the discomfort to passengers caused by taking the curves of the

at high speed. The APT also had hydrokinetic brakes, which enabled the train to stop from 150 mph within existing signal spacings. The introduction into service of the Advanced Passenger Train was to be a three-stage project. Phase 1, the development of an experimental APT ( APT-E), was completed. This used a

gas turbine-electric locomotive A gas turbine locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a gas turbine. Several types of gas turbine locomotive have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is conveyed to the driving ...

, the only

so powered that was used by British Rail. It was formed of two

power car In rail transport, the expression power car may refer to either of two distinct types of rail vehicle: *a vehicle that propels, and commonly also controls, a passenger train, potentially a multiple unit train, often as the lead vehicle; *a veh ...

s (numbers PC1 and PC2), initially with nothing between them and later, two trailer cars (TC1 and TC2). The cars were made of aluminium to reduce the weight of the unit and were articulated. The

gas turbine A gas turbine or gas turbine engine is a type of Internal combustion engine#Continuous combustion, continuous flow internal combustion engine. The main parts common to all gas turbine engines form the power-producing part (known as the gas gene ...

was dropped from development, due to excessive noise and the high fuel costs of the late 1970s. The APT-E first ran on 25 July 1971. The train drivers' union, ASLEF, black-listed the train due to its use of a single driver. The train was moved to

Derby Derby ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area on the River Derwent, Derbyshire, River Derwent in Derbyshire, England. Derbyshire is named after Derby, which was its original co ...

(with the aid of a locomotive inspector). This triggered a one-day strike by ASLEF that cost BR more than the research budget for the entire year. Phase 2, the introduction of three prototype trains (APT-P) into revenue service on the

– London Euston route, did occur. Originally, there were to have been eight APT-P sets running, with minimal differences between them and the main fleet. However, financial constraints lead to only three being authorised, after two years of discussion by the British Railways Board. The cost was split equally between the Board and the

Ministry of Transport A ministry of transport or transportation is a ministry responsible for transportation within a country. It usually is administered by the ''minister for transport''. The term is also sometimes applied to the departments or other government a ...

. After these delays, considerable pressure grew to put the APT-P into revenue-service before they were fully ready. This inevitably lead to high-profile failures as a result of technical problems. These failures led to the trains being withdrawn from service while the problems were ironed out. However, by this time, managerial and political support had evaporated. Consequently, phase 3, the introduction of the Squadron fleet (APT-S), did not occur, and the project was ended in 1982. Although the APT never properly entered service, the experience gained enabled the construction of other high-speed trains. The APT powercar technology was imported without the tilt into the design of the Class 91 locomotives, and the tilting technology was incorporated first into Italian State Railway's

Pendolino Pendolino (from Italian language, Italian "pendulum", and ''-ino,'' a diminutive suffix) is an Italian family of high-speed tilting trains (and non-tilting) used in Italy, Spain, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Finland, the Czech Republic, ...

trains, which entered service in 1987, and subsequently in the UK in the design of the Class 390 units which operate on the West Coast Main Line today.

The 1980s: Sectorisation

During the 1980s, the regions of BR were abolished and the system sectorised into business sectors. The passenger sectors were

InterCity InterCity (commonly abbreviated ''IC'' on timetables and tickets) is the train categories in Europe, classification applied to certain long-distance passenger train services in Europe. Such trains (in contrast to InterRegio, regional train, r ...

(express services),

Network SouthEast Network SouthEast (NSE) was one of the three passenger sectors of British Rail created in 1982. NSE mainly operated commuter rail trains within Greater London and inter-urban services in densely populated South East England, although the networ ...

(London commuter services) and Regional Railways (regional services). Trainload Freight took trainload freight, Railfreight Distribution took non-trainload freight, Freightliner took intermodal traffic and

Rail Express Systems Rail Express Systems (RES) was a sector of British Rail. This sector was responsible for transport of mail and parcels, including the travelling post office trains, as well as taking over charter operations from InterCity (British Rail), InterC ...

took parcels traffic. The maintenance and remaining engineering works were split off into a new company, British Rail Maintenance Limited. The new sectors were further subdivided into divisions. This ended the BR blue period as new liveries were adopted gradually. Infrastructure remained the responsibility of the regions until the "Organisation for Quality" initiative in 1991, when this too was transferred to the sectors. 365530 arriving at Cambridge

In the early 1980s, under the government of

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013), was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of th ...

, the possibility of more Beeching-style cuts was raised again briefly. In 1983 Sir David Serpell, a civil servant who had worked with Dr Beeching, compiled what became known as the Serpell Report which called for more rail closures. The report was met with fierce resistance from many quarters, and it was quickly abandoned. Prices rose quickly in this period, rising 108% in real terms from 1979 to 1994, as prices rose by 262% but RPI only increased by 154% in the same time. Regional Railways-liveried Central Trains DMU 153356 at Lincoln 02

Regional Railways-liveried Central Trains DMU 153356 at Lincoln 02

Much of the rolling stock of BR was becoming increasingly obsolete and nearing the end of its life. An attempt at a cheap DMU replacement was made with the Pacer—essentially a modified bus body mounted on a rigid 4-wheel freight wagon chassis—which met with customer dissatisfaction. However, more successful stock such as the Sprinter DMU, the Networker DMUs, and EMUs were introduced. To considerable surprise, the Thatcher government, which had been perceived as anti-rail, authorised the electrification of the

including the line from

Leeds Leeds is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest settlement in Yorkshire and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds Metropolitan Borough, which is the second most populous district in the United Kingdom. It is built aro ...

from 1985, with the work completed in 1991. At a regional level,

undertook numerous electrification projects, including the

Bedford Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population was 106,940. Bedford is the county town of Bedfordshire and seat of the Borough of Bedford local government district. Bedford was founded at a ford (crossin ...

and the Southern 750 V DC system reached

Hastings Hastings ( ) is a seaside town and Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England, east of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place to th ...

and Weymouth. Electrification in East Anglia included the line from London Liverpool Street to

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of the county of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. It lies by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. The population of the Norwich ...

and also to

King's Lynn King's Lynn, known until 1537 as Bishop's Lynn and colloquially as Lynn, is a port and market town in the borough of King's Lynn and West Norfolk in the county of Norfolk, England. It is north-east of Peterborough, north-north-east of Cambridg ...

Thameslink Thameslink is a mainline route on the British railway network, running from , , , , , and via central London to , , , Rainham, , , and . The network opened as a through service in 1988, with severe overcrowding by 1998, carrying more than ...

, a service that connected the northern and southern halves of London's suburban network, was introduced via the re-opened Snow Hill tunnel in 1988. The

Chiltern Main Line The Chiltern Main Line is a railway line which links London () and Birmingham (Birmingham Moor Street railway station, Moor Street and Birmingham Snow Hill railway station, Snow Hill) on a route via High Wycombe, Bicester, Banbury, Leamington ...

was extensively modernised to open up an additional link between

London Marylebone Marylebone station ( ) is a London station group, Central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in the Marylebone area of the City of Westminster. On the National Rail network, it is also known as London Marylebone a ...

and Birmingham Snow Hill. The service was successfully launched in 1987.

Clapham Junction accident

In 1988, the Clapham Junction rail crash killed 35 people when three commuter trains collided, the worst railway accident in Britain in 30 years. The recommendations of the subsequent inquiry had far-reaching effects. The inquiry was chaired by QC

Anthony Hidden Sir Anthony Brian Hidden (7 March 1936 – 19 February 2016) was a British barrister and judge, known for chairing the enquiry into the 1988 Clapham Junction rail crash. Biography Anthony Hidden was educated at Reigate Grammar School becoming ...

and published a report in September 1989. It found that the direct cause of the disaster was sloppy work practices in which an old wire, incorrectly left in place after rewiring work and still connected at the supply end, created a false feed to a signal relay, thereby causing its signal to show green when it should have shown red. A contributing technical factor was the lack of

double switching frame, A single-switched relay can close inadvertently in response to a single false feed current. frame, A double-switched relay cannot close inadvertently with the application of the same current. At least two separate faults would be required t ...

in the signal relay circuits, which would have prevented a single false feed causing an accident. The inquiry recommended the introduction of the

Automatic Train Protection Automatic train protection (ATP) is the generic term for train protection systems that continually check that the speed of a train is compatible with the permitted speed allowed by signalling, including automatic stop at certain signal aspects ...

(ATP) system, although it is not certain this would have prevented the accident (ATP guards against driver error, not installation error). Following the Clapham Junction accident and two other fatal accidents in early 1989, British Rail was keen to implement the ATP system across the entire British railway network. However, the then

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...

government, which was preparing the company for

, baulked at the cost (estimated at over £1bn). In the end, two different proprietary systems were trialled, TBL on the

and SELCAB on the

, but neither system was rolled out across the network. Today, all

HSTs are fitted with ATP and are not permitted to carry passengers unless the system is functioning. The Hidden report also reacted to criticism of the 1950s-designed Mk 1 coaching stock involved in the accident. The report accepted that withdrawal of the Mark 1 units was not practical and the design was safe: "The inventory of Mark I coaching stock is large, and much of it has not reached an end of economic life, nor will do so for another decade or more. Mark I vehicles have good riding qualities, and are not intrinsically lacking in collision resistance." British Rail was still using multiple units with underframes that had been constructed before World War II and these had priority for replacement.

The 1990s: Privatisation

The first half of the 1990s was dominated by the

privatisation of British Rail The privatisation of British Rail was the process by which ownership and operation of the Rail transport in Great Britain, railways of Great Britain passed from government control into private hands. Begun in 1994, the process was largely compl ...

by the government of

John Major Sir John Major (born 29 March 1943) is a British retired politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997. Following his defeat to Ton ...

. The privatisation was the result of the Railways Act 1993 and the operations of the

(BRB) were broken up and sold off. (Some "non-core" parts of the BRB's operations, such as its hotels, had been sold off by the administration of Margaret Thatcher in the early 1980s.) In 1990,

was replaced by John Major as Prime Minister. The Thatcher administration had already sold off nearly all the former state-owned industries, apart from the national rail network. In its manifesto for the 1992 general election the Conservatives included a commitment to privatise the railways, but were not specific about details. They unexpectedly won the election on 9 April 1992 and, consequently, had to develop a plan to carry out the privatisation before the Railways Bill was published the next year. The management of British Rail strongly advocated privatisation as one entity, a British Rail PLC in effect. John Major favoured the resurrection of something like the "Big Four" companies that had existed before 1948. The Treasury advocated the creation of seven, later 25, passenger railway franchises as a way of maximising revenue. The Treasury view prevailed. Despite privatisation being on the agenda, in Yorkshire the Wharfedale line was electrified starting in 1994 by British Rail. A follow on from the

upgrade was to be the nationwide roll-out of the

system, which helped prevent accidents caused by Signals Passed at Danger (SPADs). However, privatisation intervened and this plan was abandoned. A lack of resources also led to the cancellation during the planning stage of other major infrastructure refurbishment projects, including

Crossrail Crossrail is a completed railway project centred on London. It provides a high-frequency hybrid commuter rail and rapid transit system, akin to the Réseau Express Régional, RER in Paris and the S-Bahn systems of German-speaking countries, kn ...

, an east–west line through London which eventually opened in May 2022. The

InterCity 250 The InterCity 250 was an electric railway project undertaken by British Rail in the late 1980s. The InterCity 250 train would have consisted of a Class 93 electric locomotive, nine Mark 5 coaches and a Mark 5 Driving Van Trailer operating in ...

upgrade to the West Coast Main Line was also cancelled, this instead ran as the West Coast Main Line upgrade which allowed tilting

s to run at 125 mph . The Railways Bill established a complex structure for the rail industry. British Rail was broken up and sold to private companies, splitting the structure into over 100 separate companies. There were some regulatory mechanisms: contracts for the use of railway facilities must be approved or directed by the

Office of Rail Regulation The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) is a non-ministerial government department responsible for the economic and safety regulation of Britain's railways, and the economic monitoring of National Highways. ORR regulates Network Rail by setting its a ...

, although some facilities are exempt from this requirement. Contracts between the principal

passenger train A passenger train is a train used to transport people along a railroad line, as opposed to a freight train that carries goods. These trains may consist of unpowered passenger railroad cars (also known as coaches or carriages) push-pull train, ...

operators and the state are called "franchise agreements", which specify minimum service levels, and the amount of subsidy / premium to be paid over the course of the franchise. Franchises were first the responsibility of the Office of Passenger Rail Franchising, then its successor the Strategic Rail Authority and now with the

Secretary of State for Transport The secretary of state for transport, also referred to as the transport secretary, is a Secretary of State (United Kingdom), secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with overall responsibility for the policies of the Departm ...

. Initially, British Rail was broken up into various units frequently based on its own organisational sectors, still controlled by the British Railways Board, but which were sold off over the next few years. The passage of the Railways Bill was controversial and there was much lobbying against the Bill. The Labour Party opposed its passage and promised to renationalise the railways, as and when resources allowed, when it returned to government. This commitment, however, did not make it to the party's manifesto for the 1997 general election and was not achieved during their period in government between 1997 and 2010. The Railways Bill became the

Railways Act Railways Act (with its variations) is a stock short title used in India, Malaysia and the United Kingdom for legislation relating to railways. List India *The Indian Railways Act 1890 *The Railways Act, 1989 Malaysia *The Railways Act 1991 *The R ...

on 5 November 1993, and the organisational structure dictated by it came into effect on 1 April 1994.

References

Sources

* * * * * * * * *Wilson, David C. "Forward! The Revolution in the Lives of the Footplatemen 1962–1996" Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 1996. {{DEFAULTSORT:History of Rail Transport in Great Britain 1948-1994

1948 Events January * January 1 ** The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated. ** The current Constitutions of Constitution of Italy, Italy and of Constitution of New Jersey, New Jersey (both later subject to amendment) ...

Rail transport in Great Britain 1948-1994 History of British Rail