This article lists the wide variety of

locomotive A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the Power (physics), motive power for a train. If a locomotive is capable of carrying a payload, it is usually rather referred to as a multiple unit, Motor coach (rail), motor ...

s and

multiple unit A multiple-unit train or simply multiple unit (MU) is a self-propelled train composed of one or more carriages joined together, which when coupled to another multiple unit can be controlled by a single driver, with multiple-unit train contr ...

s that have operated on

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

's railway network, since Nationalisation in 1948.

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

used several numbering schemes for classifying its steam locomotive types and other rolling stock, before settling on the

TOPS Total Operations Processing System (TOPS) is a computer system for managing railway locomotives and rolling stock, known for many years of use in the United Kingdom. TOPS was originally developed between the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP), S ...

computer system in the late 1960s. TOPS has remained in use ever since.

Steam locomotives

* Steam locomotives in use after 1968: Class 98

Diesel and electric locomotives

* Diesel locomotives: Classes 01–70 * DC electric and electro-diesel locomotives: Classes 70–79 * AC electric locomotives: Classes 80–96 * Departmental locos (those not in revenue-earning use): Class 97 * Miscellaneous locomotives, including builders' demonstrators.

Shipping fleet

British Rail's shipping fleet:

Diesel multiple units

* Units with mechanical or hydraulic transmission: Classes 100-199 * Units with electric transmission: Classes 200–299

Electric multiple units

* Overhead AC units: Classes 300–399 * Southern Region DC third rail EMUs: Classes 400–499 * Other DC EMUs: Classes 500–599

Alternative Fuel multiple units

British Rail Class 600 The British Rail Class 600 ''Breeze'' was a proposed class of hydrogen fuel cell-powered multiple units that was to have been converted from existing BREL Class 321 electric multiple units. The project commenced in 2018, but was cancelled i ...

* British Rail Class 614

Departmental multiple units

* Classes 900-999