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Regional Railways was one of the three passenger sectors of
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 ra ...
created in 1982 that existed until 1997, two years after
privatisation Privatization (also 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 when ...
. The sector was originally called ''Provincial''. Regional Railways was the most subsidised (per passenger km) of the three sectors. Upon formation, its costs were four times its
revenue In accounting, revenue is the total amount of income generated by the sale of goods and services related to the primary operations of the business. Commercial revenue may also be referred to as sales or as turnover. Some companies receive rev ...
. The sector was broken up into eight franchises during the privatisation of British Rail and ceased to exist on 31 March 1997.


Formation

Upon sectorisation in 1982, three passenger sectors were created:
InterCity InterCity (commonly abbreviated ''IC'' on timetables and tickets) is the classification applied to certain long-distance passenger train services in Europe. Such trains (in contrast to regional, local, or commuter trains) generally call at m ...
, operating principal express services; London & South East (renamed
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 net ...
in 1986) operating commuter services in the London area, and Provincial (renamed Regional Railways in 1989) responsible for all other passenger services. In the metropolitan counties, local services were managed by the
Passenger Transport Executive In the United Kingdom, passenger transport executives (PTEs) are local government bodies which are responsible for public transport within large urban areas. They are accountable to combined authorities, which were created between 2011 and 2016 ...
s.


Services

Regional Railways inherited a diverse range of routes, comprising both express and local services. Expresses mainly ran to non-principal destinations or on less popular routes, such as Birmingham or Liverpool to Norwich, or Liverpool to Scarborough, and were chiefly operated by older locomotives and second-hand InterCity coaches. Later these services were operated by Sprinter units – mainly Class 158s on express services. There were also the internal
Scottish Region The Scottish Region (ScR) was one of the six regions created on British Railways (BR) and consisted of ex-London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) and ex-London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) lines in Scotland. It existed from the creation o ...
local services and expresses, the latter including the
Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
-
Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popu ...
push-pull service. Local services ran on both main lines and branch lines and were often operated by first generation diesel multiple units dating back to the 1950s. Longer distance trains were often formed of older coaches and locomotives of Class 31, Class 40, and Class 45, which were of similar vintage.


Development of new rolling stock

In the early 1980s, large numbers of
diesel multiple unit A diesel multiple unit or DMU is a multiple-unit train powered by on-board diesel engines. A DMU requires no separate locomotive, as the engines are incorporated into one or more of the carriages. Diesel-powered single-unit railcars are also ...
(DMU) and locomotive-hauled coaches were found to contain
asbestos Asbestos () is a naturally occurring fibrous silicate mineral. There are six types, all of which are composed of long and thin fibrous crystals, each fibre being composed of many microscopic "fibrils" that can be released into the atmosphere b ...
. Removing this would be a considerable cost and generating no extra revenue, which, coupled with the increasingly unreliable old locomotives and DMUs, prompted BR to look for a new generation of diesel multiple units. The prototype Class 210s, in service on a trial basis since 1981, were considered too expensive to be put into production, so BR looked elsewhere for new designs.


Pacers

The first, ''Pacers'', used bus technology from the
Leyland National The Leyland National is an integrally-constructed United Kingdom, British high-floor, step-floor single-decker bus manufactured in large quantities between 1972 and 1985. It was developed as a joint project between two UK nationalised industri ...
, in classes numbered in the 14X range. Not long after introduction to service, large numbers of them suffered from a number of technical problems, particularly with their
gearbox Propulsion transmission is the mode of transmitting and controlling propulsion power of a machine. The term ''transmission'' properly refers to the whole drivetrain, including clutch, gearbox, prop shaft (for rear-wheel drive vehicles), diff ...
es. In
Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a Historic counties of England, historic county and Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people ...
it was found that their long
wheelbase In both road and rail vehicles, the wheelbase is the horizontal distance between the centers of the front and rear wheels. For road vehicles with more than two axles (e.g. some trucks), the wheelbase is the distance between the steering (fron ...
caused intolerable squealing noises and high tyre wear on tight curves, and they quickly had to be replaced by the old DMUs. The solution lay elsewhere, although, after much modification, the Pacers eventually proved themselves in traffic.


Sprinters

BR needed something midway between the Pacers and the Class 210s. In 1984/1985, two experimental DMU designs were put into service: the
British Rail Engineering Limited British Rail Engineering Limited (BREL) was the railway systems engineering subsidiary of British Rail. Established in 1970, the maintenance arm was split as British Rail Maintenance Limited in 1987, and the design and building of trains was ...
built Class 150 and
Metro-Cammell Metro-Cammell, formally the Metropolitan Cammell Carriage and Wagon Company (MCCW), was an English manufacturer of railway carriages, locomotives and railway wagons, based in Saltley, and subsequently Washwood Heath, in Birmingham. Purchased ...
built Class 151. Both of these used hydraulic transmission and were less bus-like than the Pacers. After trials, Class 150 was selected for production, entering service from 1987. Reliability was much improved by the new units, with depot visits being reduced from two or three times a week to fortnightly. The late 1980s and early 1990s also saw the development of secondary express services that complemented the mainline
Intercity InterCity (commonly abbreviated ''IC'' on timetables and tickets) is the classification applied to certain long-distance passenger train services in Europe. Such trains (in contrast to regional, local, or commuter trains) generally call at m ...
routes. Class 155 and Class 156 Sprinters were developed to replace locomotive-hauled trains on these services, their interiors being designed with longer distance journeys in mind. Key Scottish and Trans-Pennine routes were upgraded with new Class 158 Express Sprinters, while a network of '
Alphaline Alphaline was a brand introduced by Regional Railways in December 1994 to differentiate certain provincial express trains with enhanced passenger accommodation from general regional and middle-distance services operated by older rolling stock. O ...
' services was introduced elsewhere in the country. By the end of the 1980s, passenger numbers had increased and costs had been reduced to two-and-a-half times revenue.


Electrification

The
British Rail Class 323 The British Rail Class 323 are electric multiple unit (EMU) passenger trains built by Hunslet Transportation Projects and Holec. All 43 units were built from 1992 through to 1995, although mock-ups and prototypes were built and tested in 1990 ...
electric multiple unit An electric multiple unit or EMU is a multiple-unit train consisting of self-propelled carriages using electricity as the motive power. An EMU requires no separate locomotive, as electric traction motors are incorporated within one or a number ...
s were built by Hunslet Transportation Projects between 1992 and 1995, although mock-ups and prototypes were built and tested in 1990 and 1991. Forty-three 3-car units were built for inner-suburban services in and around Birmingham and Manchester, including the
Cross-City Line The Cross-City Line is a commuter rail line in the West Midlands region of England. It runs for from Redditch and Bromsgrove in Worcestershire, its two southern termini, to Lichfield, Staffordshire, its northern terminus, via Birmingham New ...
in the Birmingham area and services to the new Manchester Airport railway station.


Rolling Stock


Livery

Initially, many vehicles carried standard British Rail blue livery. From 1986, Provincial adopted a version of the prototype Class 150 livery: ''aircraft blue'' over white, with a light blue stripe at waist level. All new units, plus a few existing ones, such as selected Class 304
EMUs Emus may refer to: * Emu The emu () (''Dromaius novaehollandiae'') is the second-tallest living bird after its ratite relative the ostrich. It is endemic to Australia where it is the largest native bird and the only extant member of the ...
, received it. Some units and coaches received the livery with either ''ScotRail'' or ''Regional Railways'' branding. The Class 158s, introduced in 1989, appeared in ''Express'' livery: dark grey window surrounds over light grey, with light and dark blue stripes at waist level. This colour scheme was also applied to some Class 156 units around privatisation. The Class 323 EMUs introduced in 1994 appeared in the ''
West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive The West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive (WMPTE) was the public body responsible for public transport in the West Midlands metropolitan county in the United Kingdom from 1969 until 2016. The organisation operated under the name Centro f ...
'' (Centro) livery for the West Midlands based sets, and the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive (GMPTE) livery for Manchester-based sets. After privatisation, many vehicles continued to carry the basic RR colour scheme but with the addition of different branding, e.g. ''Central Trains''. The final British railway vehicle to carry Regional Railways livery was a Class 153, which was repainted in July 2008 into ''
East Midlands Trains East Midlands Trains (EMT) was a British train operating company owned by the transport group Stagecoach, which operated the East Midlands franchise between November 2007 and August 2019. Following the Department for Transport (DfT) award of ...
'' livery.


Split for privatisation

As part of the process of privatisation between 1994 and 1997, Regional Railways was split into several different shadow train operating units, which later became independent train operating companies:


References


Further reading

*


External links


Regional Railways Identity Management
– internal branding manual, 1992 {{British Rail British Rail brands British Rail passenger services