128-511: Trainload Freight was the sector of British Rail responsible for trainload freight services. The division was subdivided into four sub-sectors; coal, petroleum, metals and construction. It was formed in 1988 from the trainload operations of British Rail's Railfreight division. The company existed until 1994, when, as part of the privatisation process of British Rail , it was split into three separate companies by region: Load-Haul , Mainline Freight and Trans-Rail . Trainload Freight (TLF)
256-522: A modal share of under 5%. Approximately 250,000 tonnes of coal was being transported per day by the company by 1993. After the Railways Act 1993 , the trainload business was split into regionally based shadow franchises : Load-Haul , Mainline Freight and Trans-Rail . Trainload services offered by Railfreight Distribution were also merged into the regional businesses. All three trainload companies were acquired by North and South Railways,
384-467: A " Whites only " recruitment policy for guards at Euston station agreed between the local union branch and station management was dropped after the case of Asquith Xavier , a migrant from Dominica , who had been refused promotion on those grounds, was raised in Parliament and taken up by the then Secretary of State for Transport, Barbara Castle . Passenger levels decreased steadily from 1962 to
512-521: A "network for development"; the fate of the rest of the network was not discussed in the report. The basis for calculating passenger fares changed in 1964. In future, fares on some routes—such as rural, holiday and commuter services—would be set at a higher level than on other routes; previously, fares had been calculated using a simple rate for the distance travelled, which at the time was 3 d per mile second class, and 4½d per mile first class (equivalent to £0.32 and £0.48 respectively, in 2023 ). In 1966,
640-485: A 3,000-mile "network for development". The fate of the remaining network was not discussed in the report. 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 in 1960, by early 1966
768-485: A Corporate Identity Manual which established a coherent brand and design standard for the whole organisation, specifying Rail Blue and pearl grey as the standard colour scheme for all rolling stock; Rail Alphabet as the standard corporate typeface, designed by Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert ; and introducing the now-iconic corporate Identity Symbol of the Double Arrow logo. Designed by Gerald Barney (also of
896-413: 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
1024-534: 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
1152-411: A committee chaired by Sir David Serpell was published in 1983. The Serpell Report made no recommendations as such but did set out various options for the network, including, at their most extreme, a skeletal system of less than 2,000 route km (1,240 miles). The report was received with hostility within several circles, which included figures within the government, as well as amongst
1280-793: A company set up by a consortium led by Wisconsin Central , and became part of English Welsh & Scottish . 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 Commission , it became an independent statutory corporation in January 1963, when it
1408-420: A cost of £125 million (£3 billion in 2020), plus the replacement of much of the existing pre-war passenger rolling stock with over 5,000 diesel or electric multiple units 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
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#17327655711651536-404: 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
1664-594: 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
1792-437: A grander logo for the railways. BR's second corporate logo (1956–1965), designed in consultation with Charles Franklyn and inspired by the much more detailed BTC crest, depicted a rampant lion emerging from a heraldic crown and holding a spoked wheel, all enclosed in a roundel with the "British Railways" name displayed across a bar on either side. This emblem soon acquired the nickname of the "Ferret and Dartboard". A variant of
1920-414: A lack of standardisation. At the same time, containerised freight was being developed. The marshalling yard building programme was a failure, being based on a belief in the continued viability of wagon-load traffic in the face of increasingly effective road competition, and lacking effective forward planning or realistic assessments of future freight. A 2002 documentary broadcast on BBC Radio 4 blamed
2048-542: A letter 'D' and electric locomotives 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
2176-477: A platform of revising many of the cuts, Tom Fraser instead authorised the closure 1,071 mi of railway lines, following the recommendations from the Beeching Report even lines not considered closing. After he resigned in 1967, his replacement Barbara Castle continued the line and station closures but introduced the first Government rail subsidies for socially necessary but unprofitable railways in
2304-556: A postwar glut of available transport aircraft). The government ordered a review. 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 produced in 1956 stated that modernisation would help eliminate BR's financial deficit by 1962. The aim
2432-752: A private heritage railway. Other preserved lines, or heritage railways , have reopened lines previously closed by British Rail. These range from picturesque rural branch lines like the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway to sections of mainline such as the Great Central Railway . Many have links to the National Rail network, both at station interchanges, for example, the Severn Valley Railway between Kidderminster and Kidderminster Town , and physical rail connections like
2560-568: A process of dieselisation and electrification to take place; accordingly, steam locomotives had been entirely replaced by diesel and electric traction (except for the narrow-gauge Vale of Rheidol Railway tourist line) by 1968. On 1 January 1963, the British Railways Board was created to manage the railways as a successor to the British Transport Commission. It was during the 1960s that perhaps
2688-460: A programme of closures began almost immediately after nationalisation. However, the general financial position of BR became gradually poorer until an operating loss was recorded in 1955. The Executive itself had been abolished in 1953 by the Conservative government, and control of BR transferred to the parent Commission. Other changes to the British Transport Commission at the same time included
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#17327655711652816-413: A progress report was published in 1961. However, many railway historians including Christian Wolmar , Henshaw and others now regard it as a costly failure and a missed opportunity. An attempt was made to simply update the railways as they already stood rather than reacting to changes in the way goods and people were travelling in the post-war years. Massive investments were made in marshalling yards at
2944-751: 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 rolling stock 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 carried unadorned numbers up to five digits long. Diesel locomotives carried four-digit numbers prefixed with
3072-551: 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
3200-539: 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
3328-484: A time when the small 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
3456-474: A working railway, in 1948 the line was principally a tourist attraction . British Rail operated the line using steam locomotives long after the withdrawal of standard-gauge steam. The line's three steam locomotives were the only ones to receive TOPS serial numbers and be painted in BR Rail Blue livery with the double arrow logo. The Vale of Rheidol Railway was privatised in 1989 and continues to operate as
3584-546: A year later when the BTC was abolished the name of the force was amended to the British Transport Police. This name and its role within policing on the rail network was continued post-1994. Despite its nationalisation in 1947 "as one of the 'commanding heights' of the economy", according to some sources British Rail was not profitable for most (if not all) of its history. Newspapers reported that as recently as
3712-472: The Beeching axe . 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
3840-612: 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
3968-639: The British Transport Commission (BTC) on 1 January 1948 when it took over the assets of the Big Four railway companies. A few independent light railways and industrial railways , which did not contribute significant mileage to the system, were not included in British Railways; nor the Glasgow Underground and London Underground , already both public concerns, the Liverpool Overhead Railway , and non-railway-owned tramways . The Northern Counties Committee lines owned by
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4096-535: 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. The Modernisation Plan failed to successfully redefine what
4224-512: 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,
4352-470: 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
4480-662: The InterCity 125 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 – 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
4608-542: The Labour Government of Clement Attlee 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
4736-577: The London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) and the Southern Railway (SR). During World War I , the railways were under state control, which continued until 1921. Complete nationalisation had been considered, and the Railways Act 1921 is sometimes considered as a precursor to that, but the concept was rejected. Nationalisation was subsequently carried out after World War II , under the Transport Act 1947 . This Act made provision for
4864-459: The London, Midland & Scottish Railway 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
4992-708: The London, Midland & Scottish Railway were sold to the Northern Ireland 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: 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
5120-621: The Oxfordshire Ironstone Railway . The London Underground also became publicly owned, becoming the London Transport Executive of the British Transport Commission. The Bicester Military Railway was already run by the government. The electric Liverpool Overhead Railway was also excluded from nationalisation . The Railway Executive was conscious that some lines on the (then very dense) network were unprofitable and hard to justify socially, and
5248-511: The Railway Executive . The Executive attempted to introduce a modern Art Deco -style curved logo, which could also serve as the standard for station signage totems. BR eventually adopted the common branding of the BTC as its first corporate logo, a lion astride a spoked wheel, designed for the BTC by Cecil Thomas ; on the bar overlaid across the wheel, the BTC's name was replaced with the words "British Railways". This logo, nicknamed
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5376-576: The Secretary of State for Transport , and is now employed as a generic symbol on street signs in Great Britain denoting railway stations. The rail transport system in Great Britain developed during the 19th century. After the grouping of 1923 under the Railways Act 1921 , there were four large railway companies, each dominating its own geographic area: the Great Western Railway (GWR), the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS),
5504-417: The Transport Act 1968 . Part of these provisions was the creation of a passenger transport executive or PTE within larger metropolitan areas. Prior to this, public transport was run by individual local authorities and private companies, with little co-ordination. The PTEs took over the responsibility (but not ownership) of managing local rail networks. The 1968 Act created five new bodies. These were: This
5632-467: The Watercress Line at Alton . Although most are operated solely as leisure amenities, some also provide educational resources, and a few have ambitions to restore commercial services over routes abandoned by the nationalised industry. History of rail transport in Great Britain 1948%E2%80%931994#The Modernisation Plan The history of rail transport in Great Britain 1948–1994 covers
5760-604: The "Cycling Lion", was applied from 1948 to 1956 to the sides of locomotives, while the ‘hot dog’ design was adopted for smaller station name signs, known officially as ‘lamp tablets’ and coloured for the appropriate BR region, using Gill Sans lettering first adopted by the LNER from 1929. In 1956, the BTC was granted a heraldic achievement by the College of Arms and the Lord Lyon , and then BTC chairman Brian Robertson wanted
5888-522: 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
6016-401: The 1950s decisions for the "beleaguered" condition of the railway system at that time. During the late 1950s, railway finances continued to worsen; whilst passenger numbers grew after restoring many services reduced during the war, and in 1959 the government stepped in, limiting the amount the BTC could spend without ministerial authority. A White Paper proposing reorganisation was published in
6144-534: The 1955 programme (costing £1.2 billion), but did so largely for political reasons. This included the withdrawal of steam traction and its replacement by diesel (and some electric) locomotives. Not all modernisations would be effective at reducing costs. The dieselisation programme gave contracts primarily to British suppliers, who had limited experience of diesel locomotive manufacture, and rushed commissioning based on an expectation of rapid electrification; this resulted in numbers of locomotives with poor designs and
6272-606: The 1980s and 1990s, the British Government directed the privatisation of British Rail . Following completion of the privatisation process in 1997, responsibility for track, signalling and stations was transferred to Railtrack (later brought under public control as Network Rail ) while services were run by a variety of train operating companies . At the end of the process, any remaining obligations of British Rail were transferred to BRB (Residuary) Limited . The British Rail Double Arrow logo remains in place, now owned by
6400-689: The 1980s which saw the electrification of the East Coast Main Line , London St Pancras suburban system and further extension of the Southern Region network can be seen as a direct extension of this plan. 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 across
6528-588: The 1990s, public rail subsidy was counted as profit; as early as 1961, British Railways were losing £300,000 a day. Although the company was considered the sole public-transport option in many rural areas, the Beeching cuts made buses the only public transport available in some rural areas. Despite increases in traffic congestion and road fuel prices beginning to rise in the 1990s, British Rail remained unprofitable. Following sectorisation, InterCity became profitable. InterCity became one of Britain's top 150 companies, providing city centre to city centre travel across
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#17327655711656656-424: The 7,000 stations would close. Beeching, who is thought to have been the author of most of the report, set out some dire figures. One third of the network was carrying just 1% of the traffic. Of the 18,000 passenger coaches, 6,000 were said to be used only 18 times a year or less. Although maintaining them cost between £3 million and £4 million a year, they earned only about £0.5 million. Most of
6784-419: 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
6912-797: The Beeching cuts a generation earlier but which had seen passenger services withdrawn. This included the bulk of the Chester and Connah's Quay Railway in 1992, the Brierley Hill to Walsall section of the South Staffordshire line in 1993, while the Birmingham to Wolverhampton section of the Great Western Railway was closed in three phases between 1972 and 1992. Following the election of Labour in 1964, on
7040-487: The British Transport Commission, and created the British Railways Board 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 appointed Richard Beeching as head of British Railways with
7168-458: The DRU), this arrow device was formed of two interlocked arrows across two parallel lines, symbolising a double-track railway. It was likened to a bolt of lightning or barbed wire , and also acquired a nickname: "the arrow of indecision". A mirror image of the double arrow was used on the port side of BR-owned Sealink ferry funnels. The new BR corporate identity and double arrow were displayed at
7296-598: The Design Centre in London in early 1965, and the brand name of the organisation was shortened to "British Rail". It is now employed as a generic symbol on street signs in Great Britain denoting railway stations, and is still printed on railway tickets as part of the Rail Delivery Group 's jointly managed National Rail brand. The uniformity of BR branding continued until the process of sectorisation
7424-556: The Double Arrow symbol, which has survived to this day and serves as a generic trademark to denote railway services across Great Britain. The BR Corporate Identity Manual is noted as a piece of British design history and there are plans for it to be re-published. With its creation in 1948, British Railways was divided into regions which were initially based on the areas the former Big Four operated in; later, several lines were transferred between regions. Notably, these included
7552-613: The London area; Provincial (renamed Regional Railways in 1989) responsible for all other passenger services. In the metropolitan counties local services were managed by the Passenger Transport Executives . Provincial was the most subsidised (per passenger km) of the three sectors; upon formation, its costs were four times its revenue . During the 1980s British Rail ran the Rail Riders membership club aimed at 5- to 15-year-olds. Because British Railways
7680-627: 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 steam locomotives : existing locomotive designs from
7808-686: 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 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
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#17327655711657936-577: The UK using one of the machines was at Upminster station on 21 March 2007. Before the rail network was privatised, British Rail introduced several discount cards through the APTIS that were available to certain demographics, issued either by National or Regional schemes: The narrow-gauge Vale of Rheidol Railway in Ceredigion, Wales, became part of British Railways at nationalisation. Although built as
8064-601: 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 at Aberystwyth 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
8192-532: The already extensive third rail system was to be extended to the Kent Coast. In addition to the suburban electrification, main line electrification was called for, starting with the West Coast Main Line . This was done in stages from 1959 to 1974, initially connecting Birmingham , Manchester and Liverpool to London, and going on to Glasgow . The continuing electrification programme of
8320-512: The capable InterCity 125 and Sprinter sets, the introduction of which improved intercity and regional railways, respectively, as well as the unsuccessful Advanced Passenger Train (APT). Gradually, passengers replaced freight as the main source of business. From 1982, under sectorisation , the regions were gradually replaced by "business sectors", which were originally responsible for marketing and other commercial matters when they were first created but had taken over entirely by 1990. During
8448-478: 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
8576-552: The closures were carried out between 1963 and 1970 (including some which were not listed in the report), while other suggested closures were not carried out. The closures were heavily criticised at the time. A small number of stations and lines closed under the Beeching programme have been reopened, with further reopenings proposed. A second Beeching report, "The Development of the Major Trunk Routes", followed in 1965. This did not recommend closures as such but outlined
8704-527: The country, but the growth of road transport 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
8832-417: 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
8960-429: 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 British Transport Commission 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
9088-505: The early 1970s. Tickets issued from British Rail's APTIS system had a considerable amount of information presented in a consistent, standard format. The design for all tickets was created by Colin Goodall . This format has formed the basis for all subsequent ticket issuing systems introduced on the railway network – ticket-office-based, self-service and conductor-operated machines alike. APTIS survived in widespread use for twenty years but, in
9216-490: The early 1990s): In addition, the non-passenger sectors were: 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
9344-495: The early 2000s, was largely replaced by more modern PC-based ticketing systems. Some APTIS machines in the Greater London area were modified as APTIS-ANT (with no obvious difference to the ticket issued) to make them Oyster card compatible. The last APTIS machines were removed at the end of 2006 as there was no option to upgrade them to accept Chip and PIN credit card payments. The last APTIS-ANT ticket to be issued in
9472-482: 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
9600-415: The ever-declining but legally-required wagonload freight traffic. The timing of the Modernisation Plan was also unfortunate, as just months after its publication the train drivers' trade union , 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
9728-402: The figures in both this and the original plan were produced for political reasons and not based on detailed analysis. 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 lost to the roads. Important areas included: The government appeared to endorse
9856-473: The following year, and a new structure was brought into effect by the Transport Act 1962. This abolished the commission and replaced it by several separate boards. These included a British Railways Board, which took over on 1 January 1963. Following semi-secret discussions on railway finances by the government-appointed Stedeford Committee in 1961, one of its members, Dr Richard Beeching , was offered
9984-675: The former Great Central lines from the Eastern Region to the London Midland Region, and the West of England Main Line from the Southern Region to Western Region The North Eastern Region was merged with the Eastern Region in 1967. In 1982, the regions were abolished as the service provider (but retained for administration) and replaced by "business sectors", a process known as sectorisation . The passenger sectors were (by
10112-427: 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. 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 (£2.8 billion in 2023 terms). Under the Transport Act of 1962 , Harold Macmillan 's Conservative government dissolved
10240-647: The four old railway police forces, the London Transport Police, canal police and several minor dock forces. In 1957 the Maxwell-Johnson enquiry found that policing requirements for the railway could not be met by civil forces and that it was essential that a specialist police force be retained. On 1 January 1962, the British Transport Commission Police ceased to cover British Waterways property and exactly
10368-588: The go-ahead, including the East Coast Main Line , the spur from Doncaster to Leeds , and the lines in East Anglia out of London Liverpool Street to Norwich and King's Lynn . The list with approximate completion dates includes: In the Southwest, the South West Main Line from Bournemouth to Weymouth was electrified along with other infill 750 V DC third rail electrification in
10496-409: The government were necessary to keep the railways financially viable. Concerns about the levels of these contributed to the Beeching cuts that closed down many less well used lines. The Transport Act 1947 nationalised nearly all forms of mass transport in Great Britain and came into effect on 1 January 1948. British Railways came into existence as the business name of the Railway Executive of
10624-533: The industry as a whole; the standardised Rail Alphabet typeface 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 saw British Rail successfully introduce high speed diesel train services, as well as major resignalling projects designed to increase operational efficiency. In 1976,
10752-544: 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
10880-457: 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
11008-590: The late 1970s, and reached a low in 1982. Network improvements included completing electrification of the Great Eastern Main Line from London to Norwich between 1976 and 1986 and the East Coast Main Line from London to Edinburgh between 1985 and 1990. A mainline route closure during this period of relative network stability was the 1,500 V DC -electrified Woodhead line between Manchester and Sheffield : passenger service ceased in 1970 and goods in 1981. A further British Rail report from
11136-471: The late 1980s prior to the early 1990s recession . British Rail was able to charge a 45% margin on basic costs in 1989 for coal transport prior to the privatisation of the electricity industry, after which less profitable contracts were negotiated. From 1990 to 1994, the sector undertook further exercises to increase profitability; discriminatory pricing was employed. Approximately 10 million tonnes of unprofitable freight had been identified, of which 70%
11264-483: The logo with the name in a circle was also used on locomotives. The zeal for modernisation in the Beeching era drove the next rebranding exercise, and BR management wished to divest the organisation of anachronistic, heraldic motifs and develop a corporate identity to rival that of London Transport . BR's design panel set up a working party led by Milner Gray of the Design Research Unit . They drew up
11392-507: The most substantial changes were made. Seeking to reduce rail subsidies , one-third of the network and over half of all stations were permanently closed under the Beeching cuts . Trunk routes were considered to be the most important, and so electrification of the Great Eastern Main Line from London to Norwich was completed between 1976 and 1986 and on the East Coast Main Line from London to Edinburgh between 1985 and 1990. Train manufacturer British Rail Engineering Limited (BREL) produced
11520-461: 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
11648-402: The nation from Aberdeen and Inverness in the north to Poole and Penzance in the south. In 1979, the incoming Conservative Government led by Margaret Thatcher was viewed as anti-railway, and did not want to commit public money to the railways. However, British Rail was allowed to spend its own money with government approval. This led to a number of electrification projects being given
11776-526: The nationalisation of the network as part of a policy of nationalising public services by Clement Attlee 's Labour Government. British Railways came into existence as the business name of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Commission (BTC) on 1 January 1948 when it took over the assets of the Big Four. There were also joint railways between the Big Four and a few light railways to consider (see list of constituents of British Railways ). Excluded from nationalisation were industrial lines like
11904-535: 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 were transferred from the London Midland to the Eastern and North Eastern region: the London Midland region gained the former Great Central Railway lines outside Yorkshire and Lincolnshire from the Eastern Region in return. Former LMS lines in
12032-495: 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 inherited from the Southern Railway operated a significant number of non-steam-powered trains. In 1951, the British Transport Commission approved a new series of standard locomotives and coaches incorporating design features primarily from
12160-489: 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
12288-619: The newly discovered knowledge of wheel/rail interaction and suspension design. The class holds the world record 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 as of 2017 . The HST was introduced from 1976 on the Great Western Main Line between London Paddington and Bristol Temple Meads / Swansea , at
12416-419: 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
12544-493: The period when the British railway system was nationalised under the name of 'British Railways', latterly known as British Rail until its eventual privatisation in 1994. The railway system in this period underwent modernisation, reorganisation and rebranding , some of which proved controversial. The use of steam locomotives on the network also ended in this period. Due to falling passenger numbers, rail subsidies from
12672-696: The post of chairing the BTC while it lasted and then became the first Chairman of the British Railways Board. A major traffic census in April 1961, which lasted one week, was used in the compilation of a report on the future of the network. This report – The Reshaping of British Railways – was published by the BRB in March 1963. The proposals, which became known as the Beeching cuts , were dramatic. A third of all passenger services and more than 4,000 of
12800-401: 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 , 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
12928-419: The public. The reaction was so strong that Margaret Thatcher , Prime Minister at that time, stated that decisions on the report would not immediately be taken. The Serpell report was quietly shelved, although the British Government was periodically accused by its opponents of implementing the report via stealth for some years thereafter. The 1980s and 1990s saw the closure of some railways which had survived
13056-502: 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 as the sole practical long-distance transport provider for much of
13184-558: 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 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. The Modernisation Plan called for significant suburban and main-line electrification. Despite investment in two 1.5 kV DC overhead schemes only
13312-409: 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 . The Modernisation Plan was a hugely costly failure for BR. The total cost
13440-403: The return of road haulage to the private sector; however, BR retained its own (smaller) in-house road haulage service. The report, latterly known as the "Modernisation Plan", was published in January 1955. It was intended to bring the railway system into the 20th century. A government White Paper produced in 1956 stated that modernisation would help eliminate BR's financial deficit by 1962, but
13568-432: The rolling stock it had inherited from its predecessor railway companies. Initially, an express blue (followed by GWR -style Brunswick green in 1952) was used on passenger locomotives, and LNWR -style lined black for mixed-traffic locomotives, but later green was more widely adopted. Development of a corporate identity for the organisation was hampered by the competing ambitions of the British Transport Commission and
13696-428: The safety of track workers. The Transport Act 1962 converted British Railways from being the trade name of a BTC activity to a separate public corporation , as the British Railways Board . 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 for a full history). This re-branding introduced the double-arrow logo to represent
13824-592: The south-west of the country, including the northern section of the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway , 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 most of the former Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway was closed in 1959; long-distance passenger trains on
13952-474: The south. In 1988, the line to Aberdare was reopened. A British Rail advertisement ("Britain's Railway", directed by Hugh Hudson ) featured some of the best-known railway structures in Britain, including the Forth Rail Bridge , Royal Albert Bridge , Glenfinnan Viaduct and London Paddington station . London Liverpool Street station was rebuilt, opened by Queen Elizabeth II , and a new station
14080-455: 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
14208-401: 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 and hydraulic transmissions, four-stroke and two stroke engines , high- or medium-speed engines etc.) with numerous constructors and suppliers of engines and electrical equipment. The intention was that
14336-548: The trunk routes of the West Coast Main Line , East Coast Main Line , Great Western Main Line , Great Eastern Main Line and Midland Main Line , and other lines. Policing on (and within) the network was carried out British Transport Police (BTP). In 1947 the Transport Act created the British Transport Commission (BTC), which unified the railway system. On 1 January 1949, the British Transport Commission Police (BTCP) were created, formed from
14464-583: Was constructed at Stansted Airport in 1991. The following year, the Maesteg line was reopened. In 1988, the Windsor Link Line, Manchester was constructed and has proven to be an important piece of infrastructure. Before the introduction of APTIS (Accountancy and Passenger Ticket Issuing System), British Rail used the Edmondson railway ticket , first introduced in the 1840s and phased out in
14592-587: Was created in 1988 as the sector of British Rail responsible for operating unit trains . The division was subdivided into four sub-sectors according to cargo carried: Coal, Construction, Metals, and Petroleum. Other wagonload freight activities and containerised freight were organised in the Railfreight Distribution (RfD) division at the same time. The trainload business represented approximately 80% of British Rail's total revenue from freight, and 90% of freight traffic by mass. Trainload Freight
14720-543: 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 , 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
14848-526: Was formally renamed the British Railways Board . British Railways was formed on 1 January 1948 as a result of the Transport Act 1947 , which nationalised the Big Four British railway companies along with some other (but not all) smaller railways. Profitability of the railways became a pressing concern during the 1950s, leading to multiple efforts to bolster performance, including some line closures. The 1955 Modernisation Plan formally directed
14976-536: 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
15104-472: 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 and wider central government, causing BR's funding to be restricted and making any further large-scale investment to reform or modernise
15232-479: Was introduced in the 1980s. Certain BR operations such as Inter-City , Network SouthEast , Regional Railways or Rail Express Systems began to adopt their own identities, introducing logos and colour schemes which were essentially variants of the British Rail brand. Eventually, as sectorisation developed into a prelude to privatisation, the unified British Rail brand disappeared, with the notable exception of
15360-437: 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
15488-419: Was retained under new working conditions and pricing arrangements; the remaining 3 million tonnes was lost, much of it being freight transport for the cement industry. Cost-cutting measures included a 20% reduction in employees, 50% reduction in locomotives, and 40% reduction in wagons, resulting in rail freight transport being reduced to under 100 million tonnes per annum in the lead-up to privatisation,
15616-422: Was such a large operation, running not just railways but also ferries, steamships and hotels, it has been considered difficult to analyse the effects of nationalisation. 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. Following nationalisation in 1948, British Railways began to adapt the corporate liveries on
15744-550: Was the first real subdivision of BR since its inception in 1949, and likely saved many lines earmarked for closure, notably the Liverpool, Crosby and Southport Railway , which now forms part of the Merseyrail network. Upon sectorisation in 1982, three passenger sectors were created: InterCity , operating principal express services; London & South East (renamed Network SouthEast in 1986) operating commuter services in
15872-404: Was the only consistently profitable freight sector within British Rail. In 1988, the company was authorised to acquire 100 Class 60 locomotives, at a cost of approximately £124 million. In 1992 the company had revenue of around £500 million and made a profit of £67.5 million, exceeding government targets of a £50 million profit. Returns on capital assets were typically over 8% in
16000-437: Was to attempt to unify the inherited railways of four separate and competing companies into one national network. 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:
16128-400: 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: The plan was reappraised in 1959 and
16256-445: 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. 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
16384-451: Was transferred to the sectors. The Anglia Region was created in late 1987, its first General Manager being John Edmonds, who began his appointment on 19 October 1987. Full separation from the Eastern Region – apart from engineering design needs – occurred on 29 April 1988. It handled the services from Fenchurch Street and Liverpool Street , its western boundary being Hertford East , Meldreth and Whittlesea . The former BR network, with
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