page_title: British Rail
section_title: Sealink
hierarchical_section_title: British Rail / Marine services / Sealink
caption_attribution_description: English: Larne harbour (1984) Two points of interest in this shot of Larne harbour in 1984. The “Sealink” ferry “St David”, relieving on the Stranraer run, is in pre-privatisation livery and the space behind the wall is now occupied by the terminal building.
context_page_description: British Railways, which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was the state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain between 1948 and 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the "Big Four" British railway companies and lasted until the gradual privatisation of British Rail, in stages between 1994 and 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Commission, it became an independent statutory corporation in 1962 designated as the British Railways Board.
  The period of nationalisation saw sweeping changes in the national railway network. A process of dieselisation and electrification took place, and by 1968 steam locomotion had been entirely replaced by diesel and electric traction, except for the Vale of Rheidol Railway. Passengers replaced freight as the main source of business, and one third of the network was closed by the Beeching Axe of the 1960s in an effort to reduce rail subsidies.
  On privatisation, responsibility for track, signalling and stations was transferred to Railtrack and that for trains to the train operating companies.
context_section_description: Sealink was originally the brand name for the ferry services of British Rail in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Services to France, Belgium, and the Netherlands were run by Sealink UK as part of the Sealink consortium which also used ferries owned by French national railways (SNCF), the Belgian Maritime Transport Authority Regie voor Maritiem Transport/Regie des transports maritimes (RMT/RTM) and the Dutch Stoomvaart Maatschappij Zeeland (Zeeland Steamship Company).
  Historically, the shipping services were exclusively an extension of the railways across the English Channel and the Irish Sea in order to provide through, integrated services to Europe and Ireland. As international travel became more popular in the late 1960s and before air travel became generally affordable, the responsibility for shipping services was taken away from the British Rail Regions and in 1969 centralised in a new division – British Rail Shipping and International Services Division.
  With the advent of car ferry services, the old passenger-only ferries were gradually replaced by roll-on/roll-off ships, catering for motorists and rail passengers as well as road freight. However, given that there was now competition in the form of other ferry companies offering crossings to motorists, it became necessary to market the services in a normal business fashion (as opposed to the previous almost monopolistic situation). Thus, with the other partners mentioned above, the brand name Sealink was introduced for the consortium.
  In the late 1960s, as demand for international rail travel declined and the shipping business became almost exclusively dependent on passenger and freight vehicle traffic, the ferry business was incorporated as Sealink UK Limited on 1 January 1979, a wholly owned subsidiary of the British Railways Board, but still part of the Sealink consortium. In 1979, Sealink acquired Manx Line which offered services to the Isle of Man from Heysham.
  On 27 July 1984 the UK Government sold Sealink UK Limited to Sea Containers for £66m and the company was renamed Sealink British Ferries. The sale excluded the operations of Hoverspeed, the Isle of Wight services and the share in the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company, as well as the Port of Heysham. In 1996, the Sealink name disappeared when the UK services, by then owned by Stena, were re-branded as Stena Line. The agreement with the SNCF on the Dover to Calais route also ended at this time and the French-run Sealink services were rebranded as SeaFrance.
caption: Sealink MV St David berthed in Larne, Northern Ireland
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