British Railways

**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 railway companies, and was privatised 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 January 1963, when it was formally renamed the British Railways Board.

The period of nationalisation saw sweeping changes in the railway. A process of dieselisation and electrification took place. By 1968 steam locomotives had been entirely replaced by diesel and electric traction, except for the Vale of Rheidol Railway (a narrow-gauge tourist line). Passengers replaced freight as the main source of business, and one-third of the network was closed by the Beeching cuts of the 1960s in an effort to reduce rail subsidies.

On privatisation, responsibility for track, signalling and stations was transferred to Railtrack (later brought under public control as Network Rail), with services run by train operating companies. The British Rail Double Arrow logo remains in place and is now employed as a generic symbol on street signs in Great Britain denoting railway stations.

## History

Main article: History of rail transport in Great Britain 1948–1994

### Nationalisation in 1948

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), 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 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 the Oxfordshire Ironstone Railway. The London Underground – publicly owned since 1933 – was also nationalised, 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 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 the return of road haulage to the private sector; however, BR retained its own (smaller) inhouse road haulage service.

### 1955 Modernisation Plan

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 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:

* Electrification of principal main lines, in the Eastern Region, Kent, Birmingham to Liverpool/Manchester and Central Scotland
* Large-scale dieselisation to replace steam locomotives
* New passenger and freight rolling stock
* Resignalling and track renewals
* Modern marshalling yards
* The closure of an unspecified but relatively small number of lines

The government appeared to endorse 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 a lack of standardisation. At the same time, containerisedfreight 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 the 1950s decisions for the "beleaguered" condition of the railway system at that time.

### The Beeching reports

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 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 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 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 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 a "network for development". The fate of the rest of the network was not discussed in the report.

### Post-Beeching

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 3d Per mile second class, and 4½d per mile first class (equivalent to £0.27 and £0.4 respectively, in 2021).

In 1966, 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 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.

The 1980s and 1990s saw the closure of some railways which had survived 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.

A further British Rail report from 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). This report was not welcomed, and the government decided to quietly leave it on the shelf. Meanwhile, BR was gradually reorganised, with the regional structure finally being abolished and replaced with business-led sectors.This process, known as "sectorisation", led to far greater customer focus on the dedicated sectors.

### Transport Act 1968

Main article: Transport Act 1968

Following the election of Labour in 1964, on 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 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:

* West Midlands PTE on 1 October 1969
* SELNEC PTE (South East Lancashire & North East Cheshire) on 1 November 1969 (now *Greater Manchester*)
* Merseyside PTE on 1 December 1969 (now Liverpool City Region)
* Tyneside PTE on 1 January 1970 (now *Tyne and Wear*)
* Greater Glasgow PTE on 1 June 1973 (now *Strathclyde*)

This was the first real subdivision of BR since its inception in 1949, and likely saved many lines earmarked for closure,[*citation needed*] notably the Liverpool, Crosby and Southport Railway, which now forms part of the Merseyrail network.

### Sectorisation

link=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Charing\_Cross\_station\_geograph-3300926-by-Ben-Brooksbank.jpg|thumb|Network SouthEast Class 465 at Charing Cross
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 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 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.