The incredible history of Britain’s railways – and where it all went …

When railways are well run, people love to travel by train – there are operators dedicated to railway holidays, countless anthologies of train journeys and even various collections of railway poetry. Not so many about motorways or airports. There is a certain romance about travelling on trains – adverts often feature them; films are often set on them; and Britain’s heritage steam railways draw tourists in their droves. 

But despite this allure, 75 years since Britain’s railways were taken into public ownership, the nation’s tracks are shrouded in turmoil, amid strikes^[1], rising fares^[2] and parts of the network coming back into the public realm. 

The restaurant car on British trains today looks a little different to this one in 1951... Credit: Getty As does first class... Credit: Getty

Since the Second World War numerous reports have tried to set out better ways to organise and run the railway in Britain and many have asked why it is that we have struggled to establish a long-term structure when many other countries in Europe and around the world have succeeded – answers have been unforthcoming. 

Rail strikes, and the resulting cancelled trains, have become more and more commonplace in Britain Credit: AFP

The anniversary, if anything, is an opportune moment to look back, demolish controversial myths and ask what lessons can be learned. 

Nationalisation^[3]

At midnight on December 31 1947, the “Big Four” railways – the Great Western, Southern, London Midland & Scottish and the London & North Eastern – became British Railways (BR), despite fierce resistance. As in 1918, the railways were left in a run-down state after six years of war and minimal investment; public ownership was seen by the incoming Labour government as the best way to run them.

12th January 1948: At the coach works at Paddington, London, a sign painter obliterates the familiar Great Western Railway (GWR) logo following the nationalisation of the railways Credit: Getty

Six regions – the Western, Southern, London Midland, Eastern, North Eastern and Scottish – were created. Only the Southern inherited a significant electrified system – the others relied on steam locomotives, and a series of new designs was launched in 1951. Passengers still usually travelled in compartments, sitting on sprung cushions of scratchy moquette made even grittier by cinders from poor-quality coal. Traffic was lost to road and air as train service standards were slow to recover, prompting the government to order the first of numerous railway reports.

British Railways A1 Class steam locomotive No 60131 'Osprey' at Wakefield Westgate station in West Yorkshire Credit: Getty The Modernisation Plan^[4]

The result was the Modernisation Plan, a £1.24 billion scheme to electrify main lines for 100mph, dieselise the rest and rectify decades of underinvestment in track and structures. 

In the first of many failures, huge marshalling yards were built to reassemble freight trains of small wagons with antiquated braking systems, thereby limiting speed and capacity. Rather than learn from other countries’ experience with diesel traction, BR ordered a wide range of unsuitable types that proved unreliable and incapable of significant improvements in speed over steam. After Manchester–Crewe was wired by 1960, the government halted further electrification work on the line to London.

However, post-war passenger numbers reached a new peak in 1957 in the wake of fuel rationing with the Suez crisis. Trains of holidaymakers filled every section of line along the main routes into Devon and Cornwall. There were even Pullman cars to the seaside resort of Ilfracombe and other destinations now bereft of rails.

An illustration of the Cornish Riviera Express in 1930 Credit: Getty Train driver Lewis Parker giving the newly designed headboard of the Cornish Riviera express a final polish at Paddington Station before setting out on the first of the train's summer services for 1956 Credit: Getty

Motorail services carrying passengers’ cars as part of sleeping-car trains began in 1955 between London and Perth (the last of the services – once reaching 28 destinations – ceased in 1995). An atavistic fanfare of Western Region independence saw chocolate and cream carriages return to the Cornish Riviera Express and the Bristolian in 1956. In 1960 the Blue Pullman, aimed at the business traveller, became the first British train with full air conditioning as it purred its way from London St Pancras to Manchester Central.

A sleeper compartment on the London to Perth train in 1963 Credit: Getty Car waiting to be loaded into a container for the service between King's Cross and Perth Credit: Getty Reorganisations and closures^[5]

In 1962 the British Transport Commission was replaced by the British Railways Board with a faceless technocrat as its first chairman, Dr Richard Beeching – his name is now synonymous with depriving thousands of communities of their trains. Within eight years, 4,300 stations were closed. Financial losses did need reining in, but highly questionable and selective data were used, and no attempt was made to reduce operating costs before closure notices were issued. No thought was given to safeguarding the linear integrity of closed lines, making their reopening more costly, if not impossible.

Beeching later congratulated himself on his contribution to railway preservation, but the first standard-gauge heritage railway, which are privately owned and preserved, predated him – the Bluebell Railway steam train puffed between Sheffield Park and Horsted Keynes in 1960. Elsewhere, always of an independent streak, the Western Region adopted the 24-hour clock for timetables in June 1964, a year before the other regions.

Dr Richard Beeching, Chairman of British Railways, pictured at the Bluebell Line in 1962 Credit: Getty

On New Year’s Day 1965, British Railways was renamed British Rail with rigorous corporate branding of the double arrow, a Rail Alphabet typeface and a blue and grey livery for rolling stock. Completion of the West Coast main line electrification in 1967 transformed both the speed and frequency of services and proved the commercial value of the ‘sparks effect’. A year later, Barbara Castle’s 1968 Transport Act was a landmark in valuing the economic and social benefits of train services; recognition of their environmental contribution would come later. 

The greatest transformation of the 1970s was the introduction of the InterCity 125, which became known as the High Speed Train (HST). Intended as a stopgap until the Treasury sanctioned electrification to catch up with other countries in Europe, the HST epitomised ‘The Age of the Train’ campaign and broke the world speed record for diesel traction, at 148 mph in 1987. 

Ironically, on the eve of privatisation, British Rail achieved a peak of organisational and operational efficiency under Sir Robert Reid, replacing a regional structure with five more commercially focused business sectors – InterCity, London & South East, Provincial/Regional Railways and two freight sectors.

Privatisation^[6]

Even Margaret Thatcher baulked at privatising the railway, so it was her successor  John Major who attempted what no other country had done. He favoured a vertically integrated railway where infrastructure and trains were under unified management, but he was persuaded to break up the railway into over 100 organisations, with all the friction and costs attached.

The creation of 25 franchised train operating companies (TOCs) was a bonanza for design companies, producing corporate identities such as the red, white and grey of Virgin Trains under Richard Branson. Thousands of new carriages of varying success were ordered, thanks to private-sector investment, and helped contribute to a 147 per cent increase in passengers in 20 years. 

British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson leans out of the window of the driver's cab on board a Virgin Pendolino train at Lime Street Station in Liverpool Credit: PAUL ELLIS

By the end of the decade, cooperation under the command structure of BR was replaced by a fragmented edifice of confused responsibilities and often conflicting financial incentives under the infrastructure-owning company, Railtrack. Even safety was sometimes jeopardised, as became clear in 2000. 

Network Rail^[7]

The new millennium started disastrously with the Hatfield derailment, which was the prime cause of Railtrack going into administration and its replacement by publicly owned Network Rail. Railtrack had lost knowledge of its assets and the ability to maintain them, and numerous speed restrictions had to be applied, extending journey times to those last seen in the 1850s.

A policeman walks towards the carriages which overturned after the London to Leeds train derailed near Hatfield on 17 October 2000 Credit: Getty

Privatisation had started to unravel, and the concept of franchising was damaged when over-ambitious bids by TOCs, such as GNERand Northern, led to the Department for Transport (DfT) having to take over operations under its Directly Operated Railways. The coup de grâce came in May 2018 with the timetable fiasco, leading to the Williams-Shapps review and the prospect of Great British Railways (GRB) taking over most of Network Rail’s functions in five regional divisions and providing a much-needed guiding mind.

For passengers, ironing-board seats have dominated reactions to otherwise welcome new trains, though the pleasures of the dining car have all but vanished with only a few GWR trains offering napery, glassware and silver cutlery. Hundreds of stations have benefitted from such inspirational transformations as St Pancras, Wakefield Kirkgate and Wemyss Bay.

The future ^[8]

Currently, the nation’s railway is in limbo, awaiting primary legislation that will allow GBR to procure contracts and assume responsibility for stations now managed by TOCs. Long-delayed reform of fares and ticketing is critical.

The division of powers between GBR and the DfT is likely to be contentious but whatever emerges, it is imperative that the dead hand of micro-management by the DfT and the Treasury stops, allowing railway managers to have charge of finances and freedom to apply their skills to increasing passengers and freight.

More broadly, Swiss-style integration of public transport and recognition of the railway as the backbone of environmentally responsibility would bolster the our tracks to achieve future greatness. 

What are Britain’s railways for?^[9]

Where did it all go wrong, or right, for Britain’s railways? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

References

1. ^{^} strikes (www.telegraph.co.uk)
2. ^{^} rising fares (www.telegraph.co.uk)
3. ^{^} Nationalisation (cf-particle-html.eip.telegraph.co.uk)
4. ^{^} The Modernisation Plan (cf-particle-html.eip.telegraph.co.uk)
5. ^{^} Reorganisations and closures (cf-particle-html.eip.telegraph.co.uk)
6. ^{^} Privatisation (cf-particle-html.eip.telegraph.co.uk)
7. ^{^} Network Rail (cf-particle-html.eip.telegraph.co.uk)
8. ^{^} The future (cf-particle-html.eip.telegraph.co.uk)
9. ^{^} What are Britain’s railways for? (cf-particle-html.eip.telegraph.co.uk)