Company type | Statutory corporation |
---|---|
Industry | Rail transport |
Predecessor | British Transport Commission |
Founded | 1 January 1963 |
Defunct | October 2001 |
Fate | Privatised |
Headquarters | London, United Kingdom |
Parent | Department for Transport |
The British Railways Board (BRB) was a nationalised industry in the United Kingdom that operated from 1963 to 2001. Until 1997, it was responsible for most railway services in Great Britain, trading under the brand name British Railways and, from 1965, British Rail. It did not operate railways in Northern Ireland, where railways were the responsibility of the Government of Northern Ireland.
It is a statutory corporation, which when operating consisted of a chairman and nine to fifteen other members appointed by the Secretary of State for Transport. [1] The Board, now reduced to a minimum membership of a chairman and one other member, [2] continues to exist to hold the French law benefits and obligations of the Channel Tunnel Rail Usage Contract. [3]
The BRB was created on 1 January 1963 under the Transport Act 1962 by Harold Macmillan's Conservative government to inherit the railway responsibilities of the British Transport Commission, which was dissolved at the same time. [4]
Initially, and for the majority of its history, the BRB operated under the structure inherited from the BTC Railway Executive. Operations were initially divided into six regions – Eastern, London Midland, North Eastern, Western, Southern and Scottish (later rebranded ScotRail). The North Eastern region was merged into the Eastern Region in 1967.
In the 1980s, the BRB moved to a sectoral model based on business activity – InterCity for long-distance passenger trains, Network SouthEast for commuter trains in London, and Regional Railways for short-distance and commuter trains outside the Network SouthEast area. Railfreight was organised separately.
As well as the railway network, for much of its history the BRB also ran ferry services (later as Sealink) and hotels. These were sold in the 1980s.
The final BRB structure (1994–1997) was a shadow form of the future privatised railway industry, becoming a holding company for over 100 subsidiaries, including 25 passenger train operating, six freight, three rolling stock leasing, and a number of track maintenance companies. These were slowly sold during privatisation (the passenger subsidiaries were franchised to private sector concerns).
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On 1 April 1994, railway infrastructure became the responsibility of public limited company Railtrack, initially Government owned. The BRB continued to operate all trains until 1996, when the process of transferring them to the private sector began.
Privatisation was completed in 1997, but the BRB continued to discharge residual functions relating to non-operational railway land and BR pensions, and to have responsibility for the British Transport Police. In 1999 Alistair Morton was appointed the last chairman of the BRB, which began to advise on passenger railway matters. During this time it operated with the Director of Passenger Rail Franchising under the trading name of the Shadow Strategic Rail Authority.
Under the Transport Act 2000, the Office of Passenger Rail Franchising was abolished and the majority of BRB's functions were transferred to the Strategic Rail Authority's wholly owned subsidiary BRB (Residuary) Limited. In 2001 the minimum membership of the Board itself was reduced to the chairman and one other member. [2] With the dissolution of the SRA under the Railways Act 2005, BRB (Residuary) became a wholly owned subsidiary of the Secretary of State for Transport. While the Transport Act allowed for BRB to be abolished, [5] the Board's remaining function is to hold the French law benefits and obligations of the Channel Tunnel Rail Usage Contract on trust for the Secretary of State for Transport. [3] In this function it has outlived its own residuary company, which was wound up on until 30 September 2013, pursuant to the Public Bodies review. [6]
Through its subsidiary Rail Property Ltd, BRB (Residuary) retained responsibility for non-operational railway land, for example railway lines closed in the Beeching Axe that have not been sold.
The BRB owned a large amount of archive material, including papers, maps, films and photographs, dating back before nationalisation. In 1997 these were distributed to other bodies: films (the bulk of which had been produced by British Transport Films) to the British Film Institute in London, photographs to the National Railway Museum (NRM) in York, and most papers to the Public Record Office.
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: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)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 was formally renamed the British Railways Board.
The history of public transport authorities in London details the various organisations that have been responsible for the public transport network in and around London, England - including buses, coaches, trams, trolleybuses, Docklands Light Railway, and the London Underground.
The Beeching cuts, also colloquially referred to as the Beeching Axe, were a major series of route closures and service changes made as part of the restructuring of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain in the 1960s. They are named for Dr. Richard Beeching, then-chair of the British Railways Board and the author of two reports – The Reshaping of British Railways (1963) and The Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes (1965) – that outlined the necessity of improving the efficiency of the railways and the plan for achieving this through restructuring.
The British Transport Commission (BTC) was created by Clement Attlee's post-war Labour government as a part of its nationalisation programme, to oversee railways, canals and road freight transport in Great Britain. Its general duty under the Transport Act 1947 was to provide an efficient, adequate, economical and properly integrated system of public inland transport and port facilities within Great Britain for passengers and goods, excluding transport by air.
The Railways Act 1993 was introduced by John Major's Conservative government and passed on 5 November 1993. It provided for the restructuring of the British Railways Board (BRB), the public corporation that owned and operated the national railway system.
The Transport Act 1962 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Described as the "most momentous piece of legislation in the field of railway law to have been enacted since the Railway and Canal Traffic Act 1854", it was passed by Harold Macmillan's Conservative government to dissolve the British Transport Commission (BTC), which had been established by Clement Attlee's Labour government in 1947 to oversee railways, canals and road freight transport. The Act established the British Railways Board, which took over the BTC's railway responsibilities from 1 January 1963 until the passing of the Railways Act 1993.
The privatisation of British Rail was the process by which ownership and operation of the railways of Great Britain passed from government control into private hands. Begun in 1994, the process was largely completed by 1997. The deregulation of the industry was in part motivated by the enactment of EU Directive 91/440 in 1991, which aimed to create a more efficient railway network by creating greater competition.
The Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) was a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom set up under the Transport Act 2000 to provide strategic direction for the railway industry. Its motto was 'Britain's railway, properly delivered'. It was abolished by the Railways Order 2006, its functions being absorbed by the Department for Transport or the Office of Rail Regulation.
British Rail was the brand image of the nationalised railway owner and operator in Great Britain, the British Railways Board, used from 1965 until its breakup and sell-off from 1993 onwards.
Chelfham Viaduct is a railway viaduct built in 1896–97 to carry the single track, narrow-gauge Lynton and Barnstaple Railway (L&B) across the Stoke Rivers valley. Designed by L&B engineer, FW Chanter, and containing over a quarter of a million Marland bricks, its eight arches - each 42 feet (13 m) wide and 70 feet (21 m) high - meaning that the 132-yard (121 m)-long viaduct is the largest narrow gauge railway structure in England. Chelfham Viaduct was Bridge number 22 of the 80 that carried or spanned the railway over its 19-mile (31 km) length. The viaduct was classified as a Grade II listed structure on 25 February 1965.
The London Transport Executive was the organisation responsible for public transport in Greater London, England between 1948 and 1962. In common with all London transport authorities from 1933 to 2000, the public name and operational brand of the organisation was London Transport.
London Regional Transport (LRT) was the organisation responsible for most of the public transport network in London, England, between 1984 and 2000. In common with all London transport authorities from 1933 to 2000, the public name and operational brand of the organisation was London Transport from 1989, but until then it traded as LRT. This policy was reversed after the appointment of Sir Wilfrid Newton in 1989, who also abolished the recently devised LRT logo and restored the traditional roundel.
British Transport Hotels (BTH) was the hotels and catering business of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain.
The Director of Passenger Rail Franchising was a statutory office holder in the United Kingdom created in 1993 by the Railways Act 1993 and usually called the Franchising Director. The role lasted from 5 November 1993 until 31 January 2001. The Franchising Director was in charge of an executive agency called the Office of Passenger Rail Franchising (OPRAF). It was superseded by the Strategic Rail Authority.
The history of rail transport in Great Britain 1948–1994 covers 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 Clearing House (RCH) was an organisation set up to manage the allocation of revenue collected by pre-grouping railway companies for the conveyance of passengers and goods over the lines of other companies. It went on to become the major regulatory body overseeing the day-to-day running of railways in Great Britain and setting common standards for railway companies, which ensured their safety and interoperability. The RCH also produced fare structures governing many aspects of rail transport at a national level and set limits on price increases for passenger travel.
The "Big Four" was a name used to describe the four largest railway companies in the United Kingdom in the period 1923–1947. The name was coined by The Railway Magazine in its issue of February 1923: "The Big Four of the New Railway Era".
BRB (Residuary) Limited (BRBR) was the successor to the British Railways Board. It was created in 2001 as a private company limited by shares, with 100% of the issued share capital owned by the Secretary of State for Transport. As part of the Public Bodies Act 2011, the company was abolished in 2013.
The Old Dalby Test Track is a railway in the United Kingdom which is used for testing new designs of trains and railway infrastructure. It runs between Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire and Edwalton, on the course of the Midland Railway's route between Kettering and Nottingham which closed to passengers on 1 May 1967, and to goods in 1968. It is 13.5 miles (21.7 km) in length.
The Glazebrook East Junction–Skelton Junction line was a railway line from Glazebrook to Skelton Junction in Greater Manchester. It connected the Cheshire Lines Committee main line from Liverpool Central to Manchester Central with lines in the Stockport area, allowing freight traffic to bypass central Manchester. It also carried a local passenger service between Stockport and Warrington Central until the early 1960s.