The British railways information page

There was nothing new about the basic idea of a railway - a special track for wheeled vehicles. Many years before steam locomotives were invented, rails had been laid in quarries and mines to make it easier for horses to pull wagons over very rough ground.

But it was Britain's engineers who replaced the flesh-and-blood horse with the "iron horse", as the steam locomotive was affectionately called.

Among the most notable of the early inventors were George Stephenson. His Locomotion was used on the Stockton and Darlington Railway, opened in 1825, and his improved invention, the Rocket, was chosen for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Opened in 1830, this was the first public railway to use steam traction for both freight and passenger services.

Few natural obstacles defeated the railway pioneers. They levelled valleys, cut through or tunnelled under hills, and bridged rivers.

The railways' impact was swift and decisive. Contemptuously brushing aside the puny opposition of the stagecoach, the horse and cart, the packhorse and the canal barge, they gave an irresistible momentum to the industrial revolution. They also revolutionised travel - until then slow and uncomfortable.

In less than a century, Britain became densely veined with railways. The network totalled 13,600 route miles in 1870; it had increased to 16,700 in 1885, and by 1920 it was nearly 20,000. But by then the first Railway Age was over.

Over the years the railways had been gradually reducing, by amalgamation, the number of their constituent private companies from a peak total of several hundred. In the face of this new competitor they closed their ranks still further. In 1923 they grouped themselves into four large systems: the London, Midland & Scottish, the London & North Eastern, the Great Western and the Southern. This process was taken to its next logical conclusion at the beginning of 1948 when the railways were unified - by nationalisation.

Under the heading of British Railways and then British Rail, much was done to gear the railways to the demands of a highly competitive age. The system itself was streamlined down to less than 12,000 route miles. The steam locomotive was replaced by cleaner and more efficient forms of traction, diesel and electric.

Playing a part in that transformation was new rolling stock, new stations, new freight terminals, new methods of operation and a more efficient management structure.

All these developments, with a host of modern techniques ranging from colour-light signalling along the line to computers behind the scenes, helped the railways to exploit their inherent abilities as mass movers of people and goods, and to show that a second Railway Age may not be out of place in the Age of Technology.

The most recent change came more recently when the entire system was privatised.

**** I would really appreciate someone providing some information by way of a thumbnail sketch of the timing and key features of the current railway system. *****

The total network served over 3,000 stations throughout the country, most of them passenger stations but 553 of them handled freight and 274 exclusively handled parcels.

The Inter-City service comprised 6,000 route miles or about half BR's total and connected 200 stations at industrial and residential centres, and every weekday more than a thousand crack Inter-City expresses served the network averaging well over 90 mph and frequently reaching top speeds of 125 mph.

In the last years of BR, Britain's railways underwent a transformation. Major developments were the electrification of Britain's rail backbone linking the five principal cities, London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow.

Semaphore signals became a thing of the past with multiple-aspect colour-light signals remotely operated from a few push-button control rooms. Continuous welded rail, which is cheaper to maintain and gives passengers a smoother ride, replaced the traditional short lengths of rail on thousands of miles of main line. Pre-stressed concrete for higher speeds, replaced the old wooden sleepers.

A new generation of high-speed trains, capable of 125 mph, was introduced; they prepared the way for the East Coast electrified route which significantly cut journey times with speeds of 125-150 mph and for the much vaunted Chunnel. This was perhaps the most exciting of the many projects that took place in the closing stages of British Rail.

Inter-City was a round-the-clock service; every night 70 sleeper trains, with their comfortable compartments which were virtually hotel rooms on wheels, served 100 different destinations. The service was improved by the introduction of a completely new sleeper fleet. Costing about 35,000 UKP each, the new coaches are air-conditioned and set new standards of quietness, smooth running and general comfort.

Motorail trains were a popular and essential part of BR's service. They carried passengers and cars on holiday journeys and enabled motorists to avoid the strain of driving long distances on busy roads.

But to more than half-a-million commuters BR meant the journey to and from work every day. The rush-hour operation, morning and evening, was the one which placed the heaviest demands on railway ingenuity and resources. Without it, the roads in the big cities would have come to a standstill, choked with traffic.

**** I would really appreciate someone providing some information for the preceding section, perhaps by way of a replacement section. *****

Electrification:

Rolling Stock:

Locomotives:

Journeys:

Inter-City:

Longest Journey:

Waterloo:

Clapham Junction:

Continuous Welded rail:

Signalling:

Bridges:

Highest point:

Lowest point:

Steepest Main Line gradient:

British Transport Hotels:

Shipping service:

Hovercraft: