History of rail transport in Great Britain

A patchwork of local rail links operated by small private railway companies developed in the late 18th century.

These isolated links expanded during the railway boom of the 1840s into a national network, although initially being run by over one hundred competing companies.

The entire network was brought under government control during the First World War, during which time a number of advantages of amalgamation and central planning were demonstrated.

During the 1920s and 1930s, rising competition from road transport reduced revenues, leading to a lack of investment and thus a period of slow decline.

However, declining passenger numbers and financial losses in the late 1950s and early 1960s prompted the controversial Beeching cuts, which saw the closure of many branch and main lines alike.

The Hatfield accident set in motion a series of events that resulted in the ultimate collapse of Railtrack and its replacement with Network Rail, a state-owned, not-for-dividend company.

A wagonway, essentially a railway powered by animals drawing the cars or wagons, was used by German miners at Caldbeck, Cumbria, England, perhaps from the 1560s.

Owned by Philip Layton, the line carried coal from a pit near Prescot Hall to a terminus about half a mile away.

They used simply straight and parallel rails of timber on which carts with simple flanged iron wheels were drawn by horses, enabling several wagons to be moved simultaneously.

[5][6][7] The early wooden railways were improved on in 1793 when Benjamin Outram constructed a mile-long tramway with L-shaped cast iron rails.

[12] The first commercially successful steam locomotive was Salamanca, built in 1812 by John Blenkinsop and Matthew Murray for the 4 ft (1,219 mm) gauge Middleton Railway.

[17][18] While traffic was originally intended to be horse-drawn, Stephenson carried out a fresh survey of the route to allow steam haulage.

[25][26] In 1840, when the decade began, railway lines in Britain were few and scattered but, within ten years, a virtually complete network had been laid down and the vast majority of towns and villages had a rail connection[citation needed] and in some cases even two or three.

It did, however, lead to the introduction of minimum standards for the construction of carriages[32] and the compulsory provision of 3rd class accommodation for passengers – so-called "Parliamentary trains".

The competition from road transport during the 1920s and 1930s greatly reduced the revenue available to the railways, even though the needs for maintenance on the network had never been higher, as investment had been deferred over the past decade.

[39][40] Although these road pricing changes helped their survival, the railways entered a period of slow decline, owing to a lack of investment and changes in transport policy and lifestyles.

[42][43] During 1933, the Great Western Railway introduced the first of its diesel-powered railcars, an early move towards the long term future of the passenger trains.

[44][45] On 3 July 1938, the London and North Eastern Railway's Class A4 4468 Mallard set a world speed record of 126 mph (202.8 km/h).

The mid-1950s saw the hasty introduction of diesel and electric rolling stock to replace steam in a modernisation plan costing many millions of pounds but the expected transfer back from road to rail did not occur and losses began to mount.

Investment was made into the electrification of the East Coast Main Line (ECML) and the InterCity 225 electric high speed train introduced during the late 1980s.

[62][63] In the mid 1980s, British Rail begun to replace its large fleet of first generation DMUs with a new rolling stock, namely the Pacer and Sprinter families.

[80][81] Following the Hatfield accident, the rail infrastructure company Railtrack imposed over 1,200 emergency speed restrictions across its network and instigated an extremely costly nationwide track replacement programme.

[86] The COVID-19 pandemic of the early 2020s caused a massive drop in passenger numbers,[87][88][89] As of 2018, government subsidies to the rail industry in real terms were roughly three times that of the late 1980s.