British Rail first used the term Inter-City in 1950 as the name of a train running between London Paddington and Wolverhampton Low Level.

The name was applied to the business express which ran from London in the morning and returned in the afternoon, and became part of the railway lore of the West Midlands.

West Midlands residents always believed that it was the success of this one train that led to the adoption of the name as a British Rail brand in 1966.

[2] This belief was supported by the timeline: in 1966 The Inter-City was heading towards its ultimate demise in 1967, when the mainline London-West Midlands service was consolidated into the newly electrified route via Rugby.

If expresses on other sectors are included, there was a period in the early 1990s when British Rail operated more 100 mph services per day than any other country.

HST services were first introduced in 1976 on the Great Western Main Line from London Paddington to Bristol, Cardiff and Swansea.

East Coast – InterCity 125 HST services started in 1977: Typically 2 first-class, a Restaurant Kitchen, Buffet Standard and 4 standard-class British Rail Mark 3 carriages with a Class 43 power car at each end.

InterCity 225: a Class 91 electric locomotive, nine Mark 4 coaches and a Driving Van Trailer (DVT) operating in push-pull mode; introduced in 1990, with electrification completed in 1991.

West Coast – London Euston to Wolverhampton used Class 86 electric locomotives hauling Mark 2 carriages and operated at 100 mph.

Mark 2 Driving Brake Standard Opens were cascaded from Scotland in the early 90s, so that trains could operate in push-pull mode.

Prior to being transferred to InterCity, the service ran from London Victoria calling at Clapham Junction, East Croydon (sometimes via Redhill) and Gatwick Airport running via Haywards Heath to Brighton.

East Coast Main Line: London Kings Cross, Stevenage, Peterborough, Grantham, Newark North Gate, Retford, Doncaster, Hull, Wakefield Westgate, Leeds, York, Northallerton, Darlington, Durham, Middlesbrough, Newcastle, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Dunbar, Edinburgh, Glasgow Central, Dundee, Perth, Aberdeen, Inverness.

West Coast Main Line: London Euston, Watford Junction, Bletchley, Milton Keynes Central (opened 1982), Rugby, Coventry, Birmingham International, Birmingham New Street, Wolverhampton, Stafford, Stoke-on-Trent, Crewe, Macclesfield, Wilmslow, Stockport, Manchester Piccadilly, Runcorn, Liverpool Lime Street, Chester, Llandudno Junction, Bangor, Holyhead, Warrington Bank Quay, Wigan North Western, Preston, Lancaster, Oxenholme, Carlisle, Motherwell, Glasgow Central.

Midland Main Line: London St Pancras, Luton, Bedford, Wellingborough, Kettering, Market Harborough, Leicester, Loughborough, Nottingham, Derby, Chesterfield, Sheffield, Leeds, York, Scarborough.

Cross Country Route: Penzance, Truro, St Austell, Plymouth, Totnes, Paignton, Torquay, Newton Abbot, Exeter St. David's, Taunton, Bristol Temple Meads, Bristol Parkway, Cardiff Central, Newport, London Paddington, Poole, Bournemouth, Southampton, Brighton, Gatwick Airport, Reading, Oxford, Gloucester, Cheltenham Spa, Coventry, Birmingham International, Birmingham New Street, Wolverhampton, Stafford, Crewe, Warrington Bank Quay, Wigan North Western, Stoke-on-Trent, Macclesfield, Stockport, Manchester Piccadilly, Manchester Oxford Road, Bolton, Hartford, Runcorn, Liverpool Lime Street, St Helens Central, Preston, Blackpool North, Lancaster, Oxenholme, Penrith, Carlisle, Motherwell, Glasgow Central, Derby, Sheffield, Doncaster, Leeds, York, Darlington, Durham, Newcastle, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Edinburgh, Kirkcaldy, Dundee, Arbroath, Aberdeen.

Great Eastern Main Line: London Liverpool Street, Chelmsford, Colchester, Manningtree, Harwich International (for the ferry to Hook of Holland), Ipswich, Stowmarket, Diss, Norwich.

[7] When the production High Speed Train (HST) sets entered service in 1976, they too carried the blue and grey livery.

The HSTs continued to carry an outline 'InterCity 125' logotype (now with no hyphen) and the large yellow area on the power car that had been a feature of the blue and grey livery.

[11][full citation needed] In use there were problems with the light colour showing dirt on the diesel HSTs and so dark grey was extended from the roof to cover louvres near the top of the power car body, and the logotype was changed from an outline to solid white to make it more striking.

Initial plans were for the train operating companies to co-operate to continue providing a consistent InterCity network, but disagreements meant this did not occur.

Occasional services are run using 'Inter-City' branded coaches, usually where additional rolling stock has been hired, but the term is not in official use by train operators.

Abellio ScotRail announced that it is to revive the InterCity name on new services operated by refurbished High Speed Train sets, linking the seven cities in Scotland, from mid-2018.

[16] The train operating company Locomotive Services Limited has begun to reuse the InterCity name for its numerous programmes of electric-worked or occasional diesel railtours.