Services to France, Belgium and the Netherlands were run by Sealink UK as part of the Sealink consortium which also used ferries owned by French national railways (SNCF), the Belgian Maritime Transport Authority Regie voor Maritiem Transport/Regie des transports maritimes (RMT/RTM) and the Dutch Stoomvaart Maatschappij Zeeland (Zeeland Steamship Company).
However, given that there was now competition in the form of other ferry companies offering crossings to motorists, it became necessary to market the services in a normal business fashion (as opposed to the previous almost monopolistic situation).
[2] As demand for international rail travel declined and the shipping business became almost exclusively dependent on passenger and freight vehicle traffic, the ferry business was incorporated as Sealink UK Limited on 1 January 1979,[3][4] a wholly owned subsidiary of the British Railways Board (BRB), but still part of the Sealink consortium.
The agreement with the SNCF on the Dover to Calais route also ended at this time and the French-run Sealink services were rebranded as SeaFrance.
Previously, the British Rail double arrow logo had been used, with a BR corporate monastral blue hull, white upperworks and black-topped red funnel.
In the 1960s, British Rail started hovercraft services from Dover to Calais and Boulogne-sur-Mer, and also across the Solent to the Isle of Wight.