This section provides an overview of the railway system in Britain, general background information on the situation outside the railways fence is contained in Appendix One. A more detailed discussion of the railways locomotives will be found in Appendix Four - Locomotives and DMUs

Fig___ L&M Rly. 'chauldron and coal container wagons

The coal containers or 'skips' were by no means a new idea even in 1831, they had been in use in collieries for over a hundred years and the nearby Bridgwater canal routinely used them for transporting coal in barges. The coal containers were not a great success on the L & M but proved popular on other lines and have remained in service in one form or another to the present day. Pickfords the road haulage contractors built some general merchandise containers in the early 1830's and these remained in service for many years. Large purpose-built terminals were provided to transfer these general merchandise containers from the railway to horse drawn carts.

Pickfords started out in the road haulage business in a town called Poynton in Cheshire in the 1740's, and were by this time a well established company. They had moved their headquarters to London in about 1823 (the last family member connected with the firm died in 1846). As well as road carts and wagons they owned a fleet of canal boats and it is believed that their logo in this era was a vertical white diamond shape on a dark blue or black background. This logo was painted on the canal boats and was probably applied to the containers but I have not managed to find any illustrations that show its placement.

Fig___ Cross section of 1830's Pickfords container terminal



Container traffic on the railways is discussed more fully in the section on Unit Loads on the Railways.

Initially railways were seen as being essentially similar to roads and canals, a 'road' on which independent contractors could haul trains of goods, and this way of working was not uncommon in the first years of the Nineteenth Century. Things went fairly well in the era of horse and cable haulage but after a series of mishaps all locomotive hauled trains had by law to be pulled by Railway Company locomotives. Private railways such as those operated by collieries were allowed to operate their own locomotives but these would not be allowed to venture out onto the railway system proper.

Following the lead set by the canals ownership of railway goods rolling stock has always been divided between the railway companies and Private Owners (usually abbreviated to PO). A few of the early railway companies actually owned no stock at all, everything being carried in private owner wagons. The Liverpool & Manchester Railway was initially intended to operate as a 'highway' on which private contractors could operate their own trains, this state of affairs did not last for long however and by 1834 the company had bought out all the private passenger coach operators. This meant that the company had to invest a lot of capital in the railway rolling stock. Allowing privately owned goods vehicles meant that other peoples money was used to build and maintain these and privately owned goods wagons do not incur rental charges for the user. A PO wagon can therefore serve not only for transport but also for storage on the users own siding. PO wagons have remained a feature of the British system up to the present day.

The railway system of charging evolved based on experience, no one had operated a railway before and the system became ever more complicated (see also Historical Background - Charging for goods on the railways).


Goods shipped in open wagons were subject to weather damage but the high speeds meant this was less of a problem than with other forms of transport. A new threat however was fire, the early locomotives used coke rather than coal and the simple boiler designs meant that sparks and glowing embers were often blown out of the chimney. The fire grates under the boiler were not enclosed and red hot or burning embers fell from the simple fire grates onto the track. One early passenger wrote enthusiastically of being "drawn along as though in the tail of a comet". A lot of the traffic on the Liverpool & Manchester Railway was bales of cotton and after several fires the company engineer George Stephenson advised that heavy canvass should be used to cover all loads for protection. This did not stop the wagon fires caused by embers on the track being caught up in the wagon wheels and whirled round but it was a couple of years before all locomotives were fitted with ash pans. The open wagon with the canvas tarpaulin cover, or 'tilt' as they were often called, remained the principal method of goods transport for over a century.

The success of the steam hauled Liverpool and Manchester Railway prompted the building of new lines around the country. The Grand Junction Railway opened in 1837, running from Birmingham to Warrington, where it connected with the Liverpool & Manchester Railway becoming the first railway trunk route in the world. A year later the London & Birmingham railway started operations, completing the link to the capital. The early railways were generally successful, they survived the industrial depression of the early 1840's and in the following years there was a boom in railway development, partly encouraged by the fortunes made by the people who had invested in the early canals and waterways.

By the late 1840's the era of experimentation on the railways was over, the lessons learned in Britain enabled other countries to build their systems with much less confusion and trouble. Over the next sixty years virtually all the railways in the world were built, most using the same gauge track as the Liverpool and Manchester. The building of the railways around the world was the largest single task ever undertaken by humanity, the equivalent of building several thousand copies of the Great Wall of China.

The relative high speed of the railways allowed perishables to be carried from the country to the large towns and by the late 1840's London was receiving over seventy tons of fresh fish a week from the ports of Yarmouth and Lowestoft courtesy of the Eastern Counties Railway. The railways involvement with the fish trade is discussed in under Freight Operations in the subsection dealing with Non Passenger Coaching Stock Operations. Natural materials used for dyes were a profitable cargo for the railways, imported vegetable matter such as Madders, Indigo and Safflower were moved in considerable quantities (up to the 1880's when synthetics took over).

The average length of a British railway company line at this time was in the region of fifteen miles and it was inevitable that lines began to consolidate and merge, establishing larger and more efficient companies covering much larger geographical areas. For example in 1846 the Liverpool & Manchester, the London & Birmingham, the Grand Junction Railway and the Manchester & Birmingham amalgamated to become the London & North Western Railway (LNWR), which thereafter titled itself the 'Premier Line'.

By his time the railways had become a vital part of the nations economy, fears of the power wielded by the railway companies lead to the 'common carriers' legislation (see also Historical Background - The Common User Scheme) and even calls for nationalisation of the British network. The railway companies, with the rather dubious railway magnate George Hudson (1800-1871) as their spokesman, did not want unrestrained competition which they felt would be ruinous (the American experience suggested there was truth in this contention). Hudson pressed for a middle course based on a potentially highly profitable 'regulated monopoly' and in this he was moderately successful.

In 1844 a separate Railway Department was formed at the Board of Trade, ostensibly to look at the relative merits of various proposed railways and mergers of existing lines. In the event the fear of monopoly meant that a great many railways were built with little regard for how competition would affect their fortunes and several major trunk routes were duplicated or even triplicated. In mainland Europe the state exercised greater control over the railways in order to establish orderly strategic networks. Belgium, which had gained its independence from Holland in 1830, saw a National Railway as a vital component of its national identity and the network was sponsored by the government. In France no tracks were laid until the Government had devised a strategic system based on Paris, in the 1840's four regional companies were established, each with a ninety nine year lease on their territory and the legislation discouraged competition between the lines (the four railways were amalgamated in the mid 1930's to form the national railway operator SNCF). In the fragmented collection of small semi-independent states that later became Germany there was a real need for a military strategic railway network and little alternative to State funding.

In Britain the Railway Department of the Board of Trade encouraged the process of standardisation, mainly with regard to safety systems and signals. The railway companies were by now very powerful organisations, Parliament at the time was dominated not by party politics but by interest groups and the Railways were amongst the most powerful of these. As a result most of the Railway Departments rules were only applicable to lines and installations built after the rules were drawn up, few changes were forced to existing systems.

In the 1840's, 50's and 60's there were a series of commissions on the Railways, all seeking to establish some means of avoiding a monopoly whilst allowing the railways to work efficiently. One change introduced in the 1850's was the banning the railways from granting special privileges to individuals (a method used to 'buy off' the objections of rich land owners and competitors). In 1867 the Commission on the Railways reported that there were close to two thousand pieces of legislation now in force relating to railways and another fifteen hundred or so which contained amendments or modifying clauses. Given the complexity of this legislation, and the fact that it contained many contradictions, they concluded it was practically impossible to sort out what the legal duties and responsibilities of any particular railway might now be.

In 1863 the first of the London underground lines opened from Farringdon to Paddington, this was the worlds first underground railway. The concept had been championed by a man called Charles Pearson who was Solicitor for the City of London. Mr Pearson's plan for trains running in drain-like tubes was ridiculed by Henry Mayhew, the author of The London Poor and the founder of Punch magazine. Punch ran a series of articles suggesting ways that various coal cellars and the like might be used as part of the route to save money.

The line was built and the MP Mr. Gladstone travelled on first train with his wife but Mr. Pearson had died six months beforehand. In 1863 three quarters of a million people went to work in London and the new underground railway was to prove a great success. The steam trains represented a problem when running in long tunnels as the steam and fumes from the boiler would suffocate the passengers. The original solution was to route the steam into tanks on the locomotive which could be opened to release the steam as the train passed under large ventilating openings. A later and more successful approach was to feed the steam into condensers and return the condensed water to the boiler feed tank on the engine. The tank engines fitted with this equipment can be identified as they have large diameter pipes visible on top of the side mounted water tanks.

Fig___ Underground railway 'condensing' engine


The introduction of the first Bank Holiday in 1871, along with other traditional holidays taken by factory workers, saw an increase in interest in day's away by train, usually to a seaside destination.

The Midland Railway, a late comer in the railway world, had rather longer routes and had to compete for passengers by offering greater comfort and amenities. The Midland was noted for its eagerness to promote its lines for tourism. In the 1870's they brought in some American 'Pullman' coaches, these had no compartments and passengers could move from one coach to another via the small boarding platforms at the ends. Dining cars appeared in Britain on the Great Northern Railway in 1879, but these had no connecting doors so the clientele remained in the coach for the entire journey or moved when the train stopped at a station.

In 1881 concern over the spiritual welfare of the railway staff, many of whom spent much of their time away from home, prompted the formation of the Railway Chaplaincy. The force behind this was a remarkable lady by the name of Emma Saunders who had been working to provide the railway staff with moral and social support since the 1860's. This was a time of increasing interest in evangelical Christianity and Mrs. Saunders, know by this time as 'the railway mans friend', gained the backing of Lord Shafstbury, a major force in social reform. The Railway Chaplains still travel the system today giving spiritual support to railway personnel and passengers. They can be requested by a particular staff member at any time and they will travel through the system to meet the person wherever it is they may be. The Chaplains are interdenominational and are drawn from many Protestant churches, they do not these days wear the clerical 'dog collar' but they carry an identity tag on their lapel to identify them to staff.

In 1884 Gladstone, by now the Minister of Transport, headed a Select Committee to review the development of the railway system. On the continent there was much more state involvement and there was talk at the time of the British government entering into a partnership with the railways (as had been done in France) or even of complete nationalisation. In the event nothing much happened at the time. In 1886-87 a Royal Commission on Railways looked at the question of regulating Britain's railway network again and although Gladstone's ideas on partial nationalisation were considered they were in the event rejected. It was decided that a recent law, entitling people to claim compensation for loss or injury on the railway was sufficient to protect the interests of the public and that the Board of Trade should not directly interfere in the running of railway companies.

The 1888 Railway and Canal Traffic Act represented the growing realisation that the nation's railways were a strategic and economic asset of unrivalled importance. The Railway and Canal Commission was made a permanent body and given stronger powers whilst the Board of Trade was appointed to act as an impartial arbitrator between the railway companies and people who felt they had a grievance.

Also in 1888 the first 'slip coaches' appeared on the London Brighton and South Coast Railway, the South Western Railway and the Great Western Railway. These coaches had their own brakes and could be detached from the rear of a train while it was moving, allowing them to be 'dropped off' as the train passed through a station.

In spite of various accidents during the 1870's the railway companies had resisted Government attempts to introduce more sophisticated brakes on passenger trains. This was partly because of cost but also they were unable to agree on a standard system. Following a serious accident in Ireland in which 80 people died, many of them children, automatic continuous brakes became mandatory on passenger stock in 1889. Automatic means that if the train parts the brakes on both sections will automatically be applied and continuous means that all the vehicles brakes can be controlled from a single point, usually the engine. Rolling stock equipped with this kind of brake is usually described as 'fitted', vehicles with only a hand brake are described as 'unfitted'.

There were many different designs for brakes (these are discussed in the section on Rolling Stock Development) in Britain most companies opted for the vacuum operated automatic brake systems, usually abbreviated to AVB. The use of continuous brakes allows higher speeds and it was not long before such brakes appeared on high speed goods stock such as cattle wagons, fruit vans and fish trucks, allowing these to travel attached to passenger trains. Most goods wagons remained 'unfitted' and goods trains trundled about at 25 to 30 m.p.h.

The first electric trains on the London Underground railway system appeared on the City & South London Railway of 1890 and the inner London underground system was fully electrified by 1905.

Fig___ Early London Underground Electric Locomotives


Services in the outer areas of the system remained steam hauled and some of these steam services lasted into the British Railways era.

In 1895 an act of parliament allowed the setting up of 'Light Railways', this was in part an attempt to help the rural farmers compete in the new national market supplied with cheap imported food. The light railway was not bound by the same regulations as the larger main line companies and so cost less to operate, but the speed on such lines was restricted to a 25 mph (40 kph) and the maximum load was about ten tons per wagon. Not all light railways were operated by minor companies, some lesser branch lines of the larger concerns had originally been granted their Act of Parliament for goods traffic only. Some of these goods-only branches were granted the right to carry passengers under light railway orders. This means you can have a branch line on your layout which uses older and lighter locomotives, older carriages and carries regular goods traffic.

The last Light Railway to operate in the UK was (I believe) the Derwent Valley Light Railway which opened in 1913 and closed down in the later 1980's having remained independent throughout it's existence. There are some useful photos of this line taken in the 1970's in the book British Railway Goods Wagons in Colour by Robert Hendry (Midland Publishing ISBN 9781857800944).

Light Railways generally had lower platforms than the main line companies and some arranged stops at the level crossings on the line, this was one reason so many early lines had footboards on their carriages. The larger railways companies then tried the same idea, fitting local coaches with fold down steps to allow passengers to board at level crossings. This was not considered a success, Humphrey Household's book Gloucestershire Railways in the Twenties (published by Alan Sutton in 1984, ISBN 0862991978) suggests that after trying this approach on their steam rail-motor coach units in about 1900-1903 the GWR switched to building short wooden platforms and in so doing introduced the word Halt to describe them.

It is perhaps worth noting that at the end of the nineteenth century there were about fifteen hundred miles (2,400 km) of horse-hauled wagon ways still operating in Britain.

There were a number of narrow gauge lines in the country, many of which operated as light railways. The problem faced by these lines was the transhipment of goods to and from standard gauge stock. One company, the Leek & Manifold Light Railway solved this problem by building transporter wagons. These had 'foot boards' to either side fitted with rails to carry standard gauge wagons. The London & North Western Railway and the Great Western Railway, both of whom operated services into the slate producing areas of North Wales, built standard gauge transporter wagons so the loaded narrow gauge slate trucks could be carried to the docks without transhipment.

By 1900 the British railway system was virtually complete, the last major trunk route was the Great Central's London Extension to the new Marylebone terminus in 1889, but that venture probably never paid for itself. The Great Central had decided to run its own line into London having had problems with its running arrangements with both the LNWR and the GNR for access to the capital, arrangements which had earned the nickname 'the flirtatious railway'. Closed cabs were standard on new locomotives, some of the older designs in the ready-to-run ranges date from this era and other types can be modelled using the Graham Farish 0-6-0 tanks, and possibly the 4-4-0 tender locomotive as a basis. Bogie coaches started to appear in the early 1900's but the old four and six wheeled stock continued in use.

By this time British railways were carrying about five hundred million tons of coal a year (as opposed to about thirty five million tons in 1995) and the number of passengers carried each year in Britain alone was roughly equivalent to the then population of the earth. Cattle were a regular traffic for the railway companies, involving purpose built cattle wagons often marshaled into an entire train. Milk from the country to the towns and cities had been moved by rail from the 1870's and soon became a major traffic flow. Initially the milk was not treated in any way, it was delivered to the station in silver conical churns and carried in slat sided vans to the towns (milk tanks appeared in the early 20th century carrying processed milk from purpose built 'creameries' in the country). Long trains of purpose built fish wagons and vans were being hauled from the fishing ports to the larger cities by large express locomotives.

Fig___ British Railway Network 1900



Branch lines continued to be laid into the early twentieth century but there was very little development of the railway network after about 1920. By this time the large numbers of petrol lorries, and men trained to operate them, that had come onto the market after the First World War was starting to impact on the railway freight business. Similarly motor-buses were increasingly being used for local passenger transport, although these were less comfortable than trains they were cheaper.

Click here for some notes on the heating and lighting used on passenger trains.


In 1903 electrification of some lines around Tyneside was begun using outside third rail pick-up. In 1904 the Liverpool to Southport main line became the first British main line railway to be electrified using an outside third rail carrying 600 volts DC.

Fig___ 1904 L&Y Railway EMU




Pride in service and company loyalty were very high amongst railway employees. 'Uniformed' positions meant staff did not have to buy their own working clothes and it was a steady job which was highly valued. There had been a move toward improving the lot of the railway employee since the 1890's, the railway workers were the first men to have their hours regulated by the Board of Trade. Meanwhile the effect of the continuing competition between companies was an increase in the amalgamations. The Board of Trade intervened again in 1907 to avert a strike and set up review boards for pay, but by 1911 a widespread strike was unavoidable and involved most of the larger companies. This strike was in part due to unfavourable settlements reached regarding pay and conditions and partly due to the feeling that railways had always paid poorly but offered security of employment. The series of amalgamations had lead to a reduction in staff and even where redundancy did not follow promotion prospects were blighted.

Express goods trains appeared in the early 1900's, offering speeds in excess of 40 mph (64 kph). Rolling stock used in such trains had to be fitted with oil filled axle boxes, at least a third of the wagons had to be 'fitted' (equipped with automatic brakes) and private owner wagons were not allowed.

Most general goods traffic was in the form of small consignments although full wagon loads were sent from factories to other factories or local distributors. Most bulk goods such as coal and oil were moved by the wagon load rather than as a complete train of wagons. An entire train carrying one consignment is called a 'block load' or 'block train' by the railways. Block trains of coal were run from the mines to docks and to railway yards where individual wagons would be sent off to merchants, gas works and factories. A typical block coal train in this period would involve some fifty or sixty wagons hauled along by a tank engine at maximum speeds of about 25 mph (40 kph).

The domestic economy was based on the small corner shops and a great deal of railway goods traffic was therefore made up of small consignments being sent from one railway station to another for collection by a local trader. Not infrequently a wagon or van would carry only a single consignment to a local goods yard, for example half a dozen carpets, hardly a 'full load' for a ten ton van. Traders were given 48 hours to unload a wagon, paying a fee if they took longer than this. The railway companies managed something similar, unloading most wagons within a day of their arrival and loading them up again within another day.

The railway companies advised the Railway Clearing House (see also Historical Background - The Railway Clearing House) regarding wagon movements on a daily basis, they had to return foreign companies rolling stock within five days or pay a daily fee called 'demurrage'. It was seldom possible to find a return load for a wagon hence there was a great deal of movement of empty stock.

With the outbreak of the First World War the government set up an organisation called the Railway Executive to co-ordinate control of the railway system. Under this system the various companies were still largely autonomous and overall the arrangement worked very well, about 130 railway companies were involved and this centralised control lasted until 1921. One major change introduced during this war was the which dramatically reduced the empty wagon mileage on the system.

In 1913 the Lancashire and Yorkshire electrified the Bury to Holcombe Brook line at 3500 Volts DC using an overhead supply. Two two-car units were built for this line.

Lancashire and Yorkshire Rly Holcombe Brook EMU


The First World War was a difficult time for the railways, many of their staff were called up to fight whilst spares and other materials became increasingly scarce. The general condition of most railway rolling stock deteriorated during the war and the livery on passenger stock was sometimes replaced with a plain overall colour (including khaki and black).

The war brought home the importance of strategic industries and in 1920 the Ministry of Transport was formed by the government. This new ministry charged with co-ordinating the development of roads, railways and to a lesser extent the canals and navigable rivers (legislation relating to deep-sea and coastal shipping remained the province of the Board of Trade).

In 1921 the Irish Free State was established giving full independence to the southern counties of Ireland (implemented in 1922) and the 1921 Railway Act lead to the 1923 government sponsored rationalisation of the railway system known as 'The Grouping'. This represented a major about face for the Government, they had lived in dread of the power a railway monopoly would wield and had resisted amalgamations which they felt would reduce competition. This policy had not been entirely successful however and three large companies with effective territorial monopolies had already formed themselves. The North Eastern Railway was created by the amalgamation of three companies in 1854 giving it virtually total control in Northumberland, North Yorkshire and Durham, the Great Eastern Railway formed in 1862 gained unrivalled control of East Anglia, whilst in Scotland the Scottish Central and the Scottish North Eastern had been absorbed by the mighty Caledonian Railway.

Amalgamations had been allowed where these did not threaten a monopoly, mainly smaller lines being absorbed or leased by larger neighbours, but there remained a great many independent companies. Scotland and Wales, late starters in the railway business, had both been opened up by these smaller railway companies. There were also a great many 'Joint' lines, owned or operated by two or more larger companies.

The `Grouping' of 1923 was in effect a government sponsored rationalisation of the British railway system. About a hundred and twenty or so of the larger independent railway companies were amalgamated into four large regional concerns, subsequently generally referred to as `The Big Four'. These four were the Great Western Railway (GWR), the Southern Railway (SR), the London North Eastern Railway (LNER) and the London Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS).

The Big Four were based on geographical regions, LMS being the West of England, North Wales and West of Scotland, LNER being the Eastern England and Eastern Scotland, the SR worked the English South coast and the GWR covered the West of England, South Wales and Cornwall. Naturally there was some overlap of owned lines, and the provision of running powers on one companies lines for another companies trains was not uncommon. The GWR and LMS had the strongest financial position but the Southern Railway companies had been hard worked during the 1914-18 War. In the East the Great Central and Great Eastern were both in poor financial straits and even the relatively successful Great Northern was not as well equipped as it might be. The LMS, LNER and SR were largely new companies, deriving their operating practice and designs from the larger absorbed companies. The GWR was slightly different, already a large company, effectively absorbed all the smaller lines and stamped its identity on them. The GWR, SR and LNER managed the transition with little administrative difficulty but the LMS had some trouble dealing with rivalries between the Midland Railway & the London and North Western Railway in England and between the Glasgow & South Western Railway and the Caledonian Railway North of the border .

Each of the new four companies inherited all the various works built by their constituents but rationalisation concentrated work at a small number of larger establishments. The main LMS works were at Crewe and Derby, the LNER had extensive facilities at Doncaster and Darlington and the SR had works at Ashford and Eastleigh. The GWR had its original massive works at Swindon, which had been a small village before Brunel decided to use it as his engineering centre. Each company inherited a number of routes to London, the LMS operating into Euston and St Pancras, the LNER from Kings Cross, Broad Street and Liverpool Street, the GWR from Paddington and Marylebone, and the SR from Waterloo and Victoria.

There were three large railway companies which had been jointly run before the grouping and continued as such under the Big Four. Largest was the Cheshire Lines Committee, linking Cheshire with Lancashire, which had been jointly owned by the Great Central, Great Northern and Midland Railway. The CLC was unusual in that the only engines it ever owned were four Sentinel passenger steam rail-cars. The CLC could not be easily allocated to either the LMS or the LNER and continued as a separate company jointly owned by these two new companies. A joint the board of directors was formed, three from the LMS six from the LNER. The CLC remained as the fifth largest railway company in the UK until Nationalisation in 1948. In Cheshire after the grouping the CLC, LMS, LNER and GWR all had lines and complex agreements allowing trains to operate on each others tracks. From a goods point of view this is one of the more interesting areas in the country.

The Midland & Great Northern Railway was another joint operation, this time in Norfolk. Originally operated by the Midland (who provided the locos and most of the rolling stock) and the Great Northern (who dealt with the track, signals etc.). This became an LMS/LNER joint company after the grouping.

The Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway, previously worked by the London & South Western Railway and the Midland Railway became an LMS/SR joint line.

The M&GN and S&DJR were both lines which had a great deal of single track and distinctive operating practices, features which remained until their closure in 1959 and 1967 respectively.

S&DJR goods rolling stock had been divided between the LSWR and the MR in 1914, leaving only engineers vehicles, brake vans, the passenger stock and some locomotives in S&DJR livery. The CLC goods rolling stock and the remaining S&DJR stock was divided between the owning companies in 1930. The M&GN rolling stock was divided in 1936, but on the CLC and M&GN the brake vans and service vehicles remained the property of the joint companies for some years afterward. Brake vans in CLC livery were still seen around the country in the 1950's, usually attached to Eastern Region trains.

In areas such as the Forest of Dean the complicated working arrangements between the Great Western and Midland Railways on the Severn and Wye Railway were continued by the new GWR and LMS companies.

As well as the 'Big Four' and the joint companies there remained a few other independent lines, mainly 'Light Railways'. These continued to operate into the 1930's when economic conditions forced most into bankruptcy. From a modelling point of view these would more closely resemble the pre-grouping period in locomotives and coaching stock. Most goods traffic on these lines travelled in the larger companies rolling stock.

A summary of the larger constituents of the Big Four is of use to the modeller as it tells you whether a pre-grouping model can be used in your preferred company livery. For example the Graham Farish Fish van is a Great Northern Railway design, which is therefore legitimate in LNER livery. It is standard practice to define periods in a companies history by the name of the Chief Mechanical Engineer, or CME. I have included the relevant names and dates under the company title.

London Midland & Scottish Railway (LMS)

Fig___ The LMS system


CME's: G. Hughes (who had been CME of the Lancashire & Yorkshire, subsequently the LNWR since 1904) 1923 to 1925. Sir H. Fowler (came from the MR, where he became CME in 1903) 1925 to 1931. Sir W. Stanier 1931 to 1944. H. G. Ivatt 1945-1947

Comprised of the Midland Railway (including the London Tilbury & Southend absorbed in 1912, some narrow gauge lines and some lines in Northern Ireland), the London & North Western Railway (including the Lancashire & Yorkshire, absorbed in 1921, the North London Railway absorbed in 1909), the North Staffordshire Railway (including the narrow-gauge Leek & Manifold Valley Railway), the Caledonian Railway, Cleator & Workington Railway, Maryport & Carslile Railway, Garstang & Knott End Railway, the Wirral Railway, the Stratford on Avon & Midland Junction Railway the Furness Railway and the Highland Railway.

The LMS also inherited an interest in certain jointly owned or operated lines such as the Cheshire Lines Committee and the Midland & Great Northern with the LNER, the Severn & Wye Railway (operating in the Forest of Dean) with the GWR, and the Somerset & Dorset Joint Rly. with the Southern (the goods stock of this latter company being divided between the two in 1930, at which time much of it was still in S&DJR livery).

London & North Eastern Railway (LNER)

Fig___ The LNER system



CME's: Sir N. Gresley (CME of the G.N.R from 1911 to 1922) 1923 to 1941. E. Thompson 1941 to 1946. A. H. Peppercorn 1946 to 1947.

Comprised of the North British Railway, Great Central Railway (called the Manchester Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway until 1897 and including the Lancashire, Derbyshire & East Coast Railway absorbed in 1907 and the Wrexham Mold & Connah's Quay Railway absorbed in 1905), Great Northern Railway, North Eastern Railway (including the Hull & Barnsley Railway, absorbed in 1922), Great Eastern Railway, Great North of Scotland Railway, East & West Yorkshire Union Railway, The Colne Valley & Halstead Railway and the standard gauge Mid Suffolk Light Railway.

There were 20 or so smaller companies and the LNER inherited interests in certain jointly owned systems, such as the Midland & Great Northern and the Cheshire Lines Committee, both with the LMS.

Southern Railway (SR)

Fig___ The SR system





CME's: R. E. L. Maunsel (CME of the S.E.C.R. from 1913) 1923 to 1937. O. V. Bulleid (who had been the assistant to the LNER's Gresley) 1937 to 1947.

Comprised of London & South Western Railway, the Isle of Wight Railway, the Isle of Wight Central Railway, the Freshwater Yarmouth and Newport Railway, the South East & Chatham Railway (formed in 1899 by the amalgamation of the South Eastern Rly & the South East & Chatham Rly), the London Brighton and South Coast Railway and the Plymouth Devonport & South Western Junction Railway. There were several smaller companies such as the narrow gauge Lynton and Barnstaple Rly. The SR also jointly operated the Somerset & Dorset Joint Rly. with the LMS up to 1930 at which time the SR took over operations on this single line route and the stock was divided between the two grouped companies.

Great Western Railway (GWR)

Fig___ The post-grouping GWR



CME's: William Dean 1877 to 1902. G. J. Churchward 1902 to 1921. C. B. Collet 1921 to 1941. F. W. Hawksworth 1941 to 1948.

Comprising the original Great Western Railway (including the Liskard & Looe Railway absorbed in 1909) to which existing large network was added several lines in South Wales: The Cambrian Railways (including the Mawddy Railway), Alexandra (Newport & South Wales) Docks & Railway Co, the Neath & Brecon Railway, the Rhondda & Swansea Bay Railway, Burry Port & Gwendraeth Railway, the separate Gwendraeth Valley Railway, the Llanelly & Mynydd Mawr Railway, the Cardiff Railway, Taff Vale Railway, Barry Railway and Rhymney Railway. Other constituents included the Midland & South Western Junction Railway, the South Devon Railway, the Bristol & Exeter Railway, the Cleobury Mortimer & Ditton Priors Railway and the West Midland Railway. There were also assorted smaller concerns including the narrow gauge Welshpool & Llanfair Railway and the Vale of Rheidol Rly. The GWR was also involved with various joint ownership arrangements, such as the Forest of Dean railway system with the Midland Railway, subsequently the LMS and various lines in Cheshire with the LMS and LNER.

The Vale of Rheidol Railway was allocated to London Midland Region after Nationalisation and was for a time the only British Railways steam line. Diesels were introduced for service trains and shunting duties in the 1980's. The VOR was sold to Brecon Mountain Railway in 1988.

With all these companies goods rolling stock was normally re-painted only as and when it came in for repair, hence it was possible to see pre-grouping liveries in use on the railways right up until the outbreak of World War 2 in 1939, rare examples have been reported as late as 1948.

The 1921 Act also revised the charges for railway goods traffic, the idea being to simplify what had become an extremely complex business, this was not entirely successful however. The railway companies were by this time looking at road transport as a possible avenue of expansion, the Government ever fearful of monopolies introduced clauses in the 1921 Act which hindered this line of investment.

During the First World War the War Department built three ships to carry railway vehicles and established military ports equipped with the necessary docking gear. In 1924 the LNER purchased the three ships and the associated shore 'link-span' equipment from the army, establishing the semi autonomous Great Eastern Train Ferries Ltd. to operate a service from Harwich to Zeebruge in Holland.

Fig ___ LNER (ex WD) train ferry




In about 1926 the railways began offering door-to-door container services, the containers being transported on both horse drawn and motor road vehicles at either end of their journey.



Fig___ 3 ton mechanical horse transporting a container



In the deepening recession of the early 1930's the government provided cash, in the form of low interest loans, to assist the railways and canals with redeveloping their infrastructure. These loans were used to subsidise several major improvements to canals, notably on the Grand Union Canal. On the railway side they were of greatest help to the Southern Railway and the Great Western Railway, the LMS and more particularly the LNER were not in a strong enough financial position to make much use of them. This period saw most of the remaining 'light railways' fail, including several of the Welsh narrow gauge lines built for slate traffic, a trade which had been in decline for some years.

It was during the 1930's that the railways began to adopt a more co-co-ordinated policy for handling goods traffic. Common shared depots were established and traffic was shared and routed to form more cost-effective heavy trains. This 'pooling' system reduced the number of smaller goods trains competing not only with each other but also with the growing force of road transport.

In 1936, the Southern Railway company and the newly nationalised French railway (SNCF) invested in new train ferry docks at Dover and Dunkerque. This service employed three ships each of which could carry twelve international sleeping carriages or twenty four forty foot wagons and an enclosed upper deck had a garage for 25 motor cars. The illustration below is based on a poster produced by the SR advertising this service. Note the funnels are mounted fore and aft rather than at the sides as on the old WD ferries.

Fig ___ 1930s Southern Railway train ferry


By the late 1930's the canal system was in decline but the railway system, although suffering from road competition was looking quite efficient. One new trade for the railways was in 'ferry wagons', railway wagons fitted with securing points to allow them to travel on cross channel ferries or across the North Sea. The first train ferries had been introduced by the military in World War One, one former military service between Calais and Harwich was maintained after the war and additional services soon followed. The Portuguese were amongst the first to use this system, shipping perishables via France in special vans with interchangeable axles to suit the standard British and French and somewhat wider Portuguese tracks. Most goods continued to arrive in conventional cargo ships however and all docks of any size, and most of the smaller ones as well, were laced with railway lines.

In 1938 the rivalry between the LNER and the LMS for having the fastest passenger services saw the LNER A4 locomotive Mallard set a world speed record for steam traction of 126 mph (203 kph) in 1938 as it ran down Stoke Bank with a full load of passenger coaches in tow. The photograph shows a model of this engine in its post war British Railways livery.

Mallard

Photo of model courtesy Ian and Sandra Franz

Rearmament in the later 1930's brought much needed revenue to the railways. In 1939 new passenger rolling stock for the electrified the Liverpool to Southport line featured sliding doors, these were the first sliding doors on non-underground stock and they were not seen again on British coaches until the electrification of the Glasgow Underground in 1960.

On the outbreak of war in 1939 the government formally took control of the entire rail network, including the separate London Transport system and several smaller railways. The general managers of the Big Four and London Transport were set up as the Railway Executive Committee to co-ordinate and control the whole railway system. The railway companies were prepared and the transition to a war footing went smoothly.

Freight operations increased steadily, stations near military establishments were suddenly handling ten times the normal quantity of goods, and by the late 1940 's overall freight tonnage was up by something like fifty per cent on the pre-war norm. The war naturally brought changes in the traffic, rolling stock had to be found for these new demands and this often involved modifications to rolling stock which might be of interest to modellers.

Wartime conversions to goods stock



During this period all the private owner coal and iron ore wagons were requisitioned and pooled. These wagons could then be seen in any part of the country. Those with end-doors (Lima & Minitrix) had a diagonal white line, rising to the end with the door, painted over their original private owner livery (see Fig___). Private owner wagons for specialised cargo such as salt and lime was not pooled and nor were the private owner tank wagons.

In the mid 1940's some additional rolling stock was built, including some 10,000 end-door mineral wagons with steel bodies. Many of these were rebuilds on existing nine foot wheel base chassis but the design formed the basis for the post war British Railways standard sixteen ton mineral wagon.

The railways had a difficult war, the blitz (German bombers raiding cities at night) caused a lot of damage and locomotives and rolling stock was hard used. With many of the railway staff in the armed forces, and railway workshops being used for munitions work, maintenance fell behind. By the end of the war the railway system was in a generally poor condition, the number of damaged vehicles waiting for repair had increased by over 60% on the 1939 level. To compound the problems faced by the railways the government, virtually bankrupted by the war, was unable to keep its pre-war promise to pay the railway companies compensation equivalent to moderately successful peace time year.

Post war nationalisation of the railways was partly a Labour Party dogma but it was probably unavoidable on economic grounds. The country had taken a pounding during the war years and the economy was stretched to breaking point. Railways are capital intensive, that is they require a very large amount of money to operate at all, they were not providing a very good return on investment and it is unlikely that investors would have seen the war weary British railway companies as a worthwhile option. The railway companies resisted nationalisation but they had little money and the Labour government was committed. The 1947 Transport Act nationalised the railways, the canals, the docks and a large proportion of the road transportation systems under the new British Transport Commission. The thinking behind the structure was based on the work done by Lord Morrison in forming London Transport; the plan called for a properly co-ordinated public transport system and it was also intended to integrate road and rail freight haulage.

London Transport remained a separate entity but British Railways came into existence on the 1 June 1948, inheriting a system with about 20,000 route miles of track, serving nearly seven thousand passenger stations of which nearly five thousand had goods facilities and a further fifteen hundred pure goods depots. They got about twenty thousand assorted steam locomotives, only about fifty diesel engined machines (shunting engines and a few GWR and LMS motor rail-cars) and sixteen electric locomotives (not including the various passenger electric multiple units operating in London and on the Southern Railway, in the North East and North West). There were at the time over six thousand private sidings on the railway system feeding every kind of industry as well as extensive services into the docks.

As well as the railway infrastructure British Railways inherited all the assets of the Big Four companies, one important asset was the fleet of ferries, including those carrying railway goods and passenger stock. These became 'Sealink' and remained under railway control for the next thirty years.

Fig___ Sealink cross-channel passenger ferry



Also many of the larger hotels in the country were railway owned and became part of British Transport Hotels (these remained as part of the system until the 1980s).

Fig___ Turnberry - One of the large railway hotels



The wartime Railway Executive was replaced by a joint British Transport Commission, with responsibility for British Railways, the British Waterways Board (dealing with the inland waterways, rivers and canals) and the nationalised road haulage organisation called the Road Transport Executive or RTE. The operating arm of the RTE was British Road Services, who painted their lorries red and their parcels vans green.
Note - Ken Ward, a regular on uk.railways newsgroup advised that the official colours for BRS were: General Haulage - Red, Vans - Green, Meat - Cream, Special Traffic (eg tipper lorries) - Blue.

The BTC was most concerned with the dire state of the railways and in the event the idea of actually co-ordinating all the various forms of transport into an integrated system proved too difficult to achieve.

The first British Railways 'crimson and cream' liveried passenger coaches appeared in 1948. There was still a lot of suspicion amongst railway workers and various railway workshops suddenly found they had stocks of the old paint, which of course had to be used up, so coaches and locomotives were still turned out in pre-war colours for the first couple of years.

Fig___ 1944 Bedford lorry in early BR livery




The railway system was divided into six 'regions', the former GWR and SR lines were largely unaffected and simply became Western Region and Southern Region. The LMS and LNER lines in Scotland became Scottish Region, the remainder of the LMS becoming London Midland Region. The former LNER lines in England were subdivided into Eastern Region and North Eastern Region.

Scottish Region covered the whole of Scotland including the northern ends of the West Coast Main Line and East Coast Main Line as well as the rail network serving the industrial heartland of the Central Lowlands between Glasgow and Edinburgh. Going North they operated the line from Edinburgh via Perth and Inverness to Wick and Thurso and from Edinburgh, via the famous bridges over the Firths of Forth and Tay, to Dundee, Aberdeen and Inverness. From Glasgow the West Highland line ran north to Mallaig and Stranraer served the area as a ferry port for Ireland.

London Midland Region had two main lines from London. The main line, which became the West Coast Main Line went via Rugby, Crew (for the North Wales branch), Preston and Carlisle to Scotland. The second line ran from St Pancras station in London via Derby, Leeds and then via the Aire Gap in the Pennines to Sheffield and Carslile. In the later 1960's the LMR took responsibility for the northern section (north of Aylesbury) of the old GWR line from London to Chester via Banbury, Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Shrewsbury. The LMR thus served industrial areas in the Midlands, south Lancashire, Liverpool Manchester and Glasgow as well as the York, Derby and Nottingham coal fields. Tourists used the LMR to reach the Lake District and North Wales and the ferry ports of Holyhead, Liverpool and Heysham brought traffic from Ireland.

North Eastern Region covered everything east of the Pennines from the Humber to the Scottish border including the northern section of the east coast main line (discussed below). With both Hull and the Tyne ports and the industrial areas of Yorkshire, Durham and Northumberland this region handled a considerable quantity of heavy freight. The North Eastern Region was merged with Eastern Region in 1967.

Eastern Region covered all of East Anglia and eastern England as far north as Doncaster and the Humber estuary, it operated the East Coast Main Line (discussed below) as far north as Doncaster. This region also had lines extending from London to Ipswich and Norwich, the agricultural areas of East Anglia and the important ferry port at Harwich, which brought continental rolling stock into the UK. The East Coast Main Line (ECML) runs from London via Peterborough, Doncaster, York and Newcastle to Berwick where the line continued under Scottish Region to Edinburgh.

Southern Region has a number of lines radiating out from Waterloo, Charring Cross and Victoria in London serving Southampton, Brighton, Folkstone and Dover and (with running powers over the Western Region line) to Plymouth. This region is noted for the intense commuter traffic in and out of London but from a freight point of view it had only the industry along the Thames (notably the oil refinery at the Isle of Grain), a limited amount of paper and cement and the ferry traffic. There was a small coal field, near Dover, which was exploited in the late 1950's and 1960's but that generated little rail traffic.

Western Region operated from Paddington in London with three main lines radiating outwards. One ran to the South West to Exeter, Plymouth and Penzance, another ran west to Reading, Bristol and via the Severn Tunnel to Cardiff, Swansea and Fishguard. The third line went out to Oxford with branches in the Severn Valley serving Wales with its coal mining valleys. Bristol, East Shropshire and South Wales were the industrial areas served, Bristol, Cardiff and Swansea were all important ports and Fishguard had a ferry service to Ireland.

The first CME of British Railways was Mr. R. A Riddles C.B.E, however the move toward a national standard series of locomotives, the devolution of power to the regions and the setting up of the Ideal Stocks Committee to develop standard rolling stock designs, meant that the CME's influence was less marked than in earlier years. Generally the railways continued to operate as before and British Railways accepted delivery of existing orders for rolling stock placed by the Big Four.

Midland Region - Maroon
Scottish Region - Light blue
North Eastern Region - Tangerine (Merged into Eastern Region in 1967)
Eastern Region - Light Green
Southern Region - Dark Green
Western Region - Brown (although they did try black as an experiment for Western Region signs).

Fig ___ Example of station signs (Midland Region)

Current Organisation of the Railways

I am not sure I fully understand the system that has replaced British Railways, my own interest in the railways peters out around the end of the green diesel era. I gather the structure was devised to allow the government to do a bit of carpet bagging rather than to set up an efficient railway system, however I believe the structure is as outlined below.

Following privatisation, British Rail was divided into two main elements. In outline, the first consists of the national rail network (track, signalling, bridges, tunnels, stations and depots) with the second element being the operating companies whose trains run on that network.

In supporting roles there are a number of new organisations and the existing Health and Safety Executive. Of the new bodies perhaps the most important is the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) which formally came into being on 1 February 2001 following the passage of the Transport Act 2000. Its task is to provide a clear strategic direction for rail transport in Britain, to promote rail passenger and freight transport and to encourage private investment in the rail industry. The first formal submission was produced in January 2002 laying out a suggested plan for ten years.

The Rail Regulator is another new organisation, consisting of a single appointed individual with a small supporting staff (although, at least theoretically, independent of Government). The job of the Rail Regulator is to provide economic regulation, controlling the charges made by the organisation operating the infrastructure (currently Network Rail, formerly Railtrack) for use of the system by the companies operating the trains. International passenger and freight trains are licensed by the International Rail Regulator (IRR), in practice this is the Rail Regulator but there is a legal distinction between the two roles.

Another new body, set up in 2003, was the Rail Safety and Standards Board. This replaced the Railway Safety organisation, implementing one of the core sets of recommendations from the second part of Lord Cullen's public inquiry into the Ladbroke Grove train accident. The RSASB is a not-for-profit company owned by the railway industry. It is independent of any single railway company and of their commercial interests. Rail Safety and Standards Board's 15-strong Board comprises an independent non-executive chairman, three executive directors, six industry nominated non-executive directors, four independent non-executive directors and one non-executive director nominated from the Strategic Rail Authority.

The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) is the regulatory authority for health and safety on the railways.

The company operating the railway infrastructure was Railtrack Plc but, in October 2001, the company was placed into railway administration by the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions. The replacement is Network Rail, which maintains the track, signals and major stations. The smaller stations are run by the companies operating the passenger train services.

The train operating companies (TOCs) are licensed by the Rail Regulator but the franchises they bid for are awarded by the Strategic Rail Authority. A TOC can run passenger trains (and the associated stations), freight trains or both.

There are currently (2003) four companies operating railway freight -Freightliner, EWS, Direct Rail Services and GB Railfreight (part of GB Railways Group PLC). The last is the only one operating both passenger and freight services. In early 2001 the SRA published its strategy for railway freight and details of how this is intended to dovetail with the grants available from government to promote railway freight.

There are a variable number of passenger train operating companies which bid for franchises to operate services. Many of the current passenger rail franchises are due to expire by 2004. In late 2002 the SRA issued a new policy document, outlining its latest thoughts on awarding franchises, hopefully avoiding the errors made in the first round. This may not be the final system to be implemented as this is now a commercial operation rather than a public service. As an example of what this means passenger train companies instructed their drivers not to stop at stations near the end of the routes if this meant they would arrive late. Apparently the revenue from short haul tickets was outweighed by the fines for being late.

The original plan was to have another raft of companies who owned the engines and rolling stock, leasing these to the train operating companies, however this part of the plan has not really worked out as intended. These companies are usually referred to as ROSCOs which I believe stands for Rolling Stock Companies. The idea seems to have been to maximise the money passed to the government, who tax each transaction. In the event the banks saw an opening and purchased the ROSCO's (the three main ROSCOs are bank owned). They also managed to have the rules changed so they could charge whatever they like for hiring out the stock, the net result being they receive about a 30 percent return on their investment and siphon off something like 60 percent of the profit from the train operators. The government still (2003) believes this is a 'good' way of working and is reluctant to sacrifice its cut of the money flowing through the system by allowing train operators to own their own trains. The freight operators, EWS, DRS and GB Railfreight have all purchased their own locomotives however and I understand that other companies are considering similar moves. Largely as a result of this, but with some additional money being spent bringing the track and stations up to standard, the railways currently (2003) require roughly three times as much tax payers money as they did under British Rail but the bulk of this is siphoned off by the bank-owned ROSCOs. The official position is that this subsidising of the banks is a 'good thing' for the railways, although the logic behind this seems (to me at least) somewhat obscure.

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