The history of rail transport in Great Britain 1948–1994 covers the period when the British railway system was nationalised under the name of 'British Railways', latterly known as See more

By the start of the 1950s, British Railways were making a working profit, albeit a small one. However, Britain had fallen well behind the rest of Europe in terms of dieselisation and electrification of its railways. There were political as well as practical reasons … See more

The 1970s saw British Rail successfully introduce high speed diesel train services, as well as major resignalling projects designed to increase operational efficiency. In 1976, the See more

The first half of the 1990s was dominated by the privatisation of British Rail by the government of John Major. The privatisation was the … See more

The Transport Act 1947 nationalised nearly all forms of mass transport in Great Britain and came into effect on 1 January 1948. British Railways came into existence as the business name of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Commission (BTC) … See more

The Beeching reports
By 1960, the railway's performance was low, with a deficit of £68m. This increased to £87m in 1961 … See more

During the 1980s, the regions of BR were abolished and the system sectorised into business sectors. The passenger sectors were InterCity (express services), Network SouthEast (London … See more