The British Railways Board (BRB) was a nationalised industry in the United Kingdom that existed from 1962 to 2001. From its foundation until 1997, it was responsible for most railway services in Great Britain, trading under the brand names British Railways and, from 1965, British Rail. It did not operate in Northern Ireland, where railways were the responsibility of the Government of Northern Ireland.
It was a statutory corporation, consisting of a chairman and nine to fifteen other members, who were appointed by the Secretary of State for Transport. [1]
Contents |
The BRB was created on 1 January 1963 under the Transport Act 1962 by Harold Macmillan's Conservative government to inherit the railway responsibilities of the British Transport Commission, which was dissolved at the same time.[1]
The BRB initially, and for the majority of its history, operated under the structure inherited from the BTC Railway Executive. Operations were divided up into five regions - Eastern, London Midland, Western, Southern Region, and the Scottish Region, itself later rebranded ScotRail. A North Eastern Region also initially existed but was abolished in 1967, being merged into the Eastern Region.
In the 1980s, the BRB moved away from organising its operations on the regional model, and moved to organise on a sectoral model, based on business activity - InterCity for long distance services, Network SouthEast for commuter services in London, and Regional Railways for short distance and commuter services outside the Network SouthEast area. Railfreight was organised separately.
As well as the British Rail network, the BRB for much of its history also ran passenger ferry services (as Sealink) and hotels. These were sold off in the 1980s.
The final BRB structure, between 1994 and 1997, was essentially the shadow form of the future privatised railway industry, with the Board becoming a holding company to over 100 subsidiary companies, including 25 train operating subsidiaries, six freight subsidiaries, three rolling stock leasing companies, and a number of line maintenance companies. These were slowly sold off during privatisation (or, in the case of the passenger subsidiaries, franchised to private sector concerns).
On 1 April 1994 the BRB ceased to have responsibility for railway infrastructure, which became the responsibility of a (initially Government owned) public limited company, Railtrack. It continue to operate all passenger railway services until 1996, when the process of transferring the services to the private sector began.
Privatisation was completed in 1997, but the BRB continued in existence to discharge residual functions relating to non-operational railway land and BR pensions, and to have responsibility for the British Transport Police. In 1999 Sir Alistair Morton was appointed as last chairman of the BRB, which began to advise on passenger railway matters. During this time it operated together with the Director of Passenger Rail Franchising under the trading name of the Shadow Strategic Rail Authority.
Under the Transport Act 2000 the Office of Passenger Rail Franchising (OPRAF) was abolished and its and BRB's functions transferred to the Strategic Rail Authority. The functions which had been carried out by the BRB prior to the creation of the SRA were placed under the charge of a wholly owned subsidiary of the SRA, BRB (Residuary) Ltd. Its ownership changed again with the dissolution of the SRA under the Railways Act 2005 and it is currently a wholly owned subsidiary of the Secretary of State for Transport. While the 2000 Act allowed for BRB to be abolished,[2] this has not yet occurred.[3]
Through its subsidiary, Rail Property Ltd, BRB (Residuary) retains responsibility for non-operational railway land, for example, railway lines closed in the Beeching Axe that have not been sold.
The BRB owned a large amount of railway archive material, including papers, maps, films and photographs, dating back before nationalisation. At privatisation in 1997 these were distributed to other bodies: the films (the bulk of which had been produced by British Transport Films) went to the British Film Institute in London, the photographs to the National Railway Museum (NRM) in York, and most of the papers to the Public Record Office.