British Railways
BR Steam Locomotives, Modern Traction, Regions, History and Beeching
British Railways (BR) was formed in 1948 on the nationalisation of the Big Four railway companies under the Transport Act 1947. From 1965 the company also operated under the abbreviated name, British Rail.
Six regional areas were initially created which largely corresponded to the areas of operation of the four predecessor companies, although Scotland became a separate region. The BR Regions were: Southern Region (SR), Western Region (WR), London Midland Region (LMR), Eastern Region (ER), North-Eastern Region (NER) and Scottish Region (ScR). The Regions were replaced in the 1980s with sectorisation: passenger operations were divided into Inter-City, Regional Railways and Network Southeast; freight operations into Trainload, Freightliner, Railfreight Distribution, and Rail Express Systems.
BR underwent fundamental change in the 1950s and 1960s, primarily through the Modernisation Plan of 1955 and Beeching Report (The Reshaping of British Railways) published in 1963. The Modernisation Plan was a major investment in electrification, diesel and electric locomotives, marshalling yards and new rolling stock. Dr. Richard Beeching’s report led to widespread line and station closures across the network.
On formation in 1948, BR inherited more that 23,000 steam locomotives from its predecessor companies. Production of certain designs was continued and developed, In addition to the introduction of new BR Standard locomotives largely undertaken by Chief Mechanical Engineer, Robert Riddles. The last BR built steam locomotive was Class 9F 2-10-0 ‘Evening Star’ and final steam operation in August 1968. A new generation of diesel and electric locomotives replaced steam from the late 1950s, including the diesel-hydraulic Westerns and Warships, Deltics and classes 37, 47 and 87.
BR was broken-up and privatised between 1994 and 1997 with Railtrack taking over the infrastructure, passenger services split into train operating companies and freight divided between geographical and freight service companies.
All aspects of BR are covered in these category listings, either in total or through the sub-categories on the left of this page. Click the book image for more details including the examples we have in stock.
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