BRIEF OUTLINE OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE RAILWAY SYSTEM IN BRITAIN

The first railways in Britain were developed to transport raw materials like coal and quarried stone from the extraction sites to population / processing centres or to coastal ports for onward distribution. The first commercial line was the Stockton and Darlington Railway, opened in 1825 with steam haulage, with horse transport considered as a back up. This was intended as an industrial line, but it was soon realised that there was a call for passenger service. The first passenger line was the Manchester and Liverpool Railway, opened in 1830, with the famous locomotive 'The Rocket' as the accepted principal design for haulage.

There followed a period of rapid expansion of local railways and railways linking major centres of population, industry and raw materials. This expansion was followed by a period of amalgamation by which the larger companies absorbed smaller companies, sometimes in one fell swoop, and sometimes by running powers moving into complete operation and finally absorption. The golden age of railways was arguably the Edwardian era from 1901 to 1911 (really 1914). Railways had no serious competitors in long distance haulage, the electric tram was providing some competition in short distance passenger routes in the conurbations, but motor transport was only just emerging and at that point was not a serious competitor.

The First World War brought the railways under direct government control, and, as happens in wartime, maintenance was somewhat neglected on locomotives, rolling stock and track. The result was that the rail industry was in poor shape and competition in the form of motor buses and lorries (waggons) became more serious both in town and in the country routes near to the towns. In 1923 one hundred and twenty three separate railway companies were made to amalgamate into four separate companies which was called 'The Big Four'. The LMS ran from London through the Midlands, North - west of Engalnd and over much of Scotland, particularly the West coast. LNER ran from London, the Midlands, the East of England and into Scotland covering particularly the East coast. SR ran from the Thames to the South Coast counties, as far as Devon. GWR went West from London, to the Bristol Channel and counties down to Corwall. Wales was served by GWR and LMS. There were overlaps with the LNER reaching Manchester as it had incorporated the Great Central Railway, LNER also reached Carlisle and the Solway Firth through taking over the North British Railway. The GWR reached Crewe and Birkenhead as it had done prior to the Groupings, but in general each company had its own area of operations. In the 1930's there was a second Golden Age, at least as far as high speed passenger transport was concerned, especially on favoured routes - London to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cheltenham and the West etc.

With the coming of the Second World war, the railways were taken over again, maintenance was a low priority, and significant damage from bombing also affected the railways. At the end of the war things were in a terrible state. Government spending priorities were on housing and rebuilding general industry. The Government nationalised the Big Four and so British Railways was born on 1 January 1948. Initially it suffered from underinvestment, later a high cost 'modernisation programme' was rushed through without being properly assessed. For decades the railway system was at the mercy of Government spending patterns, with short term underinvestment being more common than planned medium and long term budgets. The essential problems was that the railways were becoming a bottomless pit into which money was being poured to little effect. A policy of closure of 'uneconomic lines' was introduced (strictly speaking this was a continuation of past policies). This culminated in the Beeching Report, leading to Beeching's Axe in which many branchlines and several trunk routes were closed, often without much of an outcry. However with the electrication of the West Coast Main Line (WCML) and the East Coast Main line (ECML) as well as extending the electrification program along the South coast, the railways began to do better. However, for seventeen years there was a Conservative government in power which sought to pull back government financial involvement in all but core services to the community. This led to the privatisation of Gas, Electricity, Water, Telephones etc. These sales made money for the government which sought to reduce taxation. The last big drain outside the core was the railway industry. During its last term of office in the Twentieth Century, the Conservative government privatised the rail industry in such a way as to make it (almost?) impossible to reverse the whole process. The banks, investment industry, managers and ordinary people and railway anoraks bought the shares, some made rapid massive profits, but as far as long term Railtrack 'investors' were concerned, the Golden Egg turned out to be addled!

The future remains open to question. The rolling stock companies at the behest of the train operators are re - equiping the passenger services on favoured routes with really exciting rolling stock. The problem lies with the infrastructure and whether Railtrack (or its effective succesor) can deliver on promises made when the (paper) profits were rolling in? We shall see!.