Rail Passengers in Great Britain from 1829-2019
The railway system of Great Britain
started with the building of local isolated wooden wagonways starting
in the 1560s. A patchwork of local rail links operated by small private
railway companies developed in the late 18th century. These isolated
links expanded during the railway boom of the 1840s
into a national network, although still run by dozens of competing
companies. Over the course of the 19th and early 20th centuries, these
amalgamated or were bought by competitors until only a handful of larger
companies remained (see railway mania). The entire network was brought under government control during the First World War and a number of advantages of amalgamation and planning were demonstrated. However, the government resisted calls for the nationalisation of the network. In 1923, almost all the remaining companies were grouped into the "Big Four": the Great Western Railway, the London and North Eastern Railway, the London, Midland and Scottish Railway and the Southern Railway. The "Big Four" were joint-stock public companies and they continued to run the railway system until 31 December 1947.
From the start of 1948, the "Big Four" were nationalised to form British Railways.
Though there were few initial changes to the service, usage increased
and the network became profitable. Declining passenger numbers and
financial losses in the late 1950s and early 1960s prompted the closure
of many branch and main lines, and small stations, under the Beeching Axe. High-speed inter-city trains were introduced in the 1970s. The 1980s saw severe cuts in rail subsidies and above-inflation increases in fares and losses decreased. Railway operations were privatised during 1994–1997. Ownership of the track and infrastructure passed to Railtrack,
whilst passenger operations were franchised to individual private
sector operators (originally there were 25 franchises) and the freight
services sold outright. Since privatisation, passenger volumes have
increased to their highest ever level, but whether this is due to privatisation is disputed. The Hatfield accident set in motion the series of events that resulted in the ultimate collapse of Railtrack and its replacement with Network Rail, a state-owned, not-for-dividend company.
Before 1830: The pioneers
A wagonway, essentially a railway powered by animals drawing the cars or wagons, was used by German miners at Caldbeck, Cumbria, England, perhaps from the 1560s. A wagonway was built at Prescot, near Liverpool,
sometime around 1600, possibly as early as 1594. Owned by Philip
Layton, the line carried coal from a pit near Prescot Hall to a terminus
about half a mile away.
Another wagonway was Sir Francis Willoughby's Wollaton Wagonway in Nottinghamshire built between 1603 and 1604 to carry coal.
As early as 1671 railed roads were in use in Durham to ease the conveyance of coal; the first of these was the Tanfield Wagonway. Many of these tramroads or wagon ways
were built in the 17th and 18th centuries. They used simply straight
and parallel rails of timber on which carts with simple flanged iron
wheels were drawn by horses, enabling several wagons to be moved
simultaneously. The first public railway in the world was the Lake Lock Rail Road, a narrow gauge railway built near Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England.
Although the idea of wooden-railed wagonways
originated in Germany in the 16th century, the first use of steam
locomotives was in Britain. Its earliest "railways" were straight and
were constructed from parallel rails of timber on which ran horse-drawn
carts. These were succeeded in 1793 when Benjamin Outram constructed a mile-long tramway with L-shaped cast iron rails. These rails became obsolete when William Jessop began to manufacture cast iron rails without guiding ledges - the wheels of the carts had flanges instead. Cast iron is brittle and so the rails tended to break easily. Consequently, in 1820, John Birkenshaw introduced a method of rolling wrought iron rails, which were used from then onwards.
The first passenger service was at Oystermouth in 1807, photograph from 1870
The first passenger-carrying public railway was opened by the Swansea and Mumbles Railway at Oystermouth in 1807, using horse-drawn carriages on an existing tramline.
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Salamanca of 1812
The first commercially successful steam locomotive was Salamanca, built in 1812 by John Blenkinsop and Matthew Murray for the 4 ft (1,219 mm) gauge Middleton Railway. Salamanca was a rack and pinion locomotive, with cog wheels driven by two cylinders embedded into the top of the centre-flue boiler.
In 1813, William Hedley and Timothy Hackworth designed a locomotive (Puffing Billy) for use on the tramway between Stockton and Darlington. Puffing Billy
featured piston rods extending upwards to pivoting beams, connected in
turn by rods to a crankshaft beneath the frames which, in turn, drove
the gears attached to the wheels. This meant that the wheels were
coupled, allowing better traction. A year later, George Stephenson improved on that design with his first locomotive Blücher, which was the first locomotive to use single-flanged wheels.
That design persuaded the backers of the proposed Stockton and Darlington Railway to appoint Stephenson as Engineer
for the line in 1821. While traffic was originally intended to be
horse-drawn, Stephenson carried out a fresh survey of the route to allow
steam haulage. The Act was subsequently amended to allow the usage of
steam locomotives and also to allow passengers to be carried on the
railway. The 25-mile (40 km) long route opened on 27 September 1825 and,
with the aid of Stephenson's Locomotion No 1, was the first locomotive-hauled public railway in the world.
1830 – 1922: Early development
In 1830 the Liverpool and Manchester Railway
opened. This set the pattern for modern railways. It was the world's
first inter-city passenger railway and the first to have 'scheduled'
services, terminal stations and services as we know them today. The
railways carried freight and passengers with also the world's first
goods terminal station at the Park Lane railway goods station at Liverpool's south docks, accessed by the 1.26-mile Wapping Tunnel. In 1836, at the Liverpool end the line was extended to Lime Street station in Liverpool's city centre via a 1.1 mile long tunnel.
Many of the first public railways were built as local rail links
operated by small private railway companies. With increasing rapidity,
more and more lines were built, often with scant regard for their
potential for traffic. The 1840s were by far the biggest decade for
railway growth. In 1840, when the decade began, railway lines in Britain
were few and scattered but, within ten years, a virtually complete
network had been laid down and the vast majority of towns and villages
had a rail connection
and sometimes two or three. Over the course of the 19th and early 20th
centuries, most of the pioneering independent railway companies
aremained malgamated or were bought by competitors, until only a handful of
larger companies.
The period also saw a steady increase in government involvement, especially in safety matters. The 1840 "Act for Regulating Railways" empowered the Board of Trade to appoint railway inspectors. The Railway Inspectorate was established in 1840, to enquire into the causes of accidents and recommend ways of avoiding them.
As early as 1844, a bill had been put before Parliament suggesting the
state purchase of the railways; this was not adopted. It did, however,
lead to the introduction of minimum standards for the construction of
carriages and the compulsory provision of 3rd class accommodation for passengers - so-called "Parliamentary trains".
The railway companies ceased to be profitable after the mid-1870s. Nationalisation of the railways was first proposed by William Ewart Gladstone
as early as the 1840s, and calls for nationalisation continued
throughout that century, with F. Keddell writing in 1890 that "The only
valid ground for maintaining the monopoly would be the proof that the
Railway Companies have made a fair and proper use of their great powers,
and have conduced to the prosperity of the people. But the exact
contrary is the case." The entire network was brought under government control during the First World War,
and a number of advantages of amalgamation and planning were revealed.
However, the Conservative members of the wartime coalition government
resisted calls for the formal nationalisation of the railways in 1921.
1923 – 1947: The Big Four
On 1 January 1923, almost all the railway companies were grouped into the Big Four: the Great Western Railway, the London and North Eastern Railway, the London, Midland and Scottish Railway and the Southern Railway companies. A number of other lines, already operating as joint railways, remained separate from the Big Four; these included the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway and the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway. The "Big Four" were joint-stock public companies and they continued to run the railway system until 31 December 1947.
The LNER Class A4 streamlined loco hauled express trains of the 1930s offered a high-speed alternative to road transport
The competition from road transport during the 1920s and 1930s
greatly reduced the revenue available to the railways, even though the
needs for maintenance on the network had never been higher, as
investment had been deferred over the past decade. Rail companies
accused the government of favouring road haulage through the
construction of roads subsidised by the taxpayer, while restricting the
rail industry's ability to use flexible pricing because it was held to
nationally agreed rate cards. The government response was to commission
several inconclusive reports; the Salter Report of 1933 finally recommended that road transport should be taxed directly to fund the roads and increased Vehicle Excise Duty
and fuel duties were introduced. It also noted that many small lines
would never be likely to compete with road haulage. Although these road
pricing changes helped their survival, the railways entered a period of
slow decline, owing to a lack of investment and changes in transport
policy and lifestyles.
During the Second World War, the companies' managements joined
together, effectively operating as one company. Assisting the country's
'war effort' put a severe strain on the railways' resources and a
substantial maintenance backlog developed. After 1945, for both
practical and ideological reasons, the government decided to bring the
rail service into the public sector.
1948 – 1994: British Rail
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British Rail filmstrip showing how the railways were unified under BR.
From the start of 1948, the railways were nationalised to form British Railways (latterly "British Rail") under the control of the British Transport Commission.
Though there were few initial changes to the service, usage increased
and the network became profitable. Regeneration of track and stations
was completed by 1954. Rail revenue fell and, in 1955, the network again
ceased to be profitable. The mid-1950s saw the hasty introduction of
diesel and electric rolling stock to replace steam in a modernisation
plan costing many millions of pounds but the expected transfer back from
road to rail did not occur and losses began to mount.
This failure to make the railways more profitable through investment
led governments of all political persuasions to restrict rail investment
to a drip feed and seek economies through cutbacks.
The desire for profitability led to a major reduction in the network during the mid-1960s. Dr. Richard Beeching was given the task by the government of re-organising the railways ("the Beeching Axe").
This policy resulted in many branch lines and secondary routes being
closed because they were deemed uneconomic. The closure of stations
serving rural communities removed much feeder traffic from main line
passenger services. The closure of many freight depots that had been
used by larger industries such as coal and iron
led to much freight transferring to road haulage. The closures were
extremely unpopular with the general public at that time and remain so
today.
Passenger levels decreased steadily from the late fifties to late seventies. Passenger services then experienced a renaissance with the introduction of the high-speed InterCity 125 trains in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The 1980s saw severe cuts in government funding and above-inflation increases in fares, but the service became more cost-effective.
Following sectorisation of British Rail, InterCity
became profitable. InterCity became one of Britain's top 150 companies
operating city centre to city centre travel across the nation from Aberdeen and Inverness in the north to Poole and Penzance in the south.
Between 1994 and 1997, British Rail was privatised. Ownership of the track and infrastructure passed to Railtrack,
passenger operations were franchised to individual private sector
operators (originally there were 25 franchises) and the freight services
sold outright (six companies were set up, but five of these were sold
to the same buyer). The Conservative government under John Major said that privatisation would see an improvement in passenger services. Passenger levels have since increased strongly.
1995 onwards: Post-privatisation
The Great Western Railway's London terminus at Paddington
Rail modal share 1952-2017
GB rail subsidy 1985–2019 in 2018 prices, showing a short decline after privatisation, followed by a steep rise following the Hatfield crash in 2000 then a further increase to fund Crossrail and HS2
Since privatisation, numbers of passengers have grown rapidly; by 2010 the railways were carrying more passengers than at any time since the 1920s,
and by 2014 passenger numbers had expanded to their highest level ever,
more than doubling in the 20 years since privatisation. Train fares
cost more than under British Rail.
The railways have become significantly safer since privatisation and are now the safest in Europe.
However, the public image of rail travel was damaged by some prominent
accidents shortly after privatisation. These included the Southall rail crash (where a train with its faulty Automatic Warning System disconnected passed a stop signal), the Ladbroke Grove rail crash (also caused by a train passing a stop signal) and the Hatfield accident (caused by a rail fragmenting due to the development of microscopic cracks).
Following the Hatfield accident, the rail infrastructure company
Railtrack imposed over 1,200 emergency speed restrictions across its
network and instigated an extremely costly nationwide track replacement
programme. The consequential severe operational disruption to the
national network and the company's spiralling costs set in motion the series of events which resulted in the ultimate collapse of the company and its replacement with Network Rail, a state-owned, not-for-dividend company.
Since April 2016, the British railway network has been severely disrupted on many occasions by wide-reaching rail strikes, affecting rail franchises across the country. The industrial action began on Southern services as a dispute over the planned introduction of driver-only operation, and has since expanded to cover many different issues affecting the rail industry; as of February 2018, the majority of the industrial action remains unresolved, with further strikes planned. The scale, impact and bitterness of the nationwide rail strikes have been compared to the 1984–85 miners' strike by the media.
As of 2018, government subsidies to the rail industry in real terms were roughly three times that of the late 1980s.
