Heritage Railway

Many of the standard-gauge railways (thus including former ex-branch lines and former ex-mainline routes, as well as ex-working colliery railways) listed were originally closed by British Railways (later shortened to British Rail) under the Beeching Cuts in the 1960s, even though further closures followed in the 1970s and into the 1980s, and then/later reconstructed, restored and reopened as private or preserved heritage lines.

Many of these preserved railways, heritage lines and railway centres alike are such popular tourist attractions all around the United Kingdom, they each make significant contributions to their local economies.

 

Heritage railways are usually railway lines which were once run as commercial railways, but were later no longer needed or were closed down, and were taken over or re-opened by volunteers or for-profit organisations. Many run on partial routes unconnected to the commercial railway network, run only seasonally, and charge high “entertainment” fares. For example the return fare from Porthmadog to Blaenau Ffestiniog on the 13-mile Festiniog railway is some £17.95 and between Caernarfon to Beddgelert £22.00 on the Welsh Highland Railway. As a result they are primarily, indeed exclusively, focused on serving the tourist and leisure markets, not local transportation needs. However in the 1990s and 2000s some heritage railways have professed to provide local transportation and to extend their running seasons to cater for commercial passenger traffic. In the United Kingdom, however, no heritage railways offer a year round daily or commuter service.

 

Typically a heritage railway will use steam locomotives and original rolling stock to create a supposed “period atmosphere”, although some are now concentrating on more recent “modern image” diesel and electric traction supposedly to re-create the post-steam railway era.

 

The first heritage railway to be rescued and run entirely by volunteers was the Talyllyn Railway in Wales. This narrow gauge line, taken over by a group of enthusiasts in 1950, is recognised as the start of the preservation movement. There are now several hundred heritage railways in the United Kingdom. This large number is due in part to the closure of many minor lines in the 1960s under the Beeching Axe. These were relatively easy to revive. The first such standard gauge line to be preserved was the Bluebell Railway, though the Middleton Railway (which was not a victim of Beeching) had been preserved prior to this. The world’s second preserved railway, and the first outside the United Kingdom, was the Puffing Billy Railway in Australia. This railway operates 24 km of track with much of the original rolling stock built as early as 1898.

 

Heritage railways differ in the intensity of the service that can be offered. Some of the more successful British heritage railways, such as the Severn Valley Railway and the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, may have up to five or six steam engines working, operating a four-train service daily. The Great Central Railway is the only example of a preserved British main line that operates with a double track, and can operate over 50 trains on a busy gala timetable. Other smaller railways may run for seven-days-a-week throughout the summer with only one steam engine. However, following the privatisation of Britain’s main-line railways, the line between not-for-profit heritage railways and for-profit branch lines may appear to have blurred. The Wensleydale Railway is an example of a commercial line run partly as a heritage operation and partly (at least in intent, if not in reality) to provide local transportation. The Weardale Railway is a similar attempt to provide a commercial heritage line, so far with mixed success. The Severn Valley Railway has even operated a few goods trains on a commercial basis. In addition, a number of heritage lines now see regular freight operations. The Puffing Billy Railway operates a busier service than it regularly did in its pre-preservation working life.

 

In the 50 years since the Bluebell Railway reopened to traffic, the definition of private standard gauge railways in the United Kingdom as preserved railways has changed and evolved as the number of projects, length, operating days and function has altered. The 1970s distinction between narrow gauge, standard gauge and steam centres alone is no longer necessarily fit for purpose. The situation is further muddied by the huge variation in company structure of the ownership of the railway, its rolling stock and other assets. Unlike community railways the tourist railways in the UK are vertically integrated, although those operating in the main as charities have their charitable and non-charitable activities essentially separated for accounts purposes.

West Coast Mainline

The West Coast Main Line (WCML) is the busiest mixed-traffic railway route in Britain, being the country’s most important rail backbone in terms of population served. Fast, long-distance inter-city passenger services are provided between Greater London, the West Midlands, the North West, North Wales and the Central Belt of Scotland. Since an upgrade in recent years, much of the line has trains running at 125 mph (201 km/h), thereby meeting the European Union’s definition of an upgraded high-speed line.

The WCML is the most important intercity rail passenger route in the United Kingdom, connecting the major cities of London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh which have a combined metropolitan population of over 18 million people. In addition, several sections of the WCML form part of the suburban railway systems in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow, with many more smaller commuter stations, as well as providing a number of links to more rural towns. In 2008 the WCML handled 75 million passenger journeys.

 

The WCML is also one of the busiest freight routes in Europe, carrying 43% of all UK rail freight traffic. The line is the principal rail freight corridor linking the European mainland (via the Channel Tunnel) through London and South East England to the West Midlands, North West England and Scotland. The line has been declared a strategic European route and designated a priority Trans-European Networks (TENS) route.

Midland Mainline

The Midland Main Line is a major railway route in the United Kingdom, part of the British railway system.
 

The present-day line links London St. Pancras International to Sheffield in northern England via Luton, Bedford, Kettering, Leicester, Derby, Nottingham and Chesterfield.

 

Historically the line extended further north to Manchester in the north-west and through Leeds in the north-east to Carlisle; trains also ran through to both Glasgow and Edinburgh in Scotland. The more direct East Coast Main Line meant the demise of Midland trains to Leeds and ultimately Scotland due to the Midland’s longer journey times. Later, electrification of the West Coast Main Line (WCML) and the Beeching cuts saw Manchester trains withdrawn from the Midland and transferred to the WCML.

 

Since the closure of the rival Great Central Main Line in the 1960s, the Midland has been the only direct main-line rail link between London and the East Midlands and South Yorkshire.

 

In January 2009 a brand-new station, East Midlands Parkway, was opened between Loughborough and Trent Junction, to act as a park-and-ride station for the major East Midlands cities; it also serves East Midlands Airport.

 

Express passenger services on the line are operated by East Midlands Trains. The section between St Pancras and Bedford is electrified and forms the northern half of the Thameslink suburban service (operated by First Capital Connect), which provides a through service from Bedford to Brighton. In July 2012 the Financial Times and the BBC reported that a £500–£530 million scheme to electrify the line north of Bedford would be announced on 16 July 2012. A £800 million electrification scheme was confirmed on 16 July 2012 for completion by 2019.

 

The northern part of the route between Derby and Sheffield also forms part of the Cross Country Route and is shared with CrossCountry. The route from Nottingham to Leeds via Barnsley and Sheffield is shared with Northern. TransPennine Express operate through Sheffield. East Midlands Local also operates regional and local services between Nottingham and Leicester / Derby / Sheffield / Manchester.

 

The Midland Main Line was built in stages between the 1830s and the 1870s, originating in three lines which met at the Tri Junct Station in Derby, which became the Midland Railway.

 

First to arrive was the line built by the Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway (B&DJR) from Hampton-in-Arden, Warwickshire (on the London and Birmingham Railway) to Derby, which opened on 12 August 1839. This section is now known as the Cross-Country Route through Birmingham New Street to Bristol Temple Meads.

 

This was followed on 1 July 1840 by the North Midland Railway, which ran from Derby to Leeds Hunslet Lane via Chesterfield, Rotherham Masborough (from where the Sheffield and Rotherham Railway ran a branch to Sheffield Wicker), Swinton and Normanton. This avoided Sheffield, Barnsley, and Wakefield in order to reduce gradients.

 

On the same day the Midland Counties Railway, which ran from Derby and Nottingham to Leicester Campbell Street, was extended from Leicester to a temporary station on the northern outskirts of Rugby. A few months later, the Rugby viaduct was finished and the Midland Counties Railway reached the London and Birmingham Railway’s Rugby station. This cut 11 miles (18 km) off the B&DJR route via Hampton-in-Arden.

High Speed 1

High Speed 1 (HS1), officially known as the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL) and originally as the Union Railway or Continental Main Line (CML), is a 108-kilometre (67 mi) high-speed railway from London through Kent to the UK end of the Channel Tunnel.

The line was built to carry international passenger traffic from the United Kingdom to Continental Europe; additionally it carries domestic passenger traffic to and from towns and cities in Kent, and has the potential to carry Berne gauge freight traffic. The line, crossing over the River Medway and underneath the River Thames to London St Pancras railway station, opened in full on 14 November 2007.[6] It allows speeds of 230 to 300 kilometres per hour (143 to 186 mph) and cost £5.8 billion to build.[7] There are intermediate stations at Stratford International, Ebbsfleet International and Ashford International.

 

International passenger services are currently provided by Eurostar, with journey times of London St Pancras to Paris Gare du Nord in 2 hours 15 minutes, and St Pancras to Brussels-South in 1 hour 51 minutes, using a fleet of 27 Class 373/1 multi-system trains capable of 300 kilometres per hour (186 mph). Other, competing, passenger operators are expected to use the line in future.

 

Domestic high-speed commuter services serving the intermediate stations and beyond began on 13 December 2009. The fleet of 29 Class 395 passenger trains are permitted to reach speeds of 225 kilometres per hour (140 mph).

 

Following trials of a modified Class 92 locomotive hauling a loaded container train in July 2011,[10] DB Schenker is running regular intermodal freight services on High Speed 1, enabling flat wagons carrying continental-size swap body containers to reach London for the first time.

 

The CTRL project was one of the United Kingdom’s largest civil engineering projects, encompassing many new bridges and tunnels with a combined length nearly as long as the Channel Tunnel itself. During construction of the CTRL, significant archaeological research was undertaken. In 2002, the CTRL project was awarded the “Major Project Award” at the British Construction Industry Awards. The CTRL has seen periods of financial difficulty, and the line was transferred to government ownership in 2009, with a 30-year concession for its operation being put up for sale in June 2010. The concession was awarded to a consortium of Borealis Infrastructure (part of Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System) and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan in November 2010, but does not include the freehold or rights to any of the associated land.

 

A high-speed rail line, LGV Nord, has been in operation between the Channel Tunnel and the outskirts of Paris since the Tunnel’s opening in 1994. This has enabled Eurostar rail services to travel at 300 km/h (186 mph) for this part of their journey. A similar high-speed line in Belgium, from the French border to Brussels, HSL 1, opened in 1997. However, in Britain, Eurostar trains had to run at a maximum of 160 km/h (100 mph) on existing tracks between London, Waterloo and the Channel Tunnel. These tracks were shared with local traffic, limiting the number of services that could be run, and jeopardising reliability. The case for a high-speed line similar to the continental part of the route was recognised by policymakers, and the construction of the line was authorised by Parliament with the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Act 1996, which was amended by the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (Supplementary Provisions) Act 2008.

 

An early plan conceived by British Rail in the early 1970s for a route passing through Tonbridge met considerable opposition on environmental and social grounds, especially from the Leigh Action Group and Surrey & Kent Action on Rail (SKAR). A committee was set up to examine the proposal under Sir Alexander Cairncross; but in due course environment minister Anthony Crosland announced that the project had been cancelled (see Hansard 20 January 1975), together with the plan for the tunnel itself.

 

The next plan for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link involved a tunnel reaching London from the south-east, and an underground terminus in the vicinity of Kings Cross station. However a late change in the plans, principally driven by the then Deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine’s desire for urban regeneration in east London, led to a change of route, with the new line approaching London from the east. This opened the possibility of reusing the underused St Pancras station as the terminus, with access via the North London Line that crosses the throat of the station.

The idea of using the North London line proved illusory, and it was rejected in 1994 by the then Transport Secretary, John MacGregor, as too difficult to construct and environmentally damaging. However, the idea of using St Pancras station as the core of the new terminus was retained, albeit now linked by 20 kilometres (12 miles) of specially built tunnels to Dagenham via Stratford.

 

London and Continental Railways (LCR) was chosen by the UK government in 1996 to build the line and to reconstruct St Pancras station as its terminus, and to take over the British share of the Eurostar operation, Eurostar (UK). The original LCR consortium members were National Express Group, Virgin Group, S. G. Warburg & Co, Bechtel and London Electric. While the project was under development by British Rail it was managed by Union Railways, which became a wholly owned subsidiary of LCR. On 14 November 2006, LCR adopted High Speed 1 as the brand name for the completed railway.[30] Official legislation, documentation and line-side signage, however, have continued to refer to “CTRL”.

Great Western Mainline

The Great Western Main Line is a main line railway in Great Britain, that runs westwards from London Paddington station to the west of England and South Wales. The core Great Western Main Line runs from London Paddington to Temple Meads railway station in Bristol. A major branch of the Great Western, the South Wales Main Line, diverges from the core line west of Swindon and terminates in Swansea. The term “Great Western” is also used by Network Rail and other rail transport organisations in the UK rail industry to denote a wider group of routes, see Associated routes below.
 

The core London–Bristol Temple Meads line is the original route of the pre-1948 Great Western Railway which was subsequently taken over by the Western Region of British Railways and is now part of the Network Rail system.

 

It is planned to electrify the line by 2016. The South Wales Main Line, the Cherwell Valley Line and the Reading to Taunton Line as far as Newbury will also be electrified at later dates.

 

The line was built by the Great Western Railway and engineered by Isambard Kingdom Brunel as a dual track line using a wider 7 ft 0 1⁄4 in (2,140 mm) broad gauge and was opened in stages between 1838 and 1840. The alignment was so level and straight it was nicknamed ‘Brunel’s Billiard Table’. It was supplemented with a third rail for dual gauge operation allowing standard gauge 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) trains to also operate on the route in stages between 1854 and 1875. Dual gauge was introduced as follows: London to Reading (1 October 1861), Reading to Didcot (22 December 1856), Didcot to Swindon (February 1872), Swindon to Thingley Junction, Chippenham (June 1874), Thingley Junction to Bathampton (16 March 1875), Bathampton to Bristol (June 1874), Bristol station area (29 May 1854). The broad gauge remained in use until 1892. Evidence of the original broad gauge can still be seen at many places where bridges are a wider than usual, or where tracks are ten feet apart instead of the usual six.

 

The original dual tracks were widened to four track in various places between 1877 and 1899. Paddington to Southall (1 October 1877), Southall to West Drayton (25 November 1878), West Drayton to Slough (1 June 1879), Slough to east side of Maidenhead Bridge (8 September 1884), Maidenhead Bridge to Reading (4 June 1893(, Reading station (1899), Reading to Pangbourne (30 July 1893), Pangbourne to Cholsey and Moulsford (?), Cholsey and Moulsford to Didcot (27 December 1892), Various short sections between Didcot and Swindon, and at Bristol.

 

Following the Slough rail accident in 1900 when five passengers were killed improved vacuum braking systems were used on locomotives and passenger rolling stock and Automatic Train Control (ATC) was introduced in 1908.

 

At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the Great Western Railway was taken into government control, as were most major railways in Britain and were reorganised after the war into the “big four” companies, of which the Great Western Railway was one. The railways returned to direct government control during World War II before being nationalised to form British Railways in 1948.

 

The line speed was upgraded in the 1970s to support the introduction of the InterCity 125 (HST).

 

In 1977 the Parliamentary Select Committee on Nationalised Industries recommmended considering electrification of more of Britain’s rail network, and by 1979 BR presented a range of options that included electrifying the GW Main Line from Paddington to Swansea by 2000. Under the 1979–90 Conservative governments that succeeded the 1976–79 Labour government the proposal was not implemented.

 

In August 2008 it was announced that a number of speed limits on the relief lines between Reading and London have been raised so that 86% of the line can be used at 90 miles per hour (140 km/h), however the time allowed between stations for trains running on the relief lines has been reduced in the December 2008 timetable to improve timekeeping.

Great Eastern Mainline

The Great Eastern Main Line (GEML, sometimes referred to as the East Anglia Main Line) is a 133 mile major railway line of the British railway system, which connects Liverpool Street in the City of London with destinations in east London and the East of England, including Chelmsford, Colchester, Ipswich, Norwich and several coastal resorts such as Clacton-on-Sea and Walton-on-the-Naze. The main markets are commuter travel to London, particularly to the City of London and Docklands, and business and leisure travellers. The route also provides the main artery for substantial freight traffic between the Port of Felixstowe, Harwich International Port and the rest of Great Britain, via London.

The earliest section of the line operated between Devonshire Street railway station (Mile End) and Romford from 1839 and was built by the Eastern Counties Railway (ECR). The London terminus was then moved to Bishopsgate railway station (initially known as Shoreditch) on 1 July 1840 and the line was extended out to Brentwood in the same year. A further 51 miles of route was added to link London with Colchester by 1843.[3] The original gauge for the line was 5 feet, but this was converted to standard gauge (4′8½″) in 1844.

 

The section of line between Colchester and Ipswich was built by the Eastern Union Railway to standard gauge and opened for passenger traffic on 15 June 1846 and the route to Norwich (Norwich Victoria railway station) opened in 1849.

 

Eastern Counties Railway and Eastern Union Railways and others were amalgamated to form the Great Eastern Railway in 1862.

 

The London terminus was again moved, this time to Liverpool Street on 2 February 1872.

 

The line was ‘grouped’ into the London and North Eastern Railway in 1923 and from 1948 formed part of the Eastern Region of British Railways.

 

In the 1930s a flyover was constructed just west of Ilford to switch the main and electric lines over, to enable main line trains to utilise Liverpool St’s longer west side platforms without having to cross east side suburban traffic in the station throat. The new arrangement also facilitated cross-platform interchange with the Central line at Stratford, services commencing in 1946. Either side of Ilford Flyover, there are single-track connections between the slow and fast pairs of lines, with the westbound track extending to Manor Park railway station and just beyond. A short fifth platform face serves the track at Manor Park, but it sees no normal use. The eastbound track extends as far as Ilford, connecting with that station’s fifth (bay) platform, which does see limited passenger operations. It was also envisaged that a flyover would be built at the country end of Gidea Park Carriage Sidings to switch Southend Victoria trains from the mains to the electrics, instead of at Shenfield London end junction as they do now.

 

Plans were drawn up in the 1930s to electrify the suburban lines from Liverpool Street to Shenfield at 1500 V DC and work was started on implementing this. However, the outbreak of the Second World War brought the project to a temporary halt and it was not until 1949 that the scheme was completed with electrification being extended to Chelmsford in 1956.

 

The British Railways 1955 Modernisation Plan called for overhead line systems in Great Britain to be standardised at 25 kV AC. However, due to low clearances under bridges the route was electrified at 6.25 kV AC. The section between Liverpool Street and Southend Victoria was completed in November 1960. Extensive testing showed that smaller electrical clearances could be tolerated for the 25 kV system than originally thought necessary. As a result it was now possible to increase the voltage without having to either raise bridges or lower the tracks along the route to obtain larger clearances. The route between Liverpool Street and Southend Victoria was converted to 25 kV AC between 1976 and 1980[5] Electrification was extended to Norwich by 1986.

 

In 1986 it became part of Network SouthEast. Between 5 January 1997 and 31 March 2004, suburban and medium distance services were operated by First Great Eastern, while fast mainline services were operated by Anglia Railways. All services are now operated by Greater Anglia.

 

Liverpool Street IECC replaced signal boxes at Bethnal Green (closed 1997), Bow (closed 1996), Stratford (GE panel closed 1997), Ilford (closed 1996), Romford (closed 1998), Gidea Park (closed 1998), Shenfield (closed 1992) and Chelmsford (closed 1994). The system uses BR Mark 3 solid state interlockings, predominantly four-aspect signals and a combination of GEC-Alsthom HW2000 and Smiths clamp-lock point machines.

 

The first signalbox to be closed and transferred to Liverpool Street IECC was Shenfield, which had only opened in 1982. The last boxes to be transferred were at Romford and Gidea Park, and were the oldest of those being transferred, having been opened under the GER/LNER 1924 resignalling scheme.

East Coast Mainline

The East Coast Main Line (ECML) is a 393-mile (632 km) long electrified high-speed railway link between London, Peterborough, Doncaster, Wakefield, Leeds, York, Darlington, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Aberdeen. It is classed as a high-speed railway because most of it meets the speed criterion of 125 mph (200 km/h). The main franchise on the line is operated by state-owned East Coast Main Line Company Ltd.

The route forms a key artery on the eastern side of Great Britain and is broadly paralleled by the A1 trunk road. It links London, the South East and East Anglia with Yorkshire, the North East Regions and Scotland. It also carries key commuter flows for the north side of London. It is therefore important to the economic health of a number of areas of the country. It also handles cross-country, commuter and local passenger services, and carries heavy tonnages of freight traffic. The route has ELRs ECM1 - ECM9.

The line was built by three railway companies, each serving their own area but with the intention of linking up to form the through route that became the East Coast Main Line. From north to south they were the North British Railway, from Edinburgh to Berwick-on-Tweed, completed in 1846, the North Eastern Railway from Berwick-on-Tweed to Shaftholme the Great Northern Railway from Shaftholme to Kings Cross, completed in 1850. 
 

When first completed, the GNR made an end-on connection at Askern famously described by the GNR’s chairman as “a ploughed field four miles north of Doncaster” with the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, a short section of which was used to reach the NER at Knottingley. In 1871 the NER combined an existing York - Selby line with a new section south of Selby to form a direct through route to an end-on junction with the GNR, at Shaftholme, just south of Askern.

 

Realising that through journeys were an important part of their business, the companies established special rolling stock in 1860 on a collaborative basis; it was called the “East Coast Joint Stock”. In 1923 the three companies were grouped into the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER).

 

Numerous alterations to short sections of the original route have taken place, the most notable being the opening of the King Edward VII Bridge in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1906 and the Selby diversion, built to by-pass anticipated mining subsidence from the Selby coalfield and a bottleneck at Selby station. The Selby diversion was opened in 1983 and diverged from the original ECML at Temple Hirst, north of Doncaster, and joined the Leeds to York line at Colton Junction. LNER Class A3 No. 2547 Doncaster hauls the daily Flying Scotsman train in 1928.

 

The northernmost section from Kinnaber Junction, north of Montrose to Aberdeen was built by the Caledonian Railway, but with North British running rights to Aberdeen Station, commonly referred to as Aberdeen Joint Station. The ‘Race to the North’ from London to Aberdeen was effectively resolved by the shortening of the King’s Cross route by the construction of the two bridges, crossing the Forth and Tay estuaries.

 

The ECML has been the backdrop for a number of famous rail journeys and locomotives. The line was worked for many years by Pacific locomotives designed by Gresley, including the famous steam locomotives “Flying Scotsman” and “Mallard”. Mallard achieved a world record speed for a steam locomotive, at 126 miles per hour (203 km/h) and this record was never beaten. It made the run on the Grantham-to-Peterborough section, on the descent of Stoke Bank. 55008 The Green Howards passes Peterborough in July 1974. The Class 55 Deltic was the main express locomotive on the ECML between 1961 and 1981.

 

Steam locomotives were replaced by Diesel electrics in the early 1960s, when the purpose-built Deltic locomotive was developed by English Electric. The prototype was successful and a fleet of 22 locomotives was built, to handle all the important express traffic. The Class 55 were powered by two engines originally developed for fast torpedo boat purposes, and the configuration of the engines led to the Deltic name. Their characteristic throaty exhaust roar and chubby body outline made them unmistakable in service. The class 55 was for a time the most powerful diesel locomotive in service in Britain, at 3,300 hp (2,500 kW).

 

It was just after the Deltics were introduced that the first sections of the East Coast Main Line were upgraded to officially allow 100 miles per hour (160 km/h) running. The first length to be cleared for the new higher speed was a 17 miles (27 km) stretch between Peterborough and Grantham on 15 June 1965, the second was 12 miles (19 km) between Grantham and Newark.

 

As the demand for higher speed intensified, the Deltics were eventually superseded by the High Speed Train (HST), introduced between 1976 and 1981 and still in service in 2013 (re-engined, with the original Paxman Valenta power units replaced by MTU engines).

 

A prototype of the HST, the Class 41 achieved 143 mph (230 km/h) on the line in 1973. Current UK legislation requires in-cab signalling for speeds of over 125 mph which is the primary reason preventing the InterCity 225 train-sets from operating at their design speed of 140 mph (225 km/h) in normal service.

 

A secondary factor was that the signalling technology of the time was insufficiently advanced to allow detection of two broken rails on the line on which the train was operating.

 

Before the present in-cab regulations came in, British Rail experimented with 140 mph running by introducing a fifth, flashing green signalling aspect on track between New England North and Stoke Tunnel. The fifth aspect is not observable in normal service and appears when the next signal is showing a green (or another flashing green) aspect and the signal section is clear which ensures that there is sufficient braking distance to bring a train to a stand from 140 mph. Locomotives have operated on the ECML at speeds of up to 161.7 mph (260.2 km/h) in test runs.Electrification of the ECML was authorised in 1984, and work began in 1985 with the initial section between King’s Cross and Leeds going into operational trials in 1988. The full electrification was completed in late 1990, and the current InterCity 225 rolling stock was introduced.

Cross Country Route

The Cross-Country Route is the major British rail route running from South West England via Bristol, Birmingham, Sheffield and Leeds to North-East England. It facilitates some of the longest inter-city rail journeys in the UK such as Penzance to Aberdeen. It was also a major freight route, although in this role it has now largely been usurped by the M5, M6 and M1 motorways.

The Birmingham to Bristol section was originally built as the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway and the Bristol and Gloucester Railway, which then briefly amalgamated as the Birmingham and Bristol Railway before joining the Midland Railway. From Birmingham northwards, the line originated as the Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway to Derby, then the North Midland Railway to Leeds, then the York and North Midland Railway.

It ran through several regions of British Rail and had timetabling priority in none of them, and as a result the services were poorly promoted and thus not always well-patronised. This was offset somewhat on privatisation when the route was awarded as a single franchise to Virgin Trains.

In the 1960s the route was considered for electrification. This would have been particularly beneficial for climbing the Lickey Incline between Cheltenham and Birmingham, as many of the early diesels were underpowered. In 1977 the Parliamentary Select Committee on Nationalised Industries recommmended considering electrification of more of Britain’s rail network, and by 1979 BR presented a range of options that included electrifying the Cross Country Route by 2000. Under the 1979–90 Conservative governments that succeeded the 1976–79 Labour government the proposal was not implemented.

During the 1990s and early 2000s, the network was served by High Speed Trains, and Class 47s, which hauled various types of coaching stock.

Modern, more powerful multiple-units such as the new Turbostars and Voyagers have improved train performance without electrification. However, the line has higher operating costs and a significantly higher carbon footprint than if it were electrified.

UK Railway Lines

There are a limited number of main inter-regional lines, with all but one entering Greater London. The line from London to the Channel Tunnel is the only line designated ‘high speed’, although the other main routes also operate limited-stop express services.

 

The bulk of the secondary network is concentrated in London and the surrounding East and South East regions; an area marketed by National Rail as London and the South East. The majority of these lines are radial to London. There is a further concentration of routes around Birmingham in the West Midlands and in the urbanised part of northern England that stretches from Liverpool in the west, via Greater Manchester to Leeds in the east.

 

Some areas, such as Wales and Scotland have relatively sparse railway provision. There are local lines throughout all areas of Great Britain with some services designated as community railways.