Regional Railways
Provincial | |
Valley Lines |
Regional Railways was one of the three passenger sectors of British Rail created in 1982 that existed until 1997, two years after Privatisation of British Rail. The sector was originally called Provincial.
Regional Railways was the most subsidised (per passenger km) of the three sectors. Upon formation, its costs were four times its revenue.[1]
The sector was broken up into eight franchises during the privatisation of British Rail and ceased to exist on 31 March 1997.
Formation
Upon
Services
Regional Railways inherited a diverse range of routes, comprising both express and local services. Expresses mainly ran to non-principal destinations or on less popular routes, such as Birmingham or Liverpool to Norwich, or Liverpool to Scarborough, and were chiefly operated by older locomotives and second-hand InterCity coaches. Later these services were operated by Sprinter units – mainly
Local services ran on both main lines and branch lines and were often operated by first generation diesel multiple units dating back to the 1950s. Longer distance trains were often formed of older coaches and locomotives of British Rail Class 31, British Rail Class 40, and British Rail Class 45, which were of similar vintage.
Development of new rolling stock
In the early 1980s, large numbers of diesel multiple unit (DMU) and locomotive-hauled coaches were found to contain asbestos. Removing this would be a considerable cost and generating no extra revenue, which, coupled with the increasingly unreliable old locomotives and DMUs, prompted BR to look for a new generation of diesel multiple units.
The prototype British Rail Class 210, in service on a trial basis since 1981, were considered too expensive to be put into production, so BR looked elsewhere for new designs.[1]
Pacer (train)
The first,
Sprinters
BR needed something midway between the Pacers and the British Rail Class 210s. In 1984/1985, two experimental DMU designs were put into service: the British Rail Engineering Limited built British Rail Class 150 and Metro-Cammell built British Rail Class 151.[2] Both of these used hydraulic transmission and were less bus-like than the Pacers. After trials, British Rail Class 150 was selected for production, entering service from 1987. Reliability was much improved by the new units, with depot visits being reduced from two or three times a week to fortnightly.[1]
The late 1980s and early 1990s also saw the development of secondary express services that complemented the mainline InterCity (British Rail) routes. British Rail Class 155 and British Rail Class 156 Sprinters were developed to replace locomotive-hauled trains on these services, their interiors being designed with longer distance journeys in mind. Key Scottish and Trans-Pennine routes were upgraded with new British Rail Class 158 Express Sprinters, while a network of 'Alphaline' services was introduced elsewhere in the country.
By the end of the 1980s, passenger numbers had increased and costs had been reduced to two-and-a-half times revenue.[1]
Electrification
The
Rolling Stock
Class | Image | Quantity | Formation | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Locomotive Hauled Stock | ||||
British Rail Class 31 | Diesel Locomotive |
|||
British Rail Class 37 | ||||
British Rail Class 47 | ||||
British Railways Mark 1
|
Coach | |||
British Railways Mark 2
|
||||
British Railways Mark 3
|
||||
Diesel Multiple Units | ||||
British Rail Class 101 |
35 | 2, 3 or 4 | ||
British Rail Class 117 | 3 | 3 | ||
British Rail Class 121 | 26 | 1 | ||
British Rail Class 122 | 29 | |||
Pacer (train) |
96 | 2 | 60 units scrapped, 31 units preserved, 4 units converted for off-railway use | |
Pacer (train) |
25 | 11 units preserved, 12 units scrapped, 2 units converted to non-railway use. | ||
British Rail Sprinter |
137 | 2 or 3 | ||
British Rail Sprinter |
2 | 3 | Both scrapped | |
British Rail Sprinter |
70 | 1 | ||
British Rail Sprinter |
1 | 2 | A converted class 150, converted back to a class 150. | |
British Rail Sprinter |
47 | |||
British Rail Sprinter |
114 | |||
British Rail Sprinter |
182 | 2 or 3 | ||
Electric Multiple Units | ||||
British Rail Class 304 | 45 | 4 | All scrapped | |
British Rail Class 305 | 3 or 4 | |||
British Rail Class 323 | 43 | 3 |
Livery
This section needs additional citations for verification. (November 2022) |
Initially, many vehicles carried standard British Rail blue livery.
From 1986, Provincial adopted a version of the prototype Class 150 livery: aircraft blue over white, with a light blue stripe at waist level. All new units, plus a few existing ones, such as selected Class 304 EMUs, received it. Some units and coaches received the livery with either ScotRail or Regional Railways branding.
The British Rail Class 158s, introduced in 1989, appeared in Express livery: dark grey window surrounds over light grey, with light and dark blue stripes at waist level. This colour scheme was also applied to some British Rail Class 156 units around privatisation.
The British Rail Class 323 EMUs introduced in 1994 appeared in the West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive (Centro) livery for the West Midlands-based sets,[6] and the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive (GMPTE) livery for Manchester-based sets.
After privatisation, many vehicles continued to carry the basic RR colour scheme but with the addition of different branding, e.g. Central Trains.
The final British railway vehicle to carry Regional Railways livery was a British Rail Class 153, which was repainted in July 2008 into East Midlands Trains livery.
Split for privatisation
As part of the process of privatisation between 1994 and 1997, Regional Railways was split into several different shadow train operating units, which later became independent train operating companies:[7]
Train Operating Unit | Routes |
---|---|
Anglia Railways | Routes in East Anglia (combined with InterCity (British Rail) services in the region). |
Valley Lines (train operating company) | Urban 'Valley Lines' services around Cardiff, previously integrated within the South Wales and West divisions. |
Central Trains | Regional Railways' Central division, minus the services transferred to Anglia Railways and the Oxford to Worcester service. Covered the English Midlands and Mid Wales. |
Arriva Trains Merseyside | The network of electrified routes centred on Liverpool. |
First North Western | Routes in England's North West and in North Wales. |
Arriva Trains Northern | Routes in the North East of England. |
ScotRail (British Rail) / ScotRail (National Express) | The vast majority of services within Scotland. |
Wales & West | A wide network of services centred on South Wales and the South West. |
References
- ^ Wikidata Q112224535.[page needed]
- ISBN 0-7110-1635-6.[page needed]
- ^ "Class 323 Electric Multiple Unit Traction Upgrade". Institution of Mechanical Engineers. 5 May 2017. Archived from the original on 8 January 2022. Retrieved 13 May 2022.
- Newspapers.com.
- ^ "323 Data Sheets". Porterbrook. Archived from the original on 10 November 2018. Retrieved 24 May 2021.
- ^ "Railways in Worcestershire". miac.org.uk. Retrieved 23 May 2021.
- ]
Further reading
- Pettitt, Gordon; Comfort, Nick (2015). The Regional Railways Story. OPC. OCLC 921239163.
External links
- Regional Railways Identity Management – internal branding manual, 1992