Marketing modernity: Business and family in British Rail’s “Age of the Train” campaign, 1979–84

Abstract

British Rail’s “Age of the Train” campaign, running between 1979 and 1984, saw an effort by British Rail to align the organisation with prevailing political attitudes of enterprise, competition and family. Traditional historiographies of railway marketing have only engaged with interwar railway marketing, leaving a significant historiographical gap. British Rail in the 1980s was a public enterprise, grew out of consensus political thought, and made heavy losses, all which Thatcher made clear she disliked. Hence, the campaign aimed to present British Rail alongside Thatcher’s free market “enterprise culture”, drawing attention to the competitive and economic strengths of their operations. The campaign highlighted the social benefits of the railway by asserting that travelling by car would cause rifts in the traditional family dynamic and presenting the train as a modern and relevant form of transportation for the era.