Movement towards the privatisation of British Rail

Abstract

The railway industry is possibly unique among modern transport modes in the extent of its linkages with developments that occurred long enough ago to be regarded as history. The traction equipment of the 1990s may be operating on structures built by hand 150 years ago. This is one of the reasons why railways exercise a continuing fascination in the mind of the British public. Now that the privatisation of public utilities is a worldwide phenomenon, and the methods and possible benefits that might result are of great professional and political interest, it may be that evidence of experience during the growth of the British railway system in the nineteenth century, under conditions of very limited government intervention, and a multiplicity of separate companies, holds some lessons for those concerned with the formulation or implementation of privatisation in the 1990s. This chapter traces the recent history of railway privatisation in Britain, but also draws examples from the much earlier history of the railway industry.