British Railways was created on January 1st 1948 by legislation passed by the Labor Government elected in 1945. This was the same government that created the National Health Service. Britain's railways were the last completely privately owned railways in the world outside of the United States. There were four companies; the Great Western, Southern, London Midland Scottish, and the London Northeastern. The British had the sense not to create a monolithic nationalized system like SNCF in France; but instead six somewhat autonomous regions.
The Great Western Railway became the Western Region of BR and was run by and large by ex- GWR managers and operated by ex-GWR crews. The Western Region was the most fiercely independent of British Railways Regions; as if the GWR continued to survive beyond nationalization. Southern was saddled with London commuters but still proudly proclaiming itself Southern though it was now a Region not a Railway after nationalization. It also handled the boat trains from the Southampton docks to Waterloo Station in London. The LMS and LNER were rivals in prewar Britain. The Amalcamation Act of 1923 created all of the companies except for the GWR out of smaller companies. LMS was really the enforced merger of the London Northwestern and the Midland Railway; bitter rivals before the LMS. The LMS was red team vs green team long before Penn Central, but the LMS did build some superb locomotives in the 1930's. The LMS ran the West Coast mainline the LNER the East Coast mainline to Scotland. Even with diesels the British Railways Regions acted with independence. Deltic class diesels were seen only on the ex-LNER East Coast mainline. Warship class diesels on the Western Region. Gradually, this independent spirit was broken when HST train sets which worked the Western Region began to be maintained off region at Doncaster and Derby instead of at the ex-GWR Swindon Works.
When looking at British Rail and Conrail, there are some striking similarities and differences. The most obvious similarity is they were both nationalized systems. However, they came about for slightly different reasons.
Some other similarities:
State of constituent systems: Both Conrail's and British Rail's predecessors were in a poor state of repair at the time of nationalization. Conrail's due to years of deferred maintenance and neglect. British Rail's due to the ravages of WWII.
Integration of separate networks into one unified system: I'm not sure about Britain, but Conrail inherited different signaling and dispatching systems.
Differences:
Motive Power: Britain had yet to dieselize at the time of nationalization and as such BR inherited a myriad of different locomotive classes. Standardization took some time. Conrail's predecessors were all diesel, with some electric.
Passenger and Freight Service: BR shifted it's focus to passenger service. Amtrak had been in existence for four years prior to Conrail's formation. Conrail quickly passed its commuter operations on to the states.
What are some other similarities and differences? What challenges did both systems face?
Modeling the Pennsylvania Railroad in N Scale.
www.prr-nscale.blogspot.com
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