British Rail Class 08
The British Rail Class 08 is a class of diesel–electric shunting locomotives built by British Railways (BR). As the standard BR general-purpose diesel shunter, the class became a familiar sight at major stations and freight yards. Since their introduction in 1952, however, the nature of rail traffic in Britain has changed considerably. Freight trains are now mostly fixed rakes of wagons, and passenger trains are mostly multiple units or have driving van trailers, neither requiring the attention of a shunting locomotive. Consequently, a large proportion of the class has been withdrawn from mainline use and stored, scrapped, exported or sold to industrial or heritage railways. As of 2020, around 100 locomotives remained working on industrial sidings and on the main British railway network. On heritage railways, they have become particularly common, appearing on many of the preserved standard-gauge lines in Britain, with over 80 preserved, including the first one built. ''wn ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Penzance Railway Station
Penzance railway station () serves the town of Penzance in west Cornwall, England. It is the terminus of the Cornish Main Line and the southernmost railway station in Great Britain, situated at milepost from . The station is owned by Network Rail and managed by Great Western Railway, which also operates train services together with CrossCountry. The first station opened in 1852; through travel to and from London commenced from 1859, with the opening of the Royal Albert Bridge. The station was rebuilt by the Great Western Railway in 1876 and the current layout was the result of a further rebuilding in the 1930s. History Broad gauge era The station was opened by the West Cornwall Railway on 11 March 1852 as the terminus of its line from Redruth. The station itself consisted of a single platform face, and along with the rest of the West Cornwall Railway was laid as standard gauge. This changed in 1866 when the West Cornwall Railway was relaid to mixed gauge allowing South Devo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Vacuum Brake
The vacuum brake is a brake, braking system employed on trains and introduced in the mid-1860s. A variant, the automatic vacuum brake system, became almost universal in British train equipment and in countries influenced by British practice. Vacuum brakes also enjoyed a brief period of adoption in the United States, primarily on narrow-gauge railroads. Their limitations caused them to be progressively superseded by Railway air brake, compressed air systems starting in the United Kingdom from the 1970s onward. The vacuum brake system is now obsolete; it is not in large-scale usage anywhere in the world, other than in South Africa, largely supplanted by railway air brake, air brakes. Introduction In the earliest days of railways, trains were slowed or stopped by the application of manually applied brakes on the locomotive and in brake vehicles through the train, and later by steam power brakes on locomotives. This was clearly unsatisfactory, given the slow and unreliable response ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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East Coast (train Operating Company)
East Coast, the trading name of the East Coast Main Line Company, was a British train operating company running the InterCity East Coast Rail franchising in Great Britain, franchise on the East Coast Main Line between London, Yorkshire, North East England, and Scotland. East Coast ran long-distance inter-city services from its Central London terminus at on two primary routes; the first to Leeds railway station, Leeds and the second to Edinburgh Waverley, Edinburgh via Newcastle railway station, Newcastle with other services reaching into Yorkshire and Northern and Central Scotland. It commenced operations on 14 November 2009 and ceased on 28 February 2015. East Coast was a subsidiary of Directly Operated Railways, formed by the Department for Transport as an operator of last resort when National Express refused to provide further financial support to its National Express East Coast (NXEC) subsidiary and consequently lost its franchise. The franchise was re-nationalised on 14 N ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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National Express East Coast
National Express East Coast (NXEC) was a train operating company in the United Kingdom, owned by National Express, that operated the InterCity East Coast franchise on the East Coast Main Line between London, Yorkshire, North East England and Scotland from December 2007 until November 2009. During December 2006, the previous franchisee Sea Containers, operating via its subsidiary Great North Eastern Railway (GNER), was stripped of the franchise after failing to meet overly-generous payments. During August 2007, National Express was awarded the franchise via a competitive tender; its bid was criticised for having offered similarly onerous payments to GNER. Within months of commencing operation in December 2007, NXEC became known for its cost-cutting measures and a noted drop in service level. The company became unable to meet its payment obligations, having forecast greater ridership than actually experienced while fuel costs had risen considerably. By early 2009, Nationa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Great North Eastern Railway
Great North Eastern Railway, often referred to as GNER, was a train operating company in the United Kingdom, owned by Sea Containers, that operated the InterCity East Coast franchise on the East Coast Main Line between London, Yorkshire, North East England and Scotland from April 1996 until December 2007. During March 1996, Sea Containers was awarded the franchise to operate the East Coast services; it begin operations on 28 April 1996. Initially receiving a favourable reception, the company brought in several service alterations and innovations, including the leasing of Class 373 ''Regional Eurostars'' along with the refurbishment of the InterCity 225 fleet. However, GNER's reputation and passenger numbers were both hit by a pair of derailments during the early 2000s, the Hatfield rail crash and the Great Heck rail crash. Plans to procure a fleet of tilting trains based on the Pendolino were mooted by the company, but were discarded amid a protracted and complex refran ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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DB Cargo UK
DB Cargo UK (formerly DB Schenker Rail UK and English, Welsh & Scottish Railway) is a British rail freight company owned by Deutsche Bahn and headquartered in Doncaster, England. The company was established by Wisconsin Central Ltd., Wisconsin Central in early 1995 as ''North & South Railways'', successfully acquiring and merging five of the six freight companies that were sold during the privatisation of British Rail.The sixth rail freight company created during privatisation, Freightliner Group, Freightliner, was privatised through a management buyout. On 25 April 1996, the English, Welsh & Scottish EWS brand was revealed and implemented over successive months. By the end of March 1997, it controlled 90% of the UK rail freight market, operated a fleet of 900 locomotives and 19,000 wagons, and had 7,000 employees. During the late 1990s, EWS invested heavily into rolling stock renewal, procuring a large number of British Rail Class 66 diesel locomotives. EWS reduced staff number ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Eurostar
Eurostar is an international high-speed rail service in Western Europe, connecting Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The service is operated by the Eurostar Group which was formed from the merger of Eurostar, which operated trains through the Channel Tunnel to the United Kingdom, and Thalys which operated in Western Europe. Eurostar transported 19.5 million passengers in 2024. The operator is exploring future network expansions and aims to double passenger numbers by 2030. History Conception and planning The history of the Eurostar brand can be traced to the choice in 1986 of a rail tunnel to provide a cross-channel link between Britain and France. A previous attempt to construct a tunnel between the two nations had begun in 1974, but was quickly aborted. Construction began afresh in 1988. Getlink, Eurotunnel was created to manage and own the tunnel, which was finished in 1993, the official opening taking place on 6 May 1994. In addition t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Freightliner Group
Freightliner Group is a rail freight and logistics company headquartered in the United Kingdom. It is owned by Brookfield Corporation, Brookfield, a Canadian investment management company and GIC (sovereign wealth fund), GIC, a Singaporean sovereign wealth fund. It was originally created after the Transport Act 1968 as Freightliner Limited, a British government-owned company. From its onset, Freightliner was focused on the haulage of international traffic, thus came to centre its activities around Britain's sea ports, often building new multimodal freight depots adjacent to such locations to better capture this business. During the late 1970s, it was reorganised under British Rail, and became a part of its Railfreight Distribution subsidiary during the late 1980s. Work to expand the loading gauge on routes such as the East Coast Main Line were undertaken, allowing trains hauling larger containers to be routes, were conducted around this time. Numerous domestic depots previously ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Rail Express Systems
Rail Express Systems (RES) was a sector of British Rail. This sector was responsible for transport of mail and parcels, including the travelling post office trains, as well as taking over charter operations from InterCity (British Rail), InterCity and haulage of the British Royal Train, Royal Train. RES had been created out of a policy of History of rail transport in Great Britain 1948%E2%80%931994#The 1980s: Sectorisation, Sectorisation, its functions previously being undertaken as an integral element of British Rail in the 1980s. Initially known simply as the ''Parcels Sector'', it was decided to re-brand it as ''Rail Express Systems'' during late 1991. The entity's management team sought to improve the economics of its operations and to better satisfy its customer's needs, the principal one being the Royal Mail. Thus, various initiatives were undertaken, including the procurement of new rolling stock in the form of 16 four-car British Rail Class 325, a series of electric mult ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Network SouthEast
Network SouthEast (NSE) was one of the three passenger sectors of British Rail created in 1982. NSE mainly operated commuter rail trains within Greater London and inter-urban services in densely populated South East England, although the network went as far west as Exeter and also covered the inner East of England. Before 1986, the sector was originally known as ''London & South Eastern''. During the privatisation of British Rail, it was gradually divided into a number of franchises. History Before the History of rail transport in Great Britain 1948 - 1994#The 1980s : Sectorisation, sectorisation of British Rail (BR) in 1982 the system was split into largely autonomous regional operations: those operating around London were the London Midland Region, Southern Region of British Railways, Southern Region, Western Region of British Railways, Western Region, and Eastern Region of British Railways, Eastern Region. Sectorisation of BR changed this setup by organising by the traff ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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InterCity (British Rail)
InterCity (or, in the earliest days, the hyphenated Inter-City) was a brand name introduced by British Rail in 1966 for its long-haul express passenger services (see British Rail brand names for a full history). In 1982, the British Railways Board divided its operations into a number of sectors ( sectorisation). The sector responsible for long-distance express trains assumed the brand-name InterCity, although many routes that were previously operated as InterCity services were assigned to other sectors (e.g. London to King's Lynn services were transferred to the commuter sector Network SouthEast). InterCity brand Etymology InterCity derives from the prepositional of the with ''City'' giving rise to meaning ''between cities''. The Inter-City train British Rail first used the term ''Inter-City'' in 1950 as the name of a train running between London Paddington and Wolverhampton Low Level. This was part of an overall policy of introducing new train names in the post Worl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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British Rail
British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Commission, it became an independent statutory corporation in January 1963, when it was formally renamed the British Railways Board. British Railways was formed on 1 January 1948 as a result of the Transport Act 1947, which nationalised the Big Four British railway companies along with some other (but not all) smaller railways. Profitability of the railways became a pressing concern during the 1950s, leading to multiple efforts to bolster performance, including some line closures. The 1955 Modernisation Plan formally directed a process of dieselisation and electrification to take place; accordingly, steam locomotives had been entirely replaced by diesel and electric traction (except for the narrow-gauge Vale of Rheidol Railway tourist lin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |