British Railways Board

The British Railways Board (BRB) was a nationalised industry in the United Kingdom. It was a statutory corporation responsible for most railway services in Great Britain from 1962 until privatisation in 1997, and traded under the brand name British Railways, from 1965 British Rail. It did not operate in Northern Ireland, where railways were the responsibility of the Government of Northern Ireland.

Formation

The BRB was created on 1 January 1963 under the Transport Act 1962 by Harold Macmillan's Conservative government to inherit the railway responsibilities of the British Transport Commission and its subsidiary Railway Executive, which were both dissolved at the same time.

Operations

Wind-up and dissolution

On 1 April 1994 the BRB ceased to have responsibility for railway infrastructure, which became the responsibility of a (initially Government owned) public limited company, Railtrack. It continue to operate all passenger railway services until 1996, when the process of transferring the services to the private sector began.

Privatisation was completed in 1997, but the BRB continued in existence to discharge residual functions relating to non-operational railway land and BR pensions, and to have responsibility for the British Transport Police. In 1999 Sir Alistar Morton was appointed as last chairman of the BRB, which began to advise on passenger railway matters. During this time it operated together with the Director of Passenger Rail Franchising under the trading name of the "Shadow Strategic Rail Authority".

Under the Transport Act 2000 the BRB and OPRAF were abolished and their functions transferred to the Strategic Rail Authority. The functions which had been carried out by the BRB prior to the creation of the SRA were placed under the charge of a wholly-owned subsidiary of the SRA, BRB (Residuary) Ltd. Its ownership changed again with the dissolution of the SRA under the Railways Act 2005 and it is currently a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Secretary of State for Transport.

Through its subsidiary, Rail Property Ltd, BRB (Residuary) retains responsibility for non-operational railway land, for example, railway lines closed in the Beeching Axe that have not been sold.

The BRB owned a large amount of railway archive material, including papers, maps, films and photographs, dating back before nationalisation. At privatisation in 1997 these were distributed to other bodies: the films went to the British Film Institute in London, the photographs to the National Railway Museum (NRM) in York, and most of the papers to the Public Record Office.

Chairmen

"(some dates need to be added)"
*Dr Richard Beeching (1963-1965)
*Sir Stanley Raymond (1965-1967)
*Sir Henry Johnson (1967-1971)
*Sir Richard Marsh (1971-1976)
*Sir Peter Parker (1976-1983)
*Sir Robert Reid (1983-1990)
*Sir Bob Reid (1990-1995)John Welsby (1995-1999)
* Sir Alistar Morton (1999-2000).

External links

* [http://www.brb.gov.uk/home British Railways Board (Residuary)]
* [http://ndad.ulcc.ac.uk/AH/37/detail.html History of the BRB]