The rail network in the United Kingdom consists of two independent parts, that of Northern Ireland and that of Great Britain. Since 1994, the latter has been connected to
mainland Europe via the
Channel Tunnel. The network of Northern Ireland is connected to that of the
Republic of Ireland. The National Rail network of in Great Britain and 189routemiles (303routekm) in
Northern Ireland carries 1.7billion passengers and 110milliontonnes of freight annually. Urban rail networks are also well developed in London and several other cities. There were once over of rail network in the UK. The UK was ranked eighth among national European rail systems in the 2017 European Railway Performance Index assessing intensity of use, quality of service and safety.
Great Britain Hitachi class at
London Paddington Station The rail network in Great Britain is the oldest such network in the world. The system consists of five high-speed main lines (the
West Coast,
East Coast,
Midland,
Great Western and
Great Eastern), which radiate from London and other major cities to the rest of the country, augmented by regional rail lines and dense commuter networks within cities and other high-speed lines.
High Speed 1 is operationally separate from the rest of the network, and is built to the same standard as the
TGV system in France. The world's first passenger railway running on steam was the
Stockton and Darlington Railway, opened on 27 September 1825. Just under five years later the world's first intercity railway was the
Liverpool and Manchester Railway, designed by
George Stephenson and opened by the Prime Minister, the
Duke of Wellington on 15 September 1830. The network grew rapidly as a patchwork of literally hundreds of separate companies during the
Victorian era, which eventually was consolidated into just four by 1922, as the boom in railways ended and they began to lose money. Eventually, the entire system came under state control in 1948, under the
British Transport Commission's Railway Executive. After 1962 it came under the control of the
British Railways Board; then British Railways (later
British Rail), and the network was reduced to less than half of its original size by the infamous
Beeching cuts of the 1960s when many unprofitable branch lines were closed. Several stations and lines have since been reopened in England and
Wales. In 1994 and 1995, British Rail was split into infrastructure, maintenance, rolling stock, passenger and freight companies, which were
privatised from 1996 to 1997. The privatisation has delivered very mixed results, with healthy passenger growth, mass refurbishment of infrastructure, investment in new rolling stock, and safety improvements being offset by concerns over network capacity and the overall cost to the taxpayer, which has increased due to growth in passenger numbers. While the price of anytime and off-peak tickets has increased, the price of Advance tickets has dramatically decreased in real terms: the average Advance ticket in 1995 cost £9.14 (in 2014 prices) compared to £5.17 in 2014. In Great Britain, the infrastructure (track, stations, depots and signalling chiefly) is owned and maintained by
Network Rail, a body of the
Department for Transport. Passenger services are operated by mostly public
train-operating companies (TOCs), with private franchises awarded by the
Department for Transport (in England),
Transport Scotland, and
Transport for Wales. Examples include
Avanti West Coast,
Great Western Railway and
East Midlands Railway. Some other passenger TOCs make use of
open-access contracts or
concessionary contracts for their operations, such as
Hull Trains or
Merseyrail, respectively. Freight trains are operated by
freight operating companies, such as
DB Cargo UK, which are commercial operations unsupported by the government. Most train operating companies do not own the locomotives and coaches that they use to operate passenger services. Instead, they are required to lease these from the three
rolling stock companies (ROSCOs), with train maintenance carried out by companies such as
Bombardier and
Alstom. Rail passenger revenue in 2018/19 increased in real terms year-on-year. In 2018/19, there was £18.1bn of public expenditure on railways, an increase of 12%. The Network North programme consists of hundreds of transport projects mostly in
Northern England and
Midlands, including new high-speed lines linking up major cities and railway improvements. To cope with increasing passenger numbers, there is a large ongoing
programme of upgrades to the network, including
Thameslink,
Crossrail,
electrification of lines,
in-cab signalling, new
inter-city trains and
high-speed lines.
Great British Railways is a planned
state-owned public body that will oversee
rail transport in Great Britain. The
Office of Rail and Road is responsible for the economic and safety regulation of the UK's railways.
Northern Ireland In Northern Ireland,
Northern Ireland Railways (NIR) both owns the infrastructure and operates passenger rail services. The Northern Ireland rail network is one of the few networks in Europe that carry no freight. It is publicly owned. NIR was united in 1996 with Northern Ireland's two publicly owned bus operators –
Ulsterbus,
Foyle Metro and Metro (formally
Citybus) – under the brand
Translink. In Northern Ireland there is of track at
gauge. of it is double track.
International rail services service at
St Pancras station Eurostar operates trains via the
Channel Tunnel to France,
Belgium and
The Netherlands. The
Enterprise which is a joint venture
Northern Ireland Railways and
Iarnród Éireann operates the
cross border link between
Northern Ireland and the
Republic of Ireland.
Rapid transit Three cities in the United Kingdom have
rapid transit systems. The most well known is the
London Underground (commonly known as the Tube), the oldest rapid transit system in the world which opened 1863. Another system also in London is the separate
Docklands Light Railway. Although this is more of an elevated
light metro system due to its lower passenger capacities; further, it is integrated with the Underground in many ways. Outside London, there is the
Glasgow Subway which is the third oldest rapid transit system in the world. One other system, the
Tyne & Wear Metro (opened 1980), serves Newcastle, Gateshead, Sunderland, North Tyneside and South Tyneside, and has many similarities to a rapid transit system including underground stations, but is sometimes considered to be
light rail. The
Liverpool Overhead Railway (opened 1893) was one of the first metros in the world but was dismantled 1956–1958 after years of neglect because nobody was willing or able to provide the funds for maintenance and repairs.
Urban rail high-speed trains provide services from
Northern England to Scotland and London. Urban commuter rail networks are focused on many of the country's major cities: •
Belfast –
Belfast Suburban Rail •
Birmingham –
West Midlands Railway •
Bristol –
Great Western Railway •
Cardiff –
Valley Lines •
Edinburgh –
ScotRail •
Exeter –
Great Western Railway •
Glasgow –
ScotRail •
Leeds –
MetroTrain •
Liverpool –
Merseyrail •
London –
London Underground,
London Overground, and
Elizabeth line •
Manchester –
Northern and
TransPennine Express •
Newcastle –
Tyne & Wear Metro They consist of several railway lines connecting city centre stations of major cities to suburbs and surrounding towns. Train services and ticketing are fully integrated with the national rail network and are not considered separate. In London, a route for
Crossrail 2 has been safeguarded.
Trams and light rail is the largest light rail system in the UK and is integrated into the city's
Bee Network.Tram systems were popular in the United Kingdom in the late 19th and early 20th century. However, with the rise of the
car they began to be widely dismantled in the 1950s. By 1962 only the
Blackpool tramway and the
Glasgow Corporation Tramways remained; the final Glasgow service was withdrawn on 4 September 1962. Recent years have seen a revival the United Kingdom, as in other countries, of trams together with light rail systems. Since the 1990s, a second generation of tram networks have been built and have started operating in
Manchester in 1992,
Sheffield in 1994, the
West Midlands in 1999,
South London in 2000,
Nottingham in 2004 and
Edinburgh in 2014, whilst the original trams in Blackpool were upgraded to second generation vehicles in 2012. Four light rapid transit lines are opening in the Welsh Capital of
Cardiff as part of the current
South Wales Metro plan Phase 1 in 2023, which will reach as far out of the capital as Hirwaun, a town from Cardiff Bay, as well as three new lines planned to open by 2026. ==Road transport==