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Most of the railway companies were grouped into the ‘Big Four’ on 1st January 1923. The ‘Big Four’ consisted of the Great Western Railway, the London and North Eastern Railway, the London, Midland and Scottish Railway and the Southern Railway companies. There were also other smaller companies that were kept separate from the ‘Big Four’ such as the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway and the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway.
From 1948 onwards, the ‘Big Four’ were nationalised to form British Rail under the British Transport Commission. Profits were soon increased which then lead to the regeneration of track and station which was completed by 1954. The mid 1950’s saw the introduction of diesel and electric rolling stock to replace the steam trains in a plan to modernise the railways which cost millions of pounds.
British Rail was privatised between 1994 and 1997, the ownership of track and infrastructure was passed on to Railtrack. Induvidual franchises then started to operate, originally there were 25 franchises and 6 freight companies were set up.
The rise in accidents soon dented the public image of rail transport. Almost straight after the Hatfield rail accident, Railtrack imposed over 1200 emergency speed restrictions over the whole network and then went into a costly track replacement programme. This proved to much for the company and they then handed the network over to Network Rail, a state-owned, not for dividend company.
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