Operations
Initially, and for the majority of its history, the BRB operated under the structure inherited from the BTC Railway Executive. Operations were divided into five regions - Eastern, London Midland, Western, Southern and Scottish (later rebranded ScotRail). A North Eastern Region existed initially but was merged into the Eastern Region in 1967.
In the 1980s the BRB moved to a sectoral model based on business activity - InterCity for long-distance passenger trains, Network SouthEast for commuter trains in London, and Regional Railways for short-distance and commuter trains outside the Network SouthEast area. Railfreight was organised separately.
As well as the railway network, for much of its history the BRB also ran ferry services (later as Sealink) and hotels. These were sold in the 1980s.
The final BRB structure (1994-1997) was a shadow form of the future privatised railway industry, becoming a holding company for over 100 subsidiaries, including 25 passenger train operating, six freight, three rolling stock leasing, and a number of track maintenance companies. These were slowly sold during privatisation (the passenger subsidiaries were franchised to private sector concerns).
Read more about this topic: British Railways Board
Famous quotes containing the word operations:
“A sociosphere of contact, control, persuasion and dissuasion, of exhibitions of inhibitions in massive or homeopathic doses...: this is obscenity. All structures turned inside out and exhibited, all operations rendered visible. In America this goes all the way from the bewildering network of aerial telephone and electric wires ... to the concrete multiplication of all the bodily functions in the home, the litany of ingredients on the tiniest can of food, the exhibition of income or IQ.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“Plot, rules, nor even poetry, are not half so great beauties in tragedy or comedy as a just imitation of nature, of character, of the passions and their operations in diversified situations.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“There is a patent office at the seat of government of the universe, whose managers are as much interested in the dispersion of seeds as anybody at Washington can be, and their operations are infinitely more extensive and regular.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)