British Railways Board - Winding Down

Winding Down

On 1 April 1994 railway infrastructure became the responsibility of public limited company Railtrack, initially Government owned. The BRB continued to operate all trains until 1996, when the process of transferring them to the private sector began.

Privatisation was completed in 1997, but the BRB continued 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 Alistair Morton was appointed the last chairman of the BRB, which began to advise on passenger railway matters. During this time it operated with the Director of Passenger Rail Franchising under the trading name of the Shadow Strategic Rail Authority.

Under the Transport Act 2000 the Office of Passenger Rail Franchising was abolished and the BRB's functions were transferred to the Strategic Rail Authority's wholly owned subsidiary BRB (Residuary) Ltd. With the dissolution of the SRA under the Railways Act 2005, it became a wholly owned subsidiary of the Secretary of State for Transport. While the Transport Act allowed for BRB to be abolished, this has not yet occurred.

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 archive material, including papers, maps, films and photographs, dating back before nationalisation. In 1997 these were distributed to other bodies: films (the bulk of which had been produced by British Transport Films) to the British Film Institute in London, photographs to the National Railway Museum (NRM) in York, and most papers to the Public Record Office.