History
Sealink was originally the brand name for the ferry services of British Rail which ran shipping services in the UK and Ireland. Services to France, Belgium and the Netherlands were also run by Sealink UK as part of the Sealink consortium which also used ferries owned by French national railways, the SNCF, the Belgian Maritime Transport Authority, Regie voor Maritiem Transport / Regie des transports maritimes (RMT/RTM) and the Dutch Stoomvaart Maatschappij Zeeland (Zeeland Steamship Company).
Historically, the shipping services were exclusively an "extension" of the railways across the English Channel and the Irish Sea in order to provide through, integrated services to Europe and Ireland. As international travel became more popular in the late 1960s and before air travel became generally affordable, the responsibility for shipping services was taken away from the British Rail Regions and in 1969 centralised in a new division - British Rail Shipping and International Services Division.
With the advent of car ferry services the old passenger-only ferries were gradually replaced by roll-on-roll-off ships catering both for motorists and rail passengers as well as road freight. However, given that there was now competition in the form of other ferry companies offering crossings to motorists, it became necessary to market the services in a normal business fashion (as opposed to the previous almost monopolistic situation). Thus, with the other partners mentioned above, the brand name Sealink was introduced for the consortium.
As demand for international rail travel declined and the shipping business became almost exclusively dependent on passenger and freight vehicle traffic, the ferry business as was incorporated as Sealink UK Limited in 1978, a wholly owned subsidiary of the British Railways Board (BRB), but still as part of the Sealink consortium. In 1979 Sealink acquired Manx Line offering services to the Isle of Man from Heysham.
On 27 July 1984 the UK Government sold Sealink UK Ltd to Bermuda-based Sea Containers for £66m. The company was renamed Sealink British Ferries. 7 years later, In 1991 Sea Containers sold Sealink British Ferries to Stena Line. The sale excluded the operations of Hoverspeed, the Isle of Wight services and the share in the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company, as well as the Port of Heysham. The new Swedish owners changed the company name to Sealink Stena Line then again a few years later to Stena Sealink Line.
In 1996 the Sealink name disappeared when the UK services were re-branded as Stena Line. The agreement with the SNCF on the Dover-Calais route also ended at this time and the French run Sealink services were rebranded as SeaFrance.
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