Scottish Region of British Railways

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The Scottish Region (ScR) was one of the six regions created on British Railways (BR) and consisted of ex-London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) and ex-London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) lines in Scotland. It existed from the creation of BR in 1948, ceased to be an operating unit in its own right in the 1980s and was wound-up at the end of 1992.

1 History
2 The network
3 The Beeching cuts
4 Trains and rolling stock
5 Major accidents
6 Privatisation
7 Sources

[edit] History

The Second world war had devastated Scotland's railways due to the LMS and LNER rolling stock in Scotland being transferred to the major cities in Northern England in order to replace what had been destroyed by German air-raids. Only state intervention could provide the necessary re-supplying of rolling stock and save several unprofitable routes from closure, so the lines were nationalised in 1948, along with the rest of the railways and became the Scottish Region.

[edit] The network

The Scottish Region covered all of Scotland's railways. These would be greatly reduced in the 1960s.

Its most important stations were:

Glasgow Central and Queen Street in Glasgow,
Motherwell in North Lanarkshire,
Waverley station and Haymarket in Edinburgh,
Dumfries in Dumfriesshire,
Aberdeen in Aberdeenshire
Perth in Perthshire, and Dundee city,
Stirling in Stirlingshire,
Inverness in Inverness-shire.

The Scottish Region had boundaries with the North Eastern Region near Berwick-upon-Tweed and the London Midland Region near Gretna.

[edit] The Beeching cuts

Main article: Beeching Axe

Notable line closures in the Scottish Region during the 1960s were:

Aviemore to Forres.
Dunblane to Crianlarich.
Connel Ferry to Ballachulish.
Dumfries to Stranraer (the 'Port Road').
Carlisle to Edinburgh (the 'Waverley Route'). A portion of this route has been approved for reconstruction by the Scottish Parliament.

Lines proposed for closure in the Beeching Report, but which escaped the axe and remain open to this day include:

Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh, Wick and Thurso.
Ayr to Stranraer.

[edit] Trains and rolling stock

Steam traction ended in the 1960s with the introduction of diesel trains, and 25kV electric trains on the Glasgow Suburban network. The new electric 'Blue trains' with air-assisted sliding doors, were introduced during the early 1960s and were a great success, until they were scrapped, along with the first generation diesel units, in the 1990s.

[edit] Major accidents

Paisley Gilmour Street rail crash of 16 April 1979 - killed 7.
Invergowrie rail crash of 22 October 1979 - killed 5.
Polmont rail crash of 30 July 1984 - killed 13.
Glasgow Bellgrove rail crash of 6 March 1989 - killed 2.
Newton rail crash of 21 July 1991 - killed 4.

[edit] Privatisation

With the privatisation of British Rail, the railway infrastructure of the Scottish Region came under the Scotland Zone of Railtrack. Passenger services within Scotland were franchised to National Express, under the name "ScotRail Railways", although it was still referred to as ScotRail, the name that the BRB used in its later years of operation.