British Rail passenger business units

[Catkins]

When the British Rail board started to separate out the passenger business units, what influenced the decisions regarding which lines and services were 'given' to which business unit?

As an example, why did the London and Southeast sector get Waterloo to Exeter, when to my mind it was an Intercity route.

 

I am not looking for specific routes, more so what criteria differenciated between an Intercity service, a long distance (Cross Country) secondary service, and a regional / provincial service.

 

Thank you for your assistance folks.

[Mark Saunders]

It was possibly that accountants had something to do with it as at the same time there were a number of freight flows transferred to Railfreight Distribution as they had to make a 5% return rather than 10% with other sectors! 

[Ken.W]

IIRC, the Intercity sector was required to operate at a profit

So, routes requiring too much subsidy went elsewhere

 

Cross Country, btw, was part of Intercity under the BR business sectors, it was only separated when the shadow franchises came in preparing for privatisation.

At Newcastle, under Intercity, we started working the NE-SW trains through as far as Derby (previously only to York / Leeds / Doncaster)

 

ps although not asking for specific example, you did mention Cross Country

Edited March 8, 2020 by Ken.W

[andyman7]

Waterloo to Exeter was an all station secondary stopping service post rationalisation in the 1960s, most definitely not InterCity. It was an edge case as to whether it was London & South East or Provincial beyond Salisbury but wouldn't have qualified as InterCity on speed, rolling stock quality or catering,

[Oldddudders]

2 hours ago, Catkins said:

When the British Rail board started to separate out the passenger business units, what influenced the decisions regarding which lines and services were 'given' to which business unit?

As an example, why did the London and Southeast sector get Waterloo to Exeter, when to my mind it was an Intercity route.

Waterloo-Exeter Intercity? With a hopelessly compromised infrastructure over many miles of single line and an all-stations timetable?

 

I think the division had something to do with the way the Chief Passenger Manager at BRB had already divided services, no doubt in consultation with HM Treasury. 

[TravisM]

Though the train ran from Waterloo to Exeter under Network SouthEast, the original NSE boundary for this service was Waterloo - Pinhoe (I think) though it was extended eventually to Exeter St David’s.  I think this was done for accounting purposes as Exeter St David’s was technically a InterCity station.

[adb968008]

Not quite sure how Penzance to Paddington was NSE... or London -Cambridge & Norwich.

 

or how HSTs didnt acquire NSE livery (that 1 coach aside).

 

I did hear though that some areas were expected to turn a profit and be sold, where as others wouldnt and would remain in public ownership.

 

 

[fiftyfour fiftyfour]

30 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Not quite sure how Penzance to Paddington was NSE... or London -Cambridge & Norwich.

 

or how HSTs didnt acquire NSE livery (that 1 coach aside).

 

I did hear though that some areas were expected to turn a profit and be sold, where as others wouldnt and would remain in public ownership.

 

 

Penzance was never (intentionally!!) reached by NSE and although some Waterloo to Exeters actually ran to/from Plymouth this was purely to save the 52 mile ECS move from the less than perfectly located Laira depot. HSTs were prime IC assets under sectorisation and would never have gone to anyone else back then, bear in mind many routes were still dominated by Mk2 stock in 1988, Liv St-Norwich, more than half the WCML fleet, well over half the Cross Country fleet was comprised of Mk2.

[keefer]

In Scotland, the Edinburgh-Glasgow-Aberdeen mainline services (and maybe Inverness) could've possibly been Intercity, or Provincial at least. However Chris Green had his vision of ScotRail, with push-pull mk3 sets on the E-G-A expresses being fed into with general MU/LH services.

Courtesy Bob Reid in this thread: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/429-scottish-region-photos-1980s/&do=findComment&comment=730458

"One of Chris Green's fights for the region was avoiding the loss of control to the sectors -specifically Regional Railways - he wanted to retain the autonomy of the British Railways (Scottish Region) Board as far as internal services were concerned.....To avoid any doubt - despite what some magazines said at the time and since, there was no such thing as the Regional Railways (ScotRail) sub sector.... He saw to that!"

 

The London-Scotland sleepers were an obviously Intercity service but were operated by ScotRail (or was that just in privatisation days?)