Published on 4th September 1998
1998 the first year of full privatisation, with the process having taken from 1994 to 1997 to complete.
It was initiated by an EU directive in 1991 ending the state ownership of the railways. We look back on this period during the early part of March 1998 to illustrate how the railways were already beginning to change with new corporate liveries being applied to locomotives and stock. Virgin probably made the biggest impact in the southwest, with their bold and brash red and black livery being applied to their rolling stock to announce their operation of the Cross Country franchise. The three freight companies formed in 1994 (Transrail, Load Haul and Mainline) had already been merged into one larger freight company known as English Welsh and Scottish Railway (EW&S) which was later shortened to EWS with a test livery variation to suit.
A flow of large rocks/ boulders had also started to operate to Minehead from the Mendip Quarries to deliver large tonnages of rock to the seaside town for sea defence work. Rail Express Systems (now part of EWS) were operating upwards of 10 mail trains a day through Taunton, and freight flows were plentiful with China Clay, Coal, Fuel, and Aggregate just some of the commodities being moved by rail at the time.
We are pleased to be able to bring you some of the images from the late David Jones collection, we have recently started the huge task of processing over 20,000 images notes from this collection for your ongoing enjoyment and viewing on this website.
We will be adding more images to the David Jones Collection gallery in due course.
To view the gallery, please click here.
