National Rail
National Rail is a brand name describing the passenger rail service previously provided by British Rail, the now defunct [[United Kingdom|UK] state-owned rail operator. The term is usually used to distinguish these services from other other rail passenger services in the UK that do not have an ex-British Rail background. This distinction is important because the National Rail services share a common ticketing structure and ticket inter-availability that does not necessarily extend to other services.
Train Operating Companies
Passenger trains on the National Rail network as operated by one of 25 privately owned Train Operating Companies (TOCs). These are:
- Arriva Trains Northern
- Arriva Trains Wales
- c2c
- Central Trains
- Chiltern Railways
- First Great Western
- First Great Western Link
- First North Western
- Gatwick Express
- Great North Eastern Railway
- Hull Trains
- Island Line
- Merseyrail
- Midland Mainline
- One
- ScotRail
- Silverlink
- Southern
- South Eastern Trains
- South West Trains
- Thameslink
- TransPennine Express
- Virgin Trains
- WAGN
- Wessex Trains
The Association of Train Operating Companies provides a common voice for the TOCs and continues to provide some centralised co-ordination, for example the provision of a national timetable and journey planner. National Rail continues to use BR's old double-arrow logo.
All National Rail services operate over infrastructure and track owned by Network Rail (the company which replaced the bankrupt Railtrack).