Why do Wikipedia articles refer to UK rolling stock as "British Rail"?

[The DJ]

In all other industries if a large undertaking changes its name, the new name is adopted and the former name consigned to the past never to be heard again. For example "Datsun" transforming into "Nissan" or "Matsu****a" transforming after 70 years into "Panasonic" or "Norwich Union" transforming into "Aviva". Not so with the railways. If you type "National Rail Class 345" into Google BOOM! Up comes an entry for the British Rail Class 345. British Rail was long gone before the Class 345 was even thought of. Seems weird to me.

 

[JonathanH]

In all other industries if a large undertaking changes its name, the new name is adopted and the former name consigned to the past never to be heard again. For example "Datsun" transforming into "Nissan" or "Matsu****a" transforming after 70 years into "Panasonic" or "Norwich Union" transforming into "Aviva". Not so with the railways. If you type "National Rail Class 345" into Google BOOM! Up comes an entry for the British Rail Class 345. British Rail was long gone before the Class 345 was even thought of. Seems weird to me.

What you are describing from your Internet search is just a convention within Wikipedia which is a convenient way of distinguishing a 'British Rail' or UK Class 345 from a 'Class 345' on another network.

 

[Peter C]

In all other industries if a large undertaking changes its name, the new name is adopted and the former name consigned to the past never to be heard again. For example "Datsun" transforming into "Nissan" or "Matsu****a" transforming after 70 years into "Panasonic" or "Norwich Union" transforming into "Aviva". Not so with the railways. If you type "National Rail Class 345" into Google BOOM! Up comes an entry for the British Rail Class 345. British Rail was long gone before the Class 345 was even thought of. Seems weird to me.

What you are describing from your Internet search is just a convention within Wikipedia which is just a convenient way of distinguishing a 'British Rail' or UK Class 345 from a 'Class 345' on another network.

And National Rail don't own or run trains, so calling a train which, apart from the fact that it's on rails, has nothing to do with National Rail, a "National Rail Class xxxx" wouldn't really make sense. In the case of having several trains with the same class numbers, Wikipedia will, as @JonathanH describes, call the British one a "British Rail xxxx" and the others, say a German one, a "DB xxxx" or whatever they use.

-Peter

 

[Philip Phlopp]

In all other industries if a large undertaking changes its name, the new name is adopted and the former name consigned to the past never to be heard again. For example "Datsun" transforming into "Nissan" or "Matsu****a" transforming after 70 years into "Panasonic" or "Norwich Union" transforming into "Aviva". Not so with the railways. If you type "National Rail Class 345" into Google BOOM! Up comes an entry for the British Rail Class 345. British Rail was long gone before the Class 345 was even thought of. Seems weird to me.

It's a Wikipedia thing - TfL doesn't refer to them as "British Rail Class 345" units. There is some seepage from Wikipedia into the industry and you'll find some engineers, designers and the like refer to a specific unit as a "British Rail Class 390" or "British Rail Class 88" in presentations, documents and such, but it's not an official designation and the majority of documents omit British Rail when discussing specific rolling stock classes and sub-classes.

 

[Surreytraveller]

Perhaps the 'Rail' should be a lower case 'r', as its describing a British class of train. The term 'British Rail' probably hung around for so long as a way of describing the British railway network after it was split up into over 100 different organisations, with some of those changing hands quite often, and even the TOCs changing their names every five minutes.
The term 'National Rail' wasn't invented for quite a while after privatisation, and I believe it was first used by London Underground to replace the 'Way Out to British Rail' signage at its stations.
Of course, 'National Rail' is nonsense to people not in Britain, so for a website like Wikipedia it wouldn't make sense to use that term.
Incidentally, the last part of British Rail, British Rail Residual Ltd, was only disbanded relatively recently.
British Rail, when it was privatised, wasn't like those other organisations you mention, that simply changed their names, it was split up into numerous different parts

 

[pdeaves]

It describes the British Rail numbering scheme that is still in use.

Incidentally, although recently introduced, the class 345 was 'thought of' in BR days; the class number was allocated in the early iterations of the Crossrail project when it was a joint Network SouthEast/London Underground project.

 

[yorksrob]

British Rail was quite an established, some might even say iconic presence in British culture for many years. Probably moreso than British Gas, Telecom, Leyland etc. This is probably because trains and stations are much more tangible than utilities (the red telephone box was probably the most iconic thing that British Telecom had, yet that might have been more associated with the old GPO).

 

[whoosh]

Opal fruits will always be Opal fruits.

The railways in Britain will always be British Rail to some - especially as the BR double arrow symbol still lives on.

 

[yorksrob]

Opal fruits will always be Opal fruits.

The railways in Britain will always be British Rail to some - especially as the BR double arrow symbol still lives on.

Marathon bars will always be Marathon bars, Jiff will always be Jiff.......

 

[xotGD]

The British Rail double arrow symbol is still in use right across the country. There's usually a big one right outside the station, it is on your ticket and it is also used on road signs directing you to the station.

As long as a significant proportion of the public wish to refer to the railways of Britain as British Rail, then the name won't go away. Incidentally, what is the current approved term if one wishes to refer to the railways of Britain in their entirety - track, stations, trains, the lot?

Someone will be suggesting next that we shouldn't refer to The Gas Board.

 

[Peter C]

Incidentally, what is the current approved term if one wishes to refer to the railways of Britain in their entirety - track, stations, trains, the lot?

I'd refer to it as either National Rail or "the railway".

-Peter

 

[High Dyke]

It's also the public concept that it has never changed. People still ask me how British Rail is doing? Or, when you point out that we haven't been BR for over twenty years they look surprised.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Marathon bars will always be Marathon bars, Jiff will always be Jiff.......

Jiff was actually Jif. Both the cream cleaner and the lemon juice (in the plastic lemon).

Maybe the reason why British Rail has remained in the public consciousness for so long is that the more recent, "here today, gone tomorrow", TOC names have been so forgettable, e.g. one and c2c.

 

[rebmcr]

In all other industries if a large undertaking changes its name, the new name is adopted and the former name consigned to the past never to be heard again. For example "Datsun" transforming into "Nissan" or "Matsu****a" transforming after 70 years into "Panasonic" or "Norwich Union" transforming into "Aviva". Not so with the railways. If you type "National Rail Class 345" into Google BOOM! Up comes an entry for the British Rail Class 345. British Rail was long gone before the Class 345 was even thought of. Seems weird to me.

Your initial assumption is flawed: large organisations can't completely eliminate old names because they're invariably baked-in to various complex parts of the company.

As an example (but by no means rare), Dixons Stores Group International has not been an operational entity for many years, yet within the industry there are many references to "DSGi", people still refer to DixonsCarphone using that name on a regular basis, and even to this day the computers at head office log on to the "DSG" network.

 

[PeterC]

Someone will be suggesting next that we shouldn't refer to The Gas Board.

I once worked temporarily in a Biritish Gas office in east London. They were still answering the phone as "North Thames Gas" 5 years after after they had become BG.

 

[InOban]

Because lots of people believe that sooner or later we will again have an integrated railway system called British Rail?

 

[swt_passenger]

It's a Wikipedia thing - TfL doesn't refer to them as "British Rail Class 345" units. There is some seepage from Wikipedia into the industry and you'll find some engineers, designers and the like refer to a specific unit as a "British Rail Class 390" or "British Rail Class 88" in presentations, documents and such, but it's not an official designation and the majority of documents omit British Rail when discussing specific rolling stock classes and sub-classes.

Indeed, and this question has had outings as far back as 2009, 2013, and many times since. Bit of a non-story to be honest...

 

[yorksrob]

Jiff was actually Jif. Both the cream cleaner and the lemon juice (in the plastic lemon).

Maybe the reason why British Rail has remained in the public consciousness for so long is that the more recent, "here today, gone tomorrow", TOC names have been so forgettable, e.g. one and c2c.

Oops - you can tell I don't do much cleaning !

 

[bramling]

In all other industries if a large undertaking changes its name, the new name is adopted and the former name consigned to the past never to be heard again. For example "Datsun" transforming into "Nissan" or "Matsu****a" transforming after 70 years into "Panasonic" or "Norwich Union" transforming into "Aviva". Not so with the railways. If you type "National Rail Class 345" into Google BOOM! Up comes an entry for the British Rail Class 345. British Rail was long gone before the Class 345 was even thought of. Seems weird to me.

I wouldn’t say it’s *that* common nowadays. You’d have to be at least early 30s to have any memory of BR at all, so that’s a third of the population out for a start.

Personally I still make a big point of using the term as far as possible, same with London Transport in place of Transport for London, however I increasingly find this leads to strange or blank looks.

It is a little remiss that since privatisation there’s never really been a proper term to refer to U.K. rail services. The TOC names are too transient (some like GNER stuck well, others like ‘one’ came and went). I know there’s “National Rail” but that’s never quite caught on.

As an aside I think the longest serving brand name in constant use I suspect is now Scotrail?

The problem is that British Rail as a brand did the job well, but naturally had to be banished off the face of the earth in 1994, and nothing else has really been found that does the job well enough to replace it. Just one of those unfortunate facts of life.

 

[rebmcr]

As an aside I think the longest serving brand name in constant use I suspect is now Scotrail?

Merseyrail.

Chiltern and Island Line also pre-date Scotrail, I think.

 

[AndyB28]

Many locomotive and unit types are used by more than one TOC and even owned by more than one leasing company. Unless you're familiar with the manufacturer, 'British Rail' is probably the most convenient - and most understood - name to use?

 

[Philip Phlopp]

Many locomotive and unit types are used by more than one TOC and even owned by more than one leasing company. Unless you're familiar with the manufacturer, 'British Rail' is probably the most convenient - and most understood - name to use?

It depends, sometimes referring to classes by their manufacturer - such as Hitachi Class 385 and Siemens Class 380 are more useful than British Rail Class 385 and British Rail Class 380 when undertaking technical discussions.

 

[pdeaves]

Chiltern and Island Line also pre-date Scotrail, I think.

The term 'ScotRail' has been in constant use since at least the 1970s, I think. Chiltern morphed out of Network SouthEast, no? Island Line probably has more challenge on ScotRail than Chiltern does.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

If you google "Italian Rail Pendolino" you get a generic page on the usage of Fiat/Alstom Pendolinos worldwide, including the UK.
In that case the "national" operator (FS/Trenitalia) owns/operates them, and so does the "private" NTL/Italo firm.
The Europe-wide vehicle numbering scheme provides a unified class numbering and identification system, but predictably we don't use it!

Train ownership in the UK is of course by Roscos and banks, or increasingly by the original manufacturer, certainly not by the public sector.

 

[Ken H]

people are slow to change the names they call things. Royal mail thought Consignia was a good name but it never stuck, so they abandoned it.
And i still call 50p pieces 'ten bob bits'

 

[xotGD]

I asked my wife what she would call it and she said 'The Railway Provision'.

Make of that what you will.

 

[Deepgreen]

As long as it doesn't become 'RailUK' this forum will be safe.

 

[Chris217]

Ha ha British Rail.
Operated by many
companies that are not British!
There another subject matter lol.

 

[Dr Hoo]

'ScotRail' was only launched in 1984.

Surely the longest continuous brand name for main line railways in the UK is Northern Ireland Railways - from 1967 I believe?

(Not really a Traction & Rolling Stock issue.)

 

[dk1]

We are British and we dont like change. Long may it continue.