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National Rail is a brand name describing the passenger rail service previously provided by British Rail, the now defunct UK state-owned rail operator. The term is usually used to distinguish these services from 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.1 Train operating companies
Passenger trains on the National Rail network are 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
- First ScotRail
- Gatwick Express
- Great North Eastern Railway
- Hull Trains
- Island Line
- Merseyrail
- Midland Mainline
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The Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) provides a common voice for the TOCs and continues to provide some centralised coordination, 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).
