The railway that British Railways inherited in 1948 had been built by dozens of companies. The Railways Act 1921 grouped most of them into four large concerns from 1923: the Great Western, the London Midland and Scottish, the London and North Eastern, and the Southern. Those four, the Big Four, were themselves made up of older constituents whose engineering, liveries, and route character survived long into British Railways days. This section traces that lineage, from the Big Four down to the pre-Grouping companies whose names still cling to the lines they built.
The Big Four
GWR
Great Western Railway
Became the Western Region. The one company to keep its name through the Grouping.
LMS
London Midland and Scottish
The largest of the four. Became the London Midland Region and part of the Scottish.
Pre-Grouping constituents
Below the Big Four sit the companies grouped into them in 1923. This archive is building a page for each as the research is checked. Published so far:
- London and North Western Railway, the Premier Line, into the LMS.
- Midland Railway, of Derby and the Settle and Carlisle, into the LMS.
- Great Northern Railway, of Kings Cross and Doncaster, into the LNER.
- Caledonian Railway, the largest Scottish company, into the LMS.
Others, including the Great Eastern, Great Central, North Eastern, North British, Lancashire and Yorkshire, Highland, and the Welsh companies absorbed by the Great Western, are in preparation.
- Awdry, C. (1990) Encyclopaedia of British Railway Companies, PSL.
- The constituent societies (LNWR Society, the Great Northern Railway Society, the Caledonian Railway Association, and others) for company-specific detail.