The British Railways Board was an independent statutory corporation responsible for running the British railway network from 1963. It was established by the Transport Act 1962, which abolished the British Transport Commission and divided its undertakings between five newly-created bodies: the British Railways Board, the British Waterways Board, the British Transport Docks Board, the London Transport Board, and a Transport Holding Company. The British Railways Board was responsible for running the railway network, as well as managing government-owned railway hotels. Members of the British Railways Board were also appointed by the Minister for Transport. The first Chair of the British Railways Board was Dr Richard Beeching. The British Railways Board operated through regional boards, which were responsible for regional sections of the railway network. These regions were Southern, Western, London Midland, London and North Eastern, Eastern, and Scottish. Members of these regional boards were appointed by the British Railways Board, in consultation with the Minister for Transport. The British Railways Board also operated a series of committees to manage every aspect of railway control, including committees for finance, technical, works and property. These committees were frequently reorganised throughout the life of the British Railways Board, under both different Chairs of the Board and different governments. Several changes occurred during the 1960s. The Board had two new Chairs; Stanley Raymond, who replaced Richard Beeching in 1965, and his successor Henry Johnson, who became Chair in 1967. In 1968, the Transport Act transferred the control of the Sundries and Freightliner divisions from the British Railways Board to National Carriers Ltd and Freightliners Ltd. The Board retained a forty-nine per cent stake in Freightliners Ltd. During the 1970s, the British Railways Board created several subsidiary companies which were to manage some of its undertakings. These included British Transport Hotels Ltd, British Rail Engineering Ltd, and British Rail Hovercraft Ltd. Many of these subsidiary companies were sold under the Conservative governments of the 1980s. There were also two new Chairs during this time. Richard Marsh replaced Henry Johnson in 1971, and Peter Parker became chair in 1976. The privatisation of the British rail network during the 1990s radically changed the role of the British Railways Board. The Transport Act 1993 established Railtrack, a publicly-owned company. The Act transferred the ownership of track and railway infrastructure from the British Railways Board to Railtrack, in addition to the control of signals. Railtrack also replaced the British Railways Board as the body responsible for track investment and maintenance. The British Railways Board remained in existence after these changes, but only performed residual functions relating to pensions, liabilities, and non-operational railway land. The Board also continued to operate the British Transport Police service. The British Railways Board was abolished by the Transport Act 2000, which transferred the remaining functions of the Board to the newly-created Strategic Rail Authority.

A site on the east side of Strand Road had been intermittently used for railway work since the 1840’s. In 1898 the Electric Railway and Tramway Carriage Works Ltd (ER&TCW) took over the site. This company had strong links with Dick Kerr & Co. The building of Preston Dock in the 1880’s had involved the diversion of the river Ribble and associates of Dick Kerr & Co built the factory building which still stands on the west side of Strand Road in 1900. This site occupies the space between the road and the original river bank. The two sites became a major centre of tram building and electrical equipment manufacture. Dick Kerr & Co took over the West works in 1903 and ER&TCW became the United Electric Car Company in 1905. A major early railway contract was for the electrification of the Liverpool Southport line of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway in 1904. The two factories continued in close association until they merged into English Electric in 1918. Military equipment and Seaplanes were built during the First World War and the Dick Kerr & Co Work’s Ladies became a famous football team at that time. Non railway electrical work was gradually transferred to other English Electric factories in the 1920’s. Besides continuing tramway business, major orders for Japan and France helped to establish electric traction industries in those countries, the Tarbes factory continues as a main unit in the Alstom group. A complete electrification scheme was supplied for the Arthur’s Pass line in New Zealand. 1930 saw the transfer of the traction electrical work to Phoenix, Bradford and the closure of West works until the late 30’s. East works continued making buses and trams including a large order for Blackpool. Early diesel electrics became a speciality and shunter contracts with the Willans built 6K engine for the LMS and others were very successful and formed the basis of large orders after the Second World War. In the late 30’s East works open yards and some surrounding properties were built over to form a large aircraft manufacturing site and with West works produced over 3000 Handley Page bombers during the war and just post war, DeHavilland ‘Vampire’ jet fighters. After the war most traction electrical equipment manufacture (but not the offices) was moved from Bradford to East works and ‘K’, ‘RK’ and ‘V’ engine manufacture moved from Willans, Rugby to the West works which also took on diesel and electric locomotive manufacture. Aircraft manufacture continued in both works with large orders for Canberra bombers and Lightning fighters. Final assembly was at Salmesbury and Warton aerodromes. Some locomotive manufacture was subcontracted to Vulcan from the late forties. Notable orders included large Electric locomotives for Spain and the ‘5E’ for South Africa. This locomotive was the basis of subsequent large orders for ‘5E1’ and ‘6E’ equipments produced by or in conjunction with AEI and GEC Traction. The prototype ‘Deltic’ was produced before the takeover of Vulcan and Robert Stephensons in 1955, when all locomotive production was quickly moved to those sites. Most of the diesel engines for the large number of locomotives supplied under the British Rail modernisation plan were made in West works. Aircraft production continued in both works until the formation of the British Aircraft Corporation in the mid-sixties. East works was transferred to BAC and diesel engines moved to Vulcan. The full range of traction equipment manufacture then took over West works and the offices moved in from Bradford in 1967. BAC closed East works in the early nineties and the factory was demolished. Four years after the merger with GEC in 1968 the former English Electric and AEI traction offices were reorganised with commercial and control gear at Trafford Park and machines at Preston. Production locations remained unaltered until the closure of Attercliffe, Sheffield in 1985. Semi-conductor technology gradually changed the product range in the 1980’s with GTO’s and IGBT’s enabling ac induction motors to take over from dc in the 90’s. Over 5000 EE507 dc motors were made for BR Southern region over a period of nearly 50 years. After the merger with Alsthom in 1989 the Trafford Park operation was gradually closed down and all offices and production were moved to Preston in the mid-nineties. Some buildings were demolished and others refurbished. Major orders for ac motor equipments included BR classes 465 and 365, ‘Eurostar’ motors and ‘common’ blocks, Korea, London Underground ‘Jubilee’ and ‘Northern’ lines and Virgin ’Pendolino’ and ‘Voyager’ trains. Most of the motors for these last two were made at Ornans, France after the closure of new motor manufacture in 1999. After 2003 only a small design and drawing facility remained, concentrating on repairs and modifications to existing rolling stock The site remains open as part of Alstom Transport’s Train Life Service business for the manufacture, repair and overhaul of traction control equipment and rotating machines, and as a spare parts distribution centre. BAE systems have occupied some offices on the site since 2006 as tenants of Alstom. Today, the factory is still operating on a reduced scale, only employing about 200.

The Phoenix Works in Bradford were owned Phoenix Dynamo Manufacturing Company of Hubert Street, Leeds Road in 1895 manufacturing arc lamps and electrical instruments. By 1900 the company works were manufacturing small motors and dynamos for driving machinery and providing lighting specifically for the textile industry. Large motors, turbines, turbo-generators etc. were manufactured for orders from the Admiralty and War Office. During the First World War, the works produced millions of shells, a large quantity of machine tools, sea planes and flying boats. In 1918 these works became the English Electric center for small to medium sized industrial AC and DC motors and generators including fractional horsepower machines and also eventually a specialised unit manufacturing generators and motors for aircraft applications. In 1930, the Dick, Kerr West Works at Preston closed and Traction electrical design and manufacture transferred to Bradford. Some key staff left and joined Crompton Parkinson. Important traction work included motors and generators for early diesel electric applications and continued manufacture of Metrovick designed motors for the Southern Railway. After the Second World War, most of the traction manufacturing transferred to the Preston East works factory but the design and commercial offices remained at Bradford until 1967. Some traction and associated military manufacturing work continued including conventional submarine control gear and pulse generators for mine sweepers. The Aircraft Equipment Division merged with Lucas Aerospace and left Bradford in the 1970’s and industrial machine manufacture ceased in the 90’s with complete closure in 1999. A B&Q store occupies the former Traction part of the site. An office block built in the 1950’s is all that remains of the factory.

GEC Traction (GECT) was formed in 1972 as part of the GEC Power Engineering Group following earlier amalgamations of the traction divisions of the General Electric Company (GEC), the English Electric Company (EE) and Associated Electrical Industries (AEI). A wholly owned subsidiary company of GEC, the company had offices and works, located at Trafford Park in Manchester, at Strand Road in Preston, and at Attercliffe Common, Sheffield. The headquarters of GEC Traction was Trafford Park, Manchester (previously the headquarters of English Electric-AEI Traction) with design of rotating machines at Preston and Sheffield, and manufacturing activities for control equipment at Manchester and Preston. GEC Traction designed and manufactured a full range of traction machines and control equipment for electric vehicles, including electric locomotives and multiple unit trains for main-line and mass-transit railway systems (dc up to 3,000 volts, and ac up to 50,000 volts), diesel-electric locomotives and trains, mining and industrial locomotives, tramcars and trolleybuses. GEC Traction was the leading supplier of traction equipment in the UK and had a wide market around the world, particularly in South Africa, Australasia, Hong Kong, South Korea, South America and Pakistan. In 1979 the Industrial Locomotive Division of the former English Electric which was based at Vulcan Works, Newton-le-Willows was merged into GEC Traction, which later became a separate company, GEC Industrial Locomotives Ltd. During the late 1980s and 1990s the firm underwent major rationalisation, involving closure of several sites including Attercliffe Common in Sheffield in 1985 and the company’s headquarters at Trafford Park in Manchester in 1998. The company name GEC Traction endured until a merger with the French Alsthom group in 1989, which created GEC Alsthom Traction, which was still a branch of the main company GEC Alsthom.