In 1988 a joint-venture was formed between the General Electric Company (GEC) with Compagnie Générale d’Electricité (CGE) that led to the establishment of an Anglo-French company, GEC Alsthom in 1989. This company encompassed the Power Generation and Transmission, Rail Transport (25%) businesses from the constituent companies of GEC and CGE. The GEC Alsthom company headquarters were based at Rugby, Warwickshire and the headquarters for Transport were based at Trafford Park in Manchester. GEC Alsthom purchased train builder Metro-Cammell based at Washwood Heath, Birmingham from the Laird Group in 1989, bringing into the group a company which had a long association with GEC Traction and its predecessors as a vehicle builder. In 1998 GEC Alsthom was re-formed and became Alstom with Transport / Alstom Transport one of its major divisions.

“British Railways” is the expression commonly used to describe the business run by the following legal entities: • Railway Executive (1948 – 1952) • British Transport Commission (1952 – 1963) • British Railways Board (1963 – 1993) Railways were nationalised on 1st January 1948 when the assets of the railways in Great Britain were vested in the British Transport Commission (BTC), a state-owned corporation created by the Transport Act 1947. Between 1948 and 1952 the business of operating the railways was carried on by the Railway Executive, a state-owned corporation, subsidiary to BTC. The Railway Executive was abolished in 1952 and BTC took over direct responsibility for the railways. Before 1948 there was no brand that was identified with the whole of the railways of Great Britain, only the separate brands of the Group companies, Southern, Great Western, London, Midland and Scottish and London and North Eastern, and London Transport. The railways were run under the corporate identity “British Railways” from 1948 by both the Railway Executive and BTC. The public manifestations of this were the words themselves on vehicles and premises, quasi-heraldic devices on locomotives (the so-called “cycling lion” followed by the “ferret and dartboard”) and the lozenge shape adopted (and clearly inspired by London Transport’s very similar logo) for station names. When the nationalised transport industry was reorganised in 1963, BTC was itself abolished and a new statutory corporation created to run the railways. This was British Railways Board (BRB). The name most closely associated with the national railway system had now become part of the name of the corporate entity, (i.e. the legal person, entitled as a matter of law to own property, to enter into contracts, and to sue (or be sued) in the courts and be prosecuted for breaches of the criminal law) which owned the assets and business of the railways of Great Britain. As a result of the corporate rebranding carried out in 1965 the business name, or brand name (as it was now expressly recognised to be), was shortened to “British Rail”. However, BRB retained the full “British Railways” in its title until its eventual abolition under the provisions of the Transport Act 2000.

Richard Bevan is a railway engineering consultant born on 13 March 1953 at Leigh, Lancashire. He was educated at Redruth Grammar School and then studied Physics with Electronics at Manchester University. After graduating in 1974 he worked at UMIST in the Control System Centre designing digital and analogue models for use in teaching post-graduate students the principles of advanced control techniques. In 1978 he moved to GEC Traction at Trafford Park to initiate the design of microprocessor electronic systems. The first application of a microprocessor by GEC was used to replace the conventional relay and contactor logic on two Class 6E1 locomotives for South African Railways (SAR). With the success of these locomotives, he directed a team of engineers in the design of a standard range of microprocessor control electronics for both ac and dc traction systems. These included the Class 90 and 91 locomotives and Class 319 multiple units for British rail, and the Class 10E1 locomotives for SAR. As a consequence of these contracts, GEC Traction was conferred with the Queen's Award for Technological Achievement in the field of electronic railway propulsion equipment in 1989. After the merger of GEC and Alsthom to form GEC Alsthom, he became Assistant Chief Engineer for the Systems Engineering Department in 1990 and embarked on the design of a train control and monitoring system (TCMS) for the 4000 series metro trains for Seoul. In 1995, after becoming the Design Cell Manager for the electronics production area in Trafford Park, he moved to Preston to join the standardisation team to aid production of the latest ac drive traction systems being supplied from the UK. In 1997 he moved into the tender engineering section, being responsible initially for the preliminary design on bidding projects in the USA and then the Far East. This enabled the first of many metro vehicle contracts for the French-Anglo company in China. Another notable success was the design for Melbourne Metro in Australia, which has resulted in many repeat orders. With a further change of company name to Alstom and the moving of the metro business to Belgium, Richard moved to Interfleet Technology in Derby as a Principal Engineer, and is currently working on various projects in the UK and abroad, including some for Alstom. He is still regularly contacted for advice relating to past projects at Alstom.