Intercity was a British Rail Sector formed on 4th January 1982 as part of the sectorisation programme. Prior to this the term had been used in a variety of roles to describe express passenger service. The first use of the term was ‘The Inter-City’, a fast train between London Paddington and Wolverhampton on the Western Region of British Railways, introduced in October 1950 and withdrawn in 1965. The British Railway staff magazine described newly introduced Diesel Multiple Units as Inter-City Units in 1957. The term was also used in the Beaching Report of 1963 to describe all of the long distance passenger network for the first time. The use of Inter-City as a brand name began with the introduction of electric services between London Euston and Liverpool/Manchester in 1966. This was accompanied by the introduction of services at regular intervals as well as 80 mph average speeds and sustained 100 mph running. Rather than naming individual trains, as had been done in the past, the whole route was branded ‘Inter-City’ to show that the improvements applied to all trains, not just a select few flagship services. The success of this approach, with a 66% increase in passenger numbers, led the scheme to be extended first to service to Birmingham, and then to the wider network, including sleeper services which were branded as ‘Inter-City Sleeper’. Although the new Inter-City brand was not responsible for the running of trains, which was still in the hands of the five regions of British Railways (London Midland, Eastern, Scottish, Western and Southern) it did create a unified brand for express passenger services across the system. It also provided direction for the development of new equipment. This led to a focus on increasing speeds within the existing infrastructure, rather than building new dedicated high speed routes as had been done in France and Japan, and providing greater passenger comfort across all classes. The product of this was the High Speed Train (HST) which was introduced on Western Region services in 1976. Branded as ‘Inter-City 125’ the new trains showed the new marketing strategy as there was a focus on reduced journey times and increased comfort rather than purely speed for speeds sake. On the 1st of January 1982 the six passenger regions of British Rail (Southern Region of British Railways, Western Region of British Railways, London Midland Region of British Railways, Eastern Region of British Railways (merged with North Eastern in 1967), North Eastern Region of British Railways (merged with Eastern in 1967) and Scottish Region of British Railways) were reorganised into business led-sectors. ‘Sectorisation’ saw BR move from its embedded regional structure into three business-led passenger sectors, Other Provincial Services (later renamed Regional Railways), InterCity and London & South East (later renamed Network SouthEast). InterCity was viewed as a 'commercial railway' and London & South East and Provincial as 'social railways'. The aim of sectorisation was outlined in BR's annual board report of 1979 '... by decentralising BR into clear accountable groups... (we) can create confidence in our stewardships of these national businesses and justify the case for investment'. Sector management placed managerial accountability with one director without the need for hugely significant changes to infrastructure or increased administration costs. The sectors were regarded by the British Rail Board as merely a business and planning unit rather than an operational or administrative one. This meant the regions maintained control over the day to day running of trains were as the sectors created business plans, coordinating the various regions within its area and putting forward plans for large scale investments, such as new stock, refurbishments etc. Intercity (the hyphen being dropped during the mid-1980s) by this time was used on all express services radiating out of London and was split into five routes. The East Coast route ran from London to Leeds, York, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Aberdeen, West Coast ran from London to Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Carlisle, Glasgow and the Highland Sleeper Services. Great Western ran services from London to Bristol, South Wales and Plymouth, Midland ran from London to Derby, Nottingham and Sheffield. Cross Country was the only route not to serve London but rather ran between the North East of England and the South West. The new sector became responsible for 3400 passenger vehicles, 362 locomotives and 5,400 staff headed by Cyril Bleasdale. The new structure allowed for the reallocation of resources that allowed HSTs to be introduced on new routes to improve speed and service quality. A marketing relaunch was also brought about with a new livery consisting of light and dark grey with red and white bands. In 1985 new routes were added to Intercity. These were the London to Norwich services on the Great Eastern Mainline as well as the Gatwick Express from London Victoria. This was part of a government policy that the sector should not receive a subsidy and move towards profitability. To this end many loss making routes were transferred to Provincial and the Tyne-Tees Pullman was reintroduced to boost income. John Prideaux took over as head of Intercity in February 1986 and continued the policy of cutting costs and increasing passenger numbers. This included increasing the number of Pullman services to increase First Class ticket sales. In 1989 this led to a £57 million profit which would rise to £100 million by 1994. The sector also introduced new rolling stock and locomotives on the West Coast Mainline. Also the East Coast Mainline was electrified and new class 91 locomotives and mark 4 carriages were introduced. With Organisation for Quality in 1992 the regions of British Rail were abolished and the sector took over Civil Engineering and the running of trains. This was overseen by John Welsby a former economist for the Department of Transport who had become Chief Executive of BR in 1990. This allowed Intercity to act as its own railway company owning the assets and running services as well as being responsible for a £1 billion turnover and 30,000 staff. This new structure was headed by Chris Green who had come to the post in January 1992. In October 1993 the Gatwick Express services were spilt from the sector to form their own Train Operating Unit (TOUs) in preparation for privatisation. The remaining five routes (Anglia, East Coast, West Coast, Great Western, Midland Cross Country and West Coast) were split to form six TOUs (Anglia which included local services in East Anglia transferred from Regional Railways, East Coast, Great Western, Midland, Cross Country and West Coast). Intercity ceased to operate on 1st April 1994 as did the Intercity brand. The TOUs were directly operated by the British Railways board until they were sold off between 1995 and 1997.