Lister Blackstone was formed through the acquisition of Black-stone & Co by R A Lister & Co (1867), in Stamford who was an agricultural implement manufacturer in 1936. Following the takeover a period of reorganisation of the factory and the production methods occurred as Lister had originally acquired Blackstone in order to gain access to the large engine market. During the Second World War, all production of open crank spring injection engines, small vertical petrol, kerosene and diesel engines and BPV automotive engines were stopped. In particular, the production of EPV engines for base load installations was increased to meet the demand from all three Services and the demand increased for productivity on agricultural implements. Lister Blackstone was run as an independent family business until 1st June 1965 when it was taken over by the Hawker Siddeley Group and merged with Mirrlees National of Stockport four years later. The company name changed to Mirrlees Blackstone Ltd in 1969.

In 1918, two prominent firms R Hornsby & Sons Ltd of Grantham (1828) and Ruston, Proctor & Co Ltd of Lincoln (1889) merged to form Ruston & Hornsby Ltd. The company made a wide range of agricultural machinery and steam, oil and gas engines. The company diversified into excavating machines, cranes, and steam locomotives, but still had substantial agricultural engineering interests in 1918. Ruston largely moved out of the agricultural machinery market in 1919, when it transferred its agricultural interests to have a controlling interest in Ransomes, Sims & Jeffries Ltd. However, it still produced agricultural machinery at its Grantham works and attempted post-war diversification in the form of the motor car, furniture, and petrol-driven tractors. In 1940, Ruston & Hornsby purchased Davey Paxman & Co (Colchester) to form the Ruston – Paxman Group. In 1962 Ruston & Hornsby purchased the Birmingham firm of Alfred Wiseman & Co Ltd., gear specialists and maker of industrial locomotive and marine gear boxes. Some of the Wiseman design and production was transferred to R&H’s Grantham factory. However the Grantham factory was closed shortly afterwards, in 1963. In November 1966, the English Electric Co Ltd acquired Ruston & Hornsby Ltd which formed part of English Electric Diesels Ltd in January 1968 which headed the production of Dorman, Kelvin, Ruston, Paxman, Napier and English Electric diesels.

The Vulcan Foundry was originally opened in 1830 at Newton-le-Willows, as Charles Tayleur and Company. It initially produced girders for bridges, switches and crossings, and other ironwork following the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Robert Stephenson became a partner in 1832, and in the same year, the first locomotives ‘Tayleur’ and ‘Stephenson’ were delivered to the North Union Railway. By 1840 locomotives had been delivered to five European countries and to North America. The company became The Vulcan Foundry Company in 1847 and acquired limited liability in 1864. From the beginning of 1898, the name changed again to The Vulcan Foundry Limited, dropping the word 'company.' Vulcan locomotives were exported all over the world, with the first locomotives for Russia and Japan supplied in 1837 and 1871 respectively and a long association with India began in 1852. First World War production included shells, gun mountings and mine sweeping equipment. The first non-steam locomotive, an electric, was produced for India in 1929. The first diesel locomotive design commenced in 1932/33 and an agreement was reached with A/S Frichs in Denmark. The English Electric 6K engine was used from this time. The “Waltzing Matilda” tank was developed in 1938 and produced in large numbers and over five hundred ‘Austerity’ steam locomotives were produced for the War Department. Other wartime production included gun mountings and torpedo parts. In 1944 Vulcan acquired the locomotive business, Robert Stephenson & Hawthorns Ltd, based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In 1946 the company began working with the English Electric Company producing diesel and electric locomotives and became part of the English Electric Group in 1955. All locomotive building from Preston was transferred to Vulcan Foundry and Robert Stephenson’s in Darlington. Under the new ownership, the works produced many locomotives for both domestic and foreign railways, notably the Deltic. The mid-sixties saw the ‘RK’/’V’ engine production at Preston moved to Vulcan and Ruston & Hornsby Ltd merged with English Electric Diesels in 1966. After the General Electric Company plc (GEC) takeover in 1968 the Ruston name was used for some time inside what became GEC Diesels Ltd in 1975. Engine production and development continued for locomotive, industrial and marine applications until after the GEC-Alsthom merger in 1989. The company took over Mirlees Engines, Stockport in 1997 and was renamed Alstom Engines Ltd.

“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.

Railways in Britain were nationalised under the terms of the Transport Act 1947 which came into effect on 1 January 1948. The Act created the British Transport Commission and the Railway Executive. The Act vested the business and assets of the then existing railway companies in the British Transport Commission. The Railway Executive, a corporate body subordinate to the British Transport Commission, was created to manage and operate the railways. It divided them into six geographical regions, largely based on the areas served by the pre-nationalisation railway companies, one of which was Western Region. It comprised the railway operations in England and Wales of the former Great Western Railway Company with adjustments to eliminate “penetrating lines”. From the former London Midland and Scottish Railway Western Region gained the lines in central and south Wales, the Birmingham-Bristol-Bath line, the Somerset and Dorset Joint line (in part) and from the Southern Railway the lines west of Exeter. It also was assigned Marylebone to Northolt. Sections of the former Great Western Railway lines to Weymouth, the Midland & South West Junction, the Didcot Newbury & Southampton, and Reading – Basingstoke and Westbury – Salisbury were assigned to the new Southern Region. Subsequently Marylebone was transferred out of Western Region. Western Region served the south-west of England, south and central Wales, and the West Midlands. Its principal routes were London Paddington to Bristol, via Reading, Didcot and Swindon, and London Paddington to Birmingham. In Bristol the line divided, one route continuing to the south-west serving Exeter and terminating in Penzance and the other into South Wales, via the Severn Tunnel to Cardiff, Swansea and Milford Haven. There was a more direct route to Exeter through Newbury, Westbury and Taunton. From Didcot a line ran north to Oxford and then divided, the southern route serving Worcester and Wolverhampton, by-passing Birmingham, and the northern route going to Birmingham via Banbury Leamington Spa and Warwick. Western Region also had several cross-country routes including Birmingham to Bristol, and many branch lines, with a dense network serving the valleys of south Wales. Throughout the time Western Region existed, loss-making and underused branch lines were closed, some as early as 1951. Of the cross-country lines, passenger services ceased on the former Midland & South Western Junction in 1961 and freight services were withdrawn between 1964 and 1970. Following the Beeching report in 1962 the Somerset and Dorset line closed in 1966 (with the exception of a short length serving Writhlington colliery in Somerset). The decline of the coal-mining industry in south Wales was followed by closures in the Valleys. Duplicate lines, such as the Honeybourne line from Cheltenham (closed in 1976), were also closed. Between 1948 and 1953 the regional manager was responsible to the Railway Executive for day to day operations in his region. After the Railway Executive was abolished in 1953, he reported to the British Transport Commission. In 1963, the British Transport Commission itself was abolished and replaced by British Railways Board. Between 1963 and 1968 Western Region was a statutory board in accordance with the provisions of the Transport Act 1962, subordinate to and reporting to British Railways Board. It ceased to be a statutory board in 1968, following reorganisation of the railways’ business along functional lines. The name survived until 1992 when the railways were privatised.

The Westinghouse Brake & Saxby Signal Company Ltd of London, Chippenham and Kingswood (Bristol) was renamed for simplification the Westinghouse Brake & Signal Co Ltd in 1935. The company were manufacturers of power and mechanical signalling equipment, compressed air and vacuum brakes, rectifiers and rectification apparatus, power operated tub handling plants for the mining industry, brakes for road transport, and pneumatic control equipment. From the 1950s to the 1970s overseas subsidiaries were created in Australia, South Africa and Australasia. In 1979 the Westinghouse Group was acquired by the Hawker Siddeley group as a wholly owned subsidiary.

The North British Locomotive Co Ltd was formed by the merger the 'big three' Glasgow locomotive builders (Sharp Stewart & Co, Neilson, Reid & Co and Dubs & Co) in 1903 as a result of increased competition both at home and from abroad. The new company claimed to be the largest manufacturers of locomotives anywhere outside America and was prompted by the ever increasing annual production by the Baldwin Locomotive Company in Philadelphia, USA, which had recently made incursions into the domestic UK market and in India, which the British locomotive industry had considered to be its own special preserve. It was believed that the rivalries and competition between the three companies operating individually within Glasgow had already produced significant technological advances which, in the new North British Locomotive Company would combine to make a single powerful and well equipped company, ready to dominate the market and take on competition, particularly from America. The new company never managed to operate at its capacity of 700 locomotives per year, producing a maximum of 573 in 1905. These numbers were maintained through to 1909 when production numbers began to fall rapidly. During the First World War North British Locomotive Company made locomotives for the War Department, as well as munitions and other military equipment, which were produced in vast quantities to meet the high demand. However, between the two World Wars, while orders were still being received, particularly from domestic railway companies, the fluctuation of demand meant that the company ran into some difficulty. As a result, employee numbers were significantly reduced, and manufacturing was concentrated at Queens Park and Hyde Park works. The last locomotive orders were completed at the Atlas Works in 1923. The Great Depression from 1929 saw the decline in demand for locomotives worldwide, with none built at all in 1932, and by the end of the 1930s, locomotive production at the North British Locomotive Company was operating at a loss. At the outbreak of the Second World War the company concentrated once more on war work, supplying both locomotives for the Ministry of Supply and munitions for the war effort. After World War II there was something of a revival in locomotive manufacturing, with orders being received and agreements being reached to build diesel & electric locomotives with the General Electric Company. This upturn in fortune was not to last however, as the North British Locomotive Company failed to make the successful transition from steam to diesel locomotive production. In 1957, the last order for steam locomotives was placed with the company and the last steam locomotive was completed in 1958. Although the company were making small industrial diesel locomotives, and received some early main line diesel orders from British Railways, the orders were never big enough to maintain the company. Other locomotive manufacturers, who had acted swiftly in transferring from steam to diesel and electric production, were becoming more successful. The company went into liquidation on 19 April 1962 with Messers Andrew Barclay Sons & Co (Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, Scotland) acquiring the North British Locomotive Company's goodwill.

General Electric Company, USA (GE), was incorporated on 15 April 1892 as a result of a merger between competing companies Edison General Electric and the Thomson-Houston Company, based in Schenectady, New York. In 1896 GE established a subsidiary company called British Thomson-Houston (BTH) for the exploitation of its products in the United Kingdom. In the railway field GE produced electric propulsion equipment, electric locomotives and diesel-electric locomotives from the 1930s and also supplied electrical equipment for PCC streetcars. In 1989 GE agreed to combine its European business interests in appliances, medical systems, electrical distribution, and power systems with the formerly unrelated British corporation General Electric Company. GE’s business groups in the early 21st century were in the areas of commercial finance; consumer finance; infrastructure (including diesel locomotives, jet engines, water treatment systems, and energy delivery systems such as power grids); consumer and industrial technologies (including appliances and lighting products); health care (including diagnostic and imaging products); and media and entertainment through NBC Universal. In 2009 it was announced that GE had agreed to sell a majority stake in NBC Universal to Comcast. In June 2014 GE bought Alstom’s Power and Grid businesses.