National Rail - Other Passenger Rail Operators in Great Britain

Other Passenger Rail Operators in Great Britain

Several conurbations have their own metro or tram systems, most of which are not part of National Rail. These include the London Underground, Docklands Light Railway, Blackpool Tramway, London Tramlink, Glasgow Subway, Tyne and Wear Metro, Manchester Metrolink, Sheffield Supertram, Midland Metro and Nottingham Express Transit. On the other hand, the largely self-contained Merseyrail system is part of the National Rail network, and urban rail networks around Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow and West Yorkshire consist entirely of National Rail services.

London Overground (LO) is a hybrid: its services are operated via a concession awarded by Transport for London, and are branded accordingly, but until 2010 all its routes used infrastructure owned by Network Rail. LO now also possesses some infrastructure in its own right, following the reopening of the former East London line of London Underground as the East London Railway of LO. Since all the previous LO routes were operated by National Rail franchise Silverlink until November 2007, they have continued to be shown in the National Rail timetable and are still considered to be a part of National Rail.

Heathrow Express and Eurostar are also not part of the National Rail network despite sharing of stations and routes (Heathrow Express and Heathrow Connect only). Northern Ireland Railways was never part of British Rail, which was always confined to Great Britain, and therefore is not part of the National Rail network.

There are many privately owned or heritage railways in Great Britain, listed in the list of British heritage and private railways, which are not part of the National Rail network and mostly operate for heritage or pleasure purposes rather than as public transport.