SAFEGUARDING BRITAIN’S UNIQUE RAILWAY HERITAGE

NO COUNTRY in the world has a richer railway heritage than Britain. As the birthplace of the technology that provided the catalyst for the Industrial Revolution in the 19 century, we are blessed with some of the most important industrial and commercial sites of the last 200 years.

While some are no longer used by the railway, much of that Victorian infrastructure is still in daily use, handling passenger numbers, speeds and train weights that would have been unthinkable to their builders.

Network Rail and the train operating companies are the custodians of that historic estate, inherited from British Rail in the mid-1990s. Overseeing their activities and playing a key role in the conservation and restoration of historic railway assets is the Railway Heritage Trust (RHT).

Mission

With Privatisation on the distant horizon, BR set up the trust asan independent not-for-profit company in 1985. Its mission was, and indeed is, “to assist the operational railway in its preservation and upkeep of listed buildings and