British Rail was the brand image of the nationalised railway owner and operator in Great Britain, the British Railways Board, used from 1965 until its breakup and sell-off from 1993 onwards.
From an initial standardised corporate image, several sub-brands emerged for marketing purposes and later in preparation for privatisation. These brands covered rail networks, customers services and several classes of new trains.
With the size of British Rail's fleet, due to the time required to repaint rolling stock, brand switchovers could be lengthy affairs, often lasting years. This worsened into privatisation, with the same services using trains using three or four different liveries.
Following privatisation, most of the brand names disappeared, although some such as ScotRail, Merseyrail, Eurostar and Freightliner still exist today.
The double-arrow symbol, which was the symbol of British Rail from 1965, still remains after privatisation as a unifying branding device used by the privatised National Rail network. It is shown on most tickets, stations, timetables, publicity and road signs indicating stations, but not trains. It is, however, set to be used more generally once again by Great British Railways.
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