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 Rail Express Systems livery as carried by 90016 at London Liverpool Street in March 2004 | |
| Company type | State owned |
|---|---|
| Industry | Package & mail transport |
| Predecessor | Parcels sector |
| Founded | 1982 |
| Defunct | 1996 |
| Fate | Integrated into English Welsh & Scottish (EWS) |
| Successor | English, Welsh & Scottish |
Area served | United Kingdom |
| Services | Mail & package delivery, charter trains |
| Parent | British Rail |
Rail Express Systems (RES) was a sector of British Rail. This sector was responsible for transport of mail and parcels, including the travelling post office trains, as well as taking over charter operations from InterCity and haulage of the Royal Train.
RES had been created out of a policy of Sectorisation, its functions previously being undertaken as an integral element of British Rail in the 1980s. Initially known simply as the Parcels Sector, it was decided to re-brand it as Rail Express Systems during late 1991. The entity's management team sought to improve the economics of its operations and to better satisfy its customer's needs, the principal one being the Royal Mail. Thus, various initiatives were undertaken, including the procurement of new rolling stock in the form of 16 four-car British Rail Class 325, a series of electric multiple units built exclusively for moving mail.
During the mid-1990s, RES implemented a £150 million strategy that focused on long-distance services that worked in conjunction with a central hub based in London at its heart, known as Railnet. As a consequence, many stations had their mail services permanently withdrawn as they were redirected to a series of hubs across the country; the final mail train services departed King's Cross, Euston, Liverpool Street and Paddington stations on 27 September 1996. As a result of the privatisation of British Rail during the mid-1990s, RES was put up for sale to the private sector. Following a competitive bidding process, the entity was purchased entirely by the recently created railway freight operator English Welsh & Scottish (EWS); shortly thereafter, RES was integrated into the firm and ceased to exist as an independent operation. A few years later, railway-based mail operations ended entirely in Britain due to the increasingly poor economics involved.
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