Red Star Parcels

Red Star Parcels

Founded	April 1963
Defunct	January 1999
Fate	Acquired by Lynx Express
Parent	British Rail

Red Star Parcels was a railway-centric registered courier service owned and operated by British Rail. It used passenger trains for transporting parcels between passenger railway stations throughout the United Kingdom.

Red Star was introduced experimentally on 1 April 1963. The service made use of scheduled trains, and as such, was one of the fastest methods of transporting a package long distances around the country. Senders could dispatch their consignments to selected stations at which the parcels were collected by the recipient. During 1969, the road-based City Link Transport Services Limited was started by British Rail; the two entities closely collaborated to facilitate door-to-door parcel deliveries. Red Star proved to be a profitable concern through to the early 1990s.^[1]

Amid the wider Privatisation of British Rail during the 1990s, politicians sought to sell off Red Star. Multiple efforts were undertaken towards this end, including a heavy restructuring of the business. Failing to agree terms with any of the external bidders, Red Star was instead privatised via a management buyout on 5 September 1995 for a relatively small sum. During January 1999, Red Star was acquired by Lynx Express. On 25 May 2001, Lynx Express decided to shut down all of Red Star's station-based offices and attributed this decision had been taken in response to the substantial disruption across the rail network in the aftermath of the Hatfield rail crash of October 2000. While Red Star has been discontinued, other private companies have since endeavoured to revive activity in the sector.