United Kingdom

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Nuclear Power

Britain was a pioneer in the development of nuclear power plants (see Nuclear Energy), opening the world’s first commercial-scale power station in northwestern England in 1956. By 2003 nuclear power provided 23 percent of the electricity produced in Britain. Modern nuclear power stations built after 1975 were privatized in 1996, while the government maintained ownership of six older power plants built between the 1950s and the 1970s because they were nearing the end of their useful life. Decommissioning nuclear power stations when they cease being productive has proven costly, and radioactive waste has been the most serious contributor to pollution since the 1940s.

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Transportation

Britain has historically been an innovator and world leader in many forms of transportation, from shipping to rail systems to aviation.

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Shipping

Because Britain is an island, shipping has been important for centuries. The irregular coastlines of the British Isles provide many natural harbors, and Britain’s gentle, navigable rivers have always been conducive to shipping. Seafaring skills were directly connected to Britain’s growth as a naval power. As early as the 16th century Britain defeated Spain, its greatest rival at sea. In the 17th and 18th centuries France was defeated, then Germany in the early 20th century. Prior to World War II, Britain had the largest merchant fleet in the world, a fleet that sailed throughout the vast British Empire and was protected by the Royal Navy. Britain continued to be the world leader in shipping until World War II, when submarine attacks by Germany sank many British vessels and the tremendous output of the American shipbuilding industry made the United States the world leader.

Today many British shipping firms operate under foreign flags to avoid the more stringent British shipping regulations, including higher wages for crews. Most British passenger shipping involves ferry trips to the continent of Europe or to Ireland. Tankers carrying oil and dry bulk cargo make up the majority of oceanic shipping. British ports were nationalized in the late 1940s, and in recent years most have moved into the private sector or are governed by independent trusts. The most important port in the United Kingdom is London; other important commercial ports are at Forth in Scotland, Grimsby and Immingham in eastern England, Liverpool in western England, and Southampton and Dover in southern England.

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Canals

Canals were built in Britain to link rivers, and most of Britain’s canals were built as part of the transportation revolution that took place between 1750 and 1840. Canals were built by gangs of laborers known as navigators, a name that came from their task of creating channels of inland navigation. This term was soon shortened to “navvies.” The canals were important during the Industrial Revolution for transporting goods, but by the 1830s they had to compete with the new railways, which quickly surpassed them. Thereafter, canals were used to carry extremely bulky materials.

Today Britain has about 3,200 km (about 2,000 mi) of canals and navigable rivers, of which about 620 km (about 390 mi) are commercial waterways. The most important of these are the Manchester Ship Canal, which is the largest canal in Britain; the Thames; and the Caledonian Canal across northern Scotland, which provides a navigable waterway linking the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The rest of the rivers and canals are used for recreation and form part of Britain’s historical heritage.

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Railways

The Victorian era was also known as the Railway Age. The railroad can be considered the child of the British coal mines because carts on tracks were used to haul coal. These precursors of the railroad were then combined with steam engines, which led to further technological innovations. An added advantage in the development of railroads in Britain was that the most populated parts of the country, where this mode of transportation was needed, were relatively flat.

The world’s first public railway was the Stockton and Darlington, which opened in 1825. A period of hectic railway building followed for the next quarter century as different companies competed to lay track. It was a massive undertaking that employed vast armies of laborers and altered the British landscape by digging through hills and constructing bridges and tunnels. In a short time the basic grid of Britain’s railways was in place.

Over the ensuing century smaller railway companies were absorbed or merged into a few large companies. In 1948 the government nationalized the four remaining companies, and in the 1960s they became the British Railways Board. In 1955 a modernization program began to replace steam trains with diesel and electric ones. The last steam locomotive was withdrawn in 1968. Around this time intense competition from road transport made it necessary to cut costs, and many unprofitable branch railway lines closed.

Railroads were part of the wave of privatization that took place in the early 1990s. The complicated procedure was based on the Railway Act of 1993. The infrastructure, including tracks and train operations, was put into the hands of Railtrack, a government-owned company that was privatized by selling stock to private investors. Passenger operations were split into 25 operating units, each franchised to a private firm given the right to provide passenger service to a particular region of Britain. In 1995 freight operations in Britain were divided among private companies based in different parts of the country. The government appoints a rail regulator and a franchising director to ensure that rail arrangements are fair to companies and passengers. The moves to fully privatize BR were highly contentious and generated considerable criticism within Britain.

The fractured nature of rail organization was forcefully brought home in the late 1990s and early 2000s with a series of high-profile rail accidents. The accidents were blamed in part on the separation of ownership of rail and rolling stock and on the needs of privatized companies to provide shareholder income at the perceived expense of passenger safety. After a crash in 2000 in Hertfordshire caused by faulty rails, the entire railway network was examined and track replaced, leading to severe delays to rail journeys for months. Railtrack was replaced in 2003 by Network Rail, a not-for-profit company.

A railway tunnel beneath the English Channel was completed in 1993, connecting England and the European continent. The main Channel Tunnel, which is 50.4 km (32 mi) long, runs from Folkestone, England, to Calais, France. Trains carry both passengers and freight through the tunnel. Motorists can drive their cars on and off the train. The trip through the tunnel takes about 35 minutes.