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Inter-city rail in the United Kingdom
  Great Britain has numerous intercity services traversing the country, however, unlike in other countries, these are not clearly defined. Most of these trains are high speed, and some operate into France, Belgium and the Netherlands.  HistoryIn 1830, the first intercity railway in the world was built between the cities of Liverpool and Manchester in northwest England for the purpose of transporting both passengers and goods.[4] A railway mania ensued, with intercity railways springing up across the country. The UK's main intercity routes, the West Coast Main Line from London to Glasgow opened in 1849, and the East Coast Main Line from London to Edinburgh opened in 1860.[5] Before the Grouping in 1923, most services were operated by joint stock as various rail companies owned separate sections of track that intercity services operated over. Following the Grouping, intercity services were amalgamated with local services under the "Big Four", the London and North Eastern Railway, the Great Western Railway, the London Midland and Scottish Railway and the Southern Railway. Named trains became increasingly prominent during this period, as did the luxury of such services. These luxurious services included the Flying Scotsman on the east coast, the Royal Scot on the west and the Cornish Riviera Express in the south west. In 1948 the Big Four were nationalised to form British Railways. However, after the demise of steam in 1968 the number of luxury services and named services declined. In 1966 the brand name Inter-city was introduced by British Rail. The hyphen was later dropped.[6] InterCity ran trains from London to South West England, Wales, the West Midlands, the East Midlands, North West England, Yorkshire and the Humber, North East England, Scotland and East of England. There were also numerous cross-country services, which were inter-city services that traversed several regions and usually avoided Greater London. Intercity was broken into varying franchises during the privatisation of British Rail. TodaySince privatisation, the boundary between inter-city and regional express has become increasingly blurred. Many services once considered regional express are now operated and marketed as intercity, examples include Transpennine Express and ScotRail. There are also numerous companies which operate a mixture of inter-city, regional express and local services. The UK's longest direct rail service is operated by CrossCountry from Aberdeen to Penzance, and takes 13 hours 23 minutes to complete. Inter-city trains from London operate out of the following London terminals:
The following train operating companies operate inter-city trains in Great Britain (operators marked with an asterisk are open-access operators and only inter-city routes listed):
In Northern Ireland, there are inter-city services between it and the Republic of Ireland known as Enterprise. See alsoReferences
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