Brochure Timetables | Motorail Brochure | 'Motorail' 1972 - Home Page | Railway index page
'Motorail', as operated by British Railways, involved the railways providing a service to those travelling long distances by road, transporting car + passengers, between more or less accessible railheads, in a country whose road system was less developed than today's.
In the early nineteen seventies, the 'Motorail' network was expanding services between a wide variety of destinations, introduced for that year was an overnight service between Dover and Stirling: something that must have brought considerable pleasure to the Scottish Tourist Board of the time. Also new were Kensington to Carlisle, Kensington to Carmarthen, Newton Le Willows to Perth and Inverness, Newton Le Willows to St Austell and Birmingham (Sutton Coldfield) to Inverness.
In 2003, there's a single survivor of the 'Motorail' network - a once a week, summer-only service between London Paddington and Penzance, operated by First Great Western. There's also a newcomer to the Motorail network, as the Channel Tunnel now carries all manner of vehicles by rail between Calais and Folkestone - something which leads visitors to Scotland from the rest of Europe to enquire after the Dover to Stirling Motorail ... which ceased running in the early eighties, some ten years before the opening of the Channel Tunnel. Motorail services in Mainland Europe have fared rather better, partly because motorways there tend to be toll roads.
This site gives a snapshot of 'Motorail' services as they were in 1972 - the source being a leaflet on the services from that year. The site provides scanned images of all pages from this leaflet, hence this resource tramples on the delicate issue of copyright ...
Despite the greater comfort and reliability of todays cars, there are times when road conditions lead the current day driver to reflect on the congestion-beating qualities of 'Motorail' services.
| Top | To Railways Index Page |