The rise and fall of the state-owned British Rail, from \"the greatest expert on British trains\" Christian Wolmar You think you know British Rail. Stale sandwiches, inefficiency, and violent yellow carriages- we haven't looked kindly on the last of our state-owned organizations to be privatized. But through its 50-year lifetime, British Rail transformed our transport system, and for a time provided one of the fastest regular rail services in the world. Born into postwar austerity, impoverished, and exploited by a hostile press, British Rail became a punchline, dismissed and swept away by Conservative government. Now, Christian Wolmar provides a new perspective on public loss in a time of privatization. British Rail is ripe for a new history.