In the late 19th century and early 20th century the railways reached their pre-grouping zenith. This coincided with the peak of Britain's Empire and the reign of Queen Victoria. Queen Victoria had been an early champion of the railways. On the 13th June 1842 she had become the first reigning British monarch to travel by train when she journeyed from Slough to London Paddington on the Great Western Railway. For her long reign she would become a regular user of the train with her residences at opposite ends of the country ranging from Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, to Balmoral near Aberdeen.

To impress the Queen, the railway companies built lavish Royal Trains for her use. These were luxurious "Palaces on Wheels" and represented the height of achievement and railway engineering for each of the railway companies. In 1897 the Great Western Railway built her a magnificent new Royal Train in celebration of her Diamond Jubilee. On the occasion of her Diamond Jubilee, after the festivities in London, Queen Victoria travelled north in the LNWR Royal Train bound for Balmoral. The railways joined in the celebrations with a unique tribute to Her Majesty. The LNWR abandoned their usual blackberry black livery for the Royal Train locomotive. Instead No 2053 Greater Britain was repainted in glorious Post Office red to work the London Euston to Crewe leg of the royal journey. There the locomotive was replaced by No 2054 Queen Empress which had been decked out in white to speed the royal train northwards through the night. At Carlisle the LNWR handed over to the Caledonian Railway's beautiful blue locomotives for the final leg. Thus completing a patriotic red, white and blue tribute. History does not say whether Queen Victoria ever noticed this unique tribute to her 60 years on the British throne.

By 1914 the rail network covered the whole of Britain and no village was far from a railway station. The railway companies started developing their own locomotive works rather than relying on private locomotive builders such as Robert Stephenson & Company. As a result whole railway towns grew up around these railway works such as Swindon, Crewe, Derby etc. Soon these became engineering centres of excellence for their railway companies. Private locomotive builders continued to flourish as demand outstripped capacity at the railway companies own works. Britain also became the "Railway Workshop of the World" and locomotives were exported to the world including to Africa, India, South America and Asia.

Railways continued to change the lives of the British people. Bank holidays gave the working classes a first glimpse of leisure time. As the British Empire prospered a new middle class developed. Railways offered ever increasing opportunities to travel. Coastal villages developed into prosperous seaside resorts as the railways brought in visitors in their thousands. Thus was born tourism. Football leagues were enabled as railways wer able to take players and their supporters to away matches. Then as the cities expanded, suburbs developed and the commuter was born.

Railways were the common carrier and carried every conceivable type of good. Britain was mother country to a vast Empire on which it was said that "the sun would never set" and had become the "workshop for the world". Without the railways to aid industry, Britain would never have gained the importance it has. Coal continued to be an important driver. Houses were warmed by coal fires, locomotives used coal, and it fuelled the furnaces of industry. The warships of the Royal Navy also used thousands of tons of these "black diamonds" every time they went to sea. But now the railways, the successor to the pioneer waggonways, could carry the coal all the way rather than just from the pits to the nearest river. Indeed the railways laid the foundations for the modern world.

Railway locomotives continued to develop and be improved. In 1908 the Great Western Railway built Britain's first Pacific 4-6-2 steam locomotive, No 111 The Great Bear. However it was not popular and no more were built. This pioneer was later rebuilt as a 4-6-0 Castle class locomotive. It would be another 20 years before the Pacific 4-6-2 became established as the express passenger locomotive on most railways.

Passenger comfort also continued to improve, despite it being a slow and long process. First Class soon had luxurious Pullman palour cars, imported from America, were introduced on Midland Railway trains between London St Pancras and Bradford on the 1st June 1874. Later the first real dining car was put into service in Britain. Called "Prince of Wales", this Pullman car had a fully equipped kitchen and started running from London Kings Cross to Leeds on the Great Northern Railway on the 1st November 1879. Usually only one or two Pullman cars featured in a train, but the London Brighton & South Coast Railway (LBSCR) introduced a train made up entirely of Pullman cars in December 1881. It was also the first train in Britain to be electrically lit throughout. On the 7th March 1892 the Great Western Railway introduced the first all-corridor train with connecting gangways throughout. A sleeping car for First Class passengers only was put into service in 1873.

Britain's first all electric railway was opened by Magnus Volk at Brighton on the 4th August 1883. The Volks Electric Railway (www.volkselectricrailway.co.uk) only ran a short distance along the seafront but gave a convincing demonstration of the potential of electric traction. The first British suburban electrification was between Newcastle and Benton on the North Eastern Railway opened on the 29th March 1904. This was swiftly followed by the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway's Liverpool to Southport line on the 5th April. Today the Liverpool to Southport line is the "Northern Line" as part of the Merseyrail Electrics network.

Soon the railways diversified into other activities such as docks, shipping and hotels. The first railway hotel was opened at London Euston in 1841 and by 1900 most of the main companies had railway hotels in the major cities. The first bookstall on a station was set up by W.H. Smith in 1848. Refreshment Rooms were soon to be found at many railway stations.

In 1895 the East Coast and West Coast rivalry reached a climax in the dramatic "Race to the North" as they competed for traffic to Aberdeen. Then in 1903 there was another rivalry. In those days the only way to get from America to Europe was on board on of the great transatlantic ocean liners. In 1903 some of the German liners began to make Plymouth their first British port of call. The London & South Western Railway (LSWR) and the Great Western Railway (GWR) competed to take the mails and passengers to London. Eventually they reached an agreement that the LSWR would take the passengers, while the GWR would take the mails. However it remained a matter of fierce pride which company got their precious cargo to London first. During April 1904 the LSWR had put up a particularly fast run and so the GWR wanted to go one better. Soon they had the perfect excuse. Steaming majestically into Plymouth Sound came the Kronprinz Wilhelm of Norddeutscher Lloyd. Part of her cargo was gold bullion, a massive shipment from America to France as payment for the recently acquired Panama Canal. This gold bullion was needed in London urgently. This provided the ideal reason for a record breaking run.

On the 9th May 1904 the Ocean Mails pulled out of Plymouth bound for London hauled by No 3440 City of Truro. This would race into history. Charles Rous-Marten, a locomotive expert, was travelling on board with his stopwatch to note speeds and times. The stretch over the South Devon banks was completed in record time. Then beyond Exeter the little engine really blasted up Whiteball and her driver let her speed along descending Wellington Bank. Her speed rose and rose until, to Charles Rous-Marten's excitement, his stopwatch recorded 164.6 kph (102.3 mph). The City of Truro had become the very first steam locomotive to reach the magic "ton" (100 mph). But at that moment Truro's whistle blew as her driver stopped some workmen on the line and her brakes slammed on. What her maximum may have been if there hadn't been this check has long been a matter of speculation to the present day. As a result of this famous run the City of Truro became a railway icon and legend and now is preserved at the National Railway Museum (www.nrm.org.uk).

Sadly the First World War soon broke out in 1914 and the railways were passed into the wartime control of the Railway Executive Committee made up of the general managers of the 10 major railway companies and responsible to the Government. British railway locomotives soon were transported to work abroad for the war effort. The North British Railway had the novel idea of naming its 0-6-0 goods locomotives that returned after war service abroad names associated with the war. One was Maude, named after the famous General Maude. This little 0-6-0 survives today preserved at the Bo'ness & Kinneil Railway (www.srps.org.uk/railway/). It is just one of the surviving reminders of the role the railways played in the First World War.

Eventually in 1918 the First World War ended. Two years after the war the railway and its services had returned to their prewar schedules. However one thing would never be the same again. Working Britain's railways during the war under the command of the Railway Executive Committee had shown how wasteful the old methods of the pre-grouping railways and their competition had been. Now in the postwar period there was new competition to contend with. Heavy lorries had improved dramatically and many were available as army surplus and were acquired by former soldiers to set up haulage businesses.

So it was clear that the railways had to change. Nationalisation of the railways was discussed but with the Russian revolution having occurred only a few years before, the Government shied away from any form of socialism. As a result a compromise was reached and on teh 19th August 1921 an Act of Parliament was passed that decreed that the over 120 pre-grouping railway companies should merge into just four big railway companies. This new arrangement for organising Britain's railways came into force on the 1st January 1923. Thus the Pre-Grouping Railways era ended and the new Big Four era dawned.