This thesis presents a novel approach for locating rail infrastructure to a precision required for effective asset management. A new or improved survey system was required which was rapidly mobilised and non-disruptive to normal rail operations. To aid the designing of a new system research was carried out into contemporary surveying techniques, which were then assessed against key design criteria.

Of the many fears of early railway travellers, speed and a journey through a dark tunnel were among the greatest. This thesis looks at railway tunnels and their place in the minds of travellers, landowners, engineers and navvies, writers, journalists and artists, during the pioneering days of railway development up to 1870. Although tunnels and tunnelling occupy an important place in engineering literature they have been neglected by social historians. The intention of this thesis is to demonstrate that tunnels are worthy of as much attention as any other railway structures such as stations, which have been the subject of railway literature in recent years. Chapter 1 is a review of recent railway literature in which the railway tunnel has been introduced as a secondary topic. Chapter 2 discusses the problems involved in early tunnelling and uses Brunel's Box tunnel as a case study. Chapter 3 discusses the relationship between railway companies, landowners and Parliament. Lord Lichfield and the Trent Valley Railway at Shugborough Hall are used as a case study Chapter 4 discusses tunnels in early railway guide books and literature. it also examines their depiction in railway prints, as an architectural feature in their own right or set into a wider landscape with its own message for the viewer. Particular reference is made to the pictures by J.C.Bourne for his volume on the London & Birmingham and Great Western railways. Chapter 5 looks at the fear of tunnels as promoted by the anti-railway lobby. The chapter suggests that such fears were unjustified in view of the few deaths and injuries actually occurring in a tunnel. Chapter 6 looks at the variety of designs for tunnel portals. This thesis examines designs by Brunel, Stephenson, and others, which are truly masterpieces of the railway Age.

Between 1982 and 1984 six new stations were opened on passenger railways in West Yorkshire whilst additional sites were being considered. The aim of this thesis is to assess and evaluate demand at the six existing and up to 28 potential new stations in West Yorkshire. This involved three inter-related strands of research. Firstly, market research was carried out at the six new stations opened and was particularly useful in determining the proportions of travellers generated and abstracted. Secondly, statistical models, based on aggregate simultaneous and disaggregate mode split structures, were developed and their forecasting abilities assessed. In this part of our work a subsidiary aim emerged; namely to assess the trade-off between complexity and accuracy in modelling new station demand. Thirdly, an evaluation framework, using one set of demand forecasts, was developed, taking into account the costs and benefits to Public Transport operators, new station users and society as a whole. It was found that the six new stations opened in West Yorkshire may be judged a success in both financial and social terms, whilst up to 10 sites were identified as representing good social investments. In terms of our subsidiary aim it was found that, given limited resources, simple modelling approaches, such as provided by an aggregate simultaneous model, may be preferable to more complex approaches when evaluating small-scale new station programmes. Our findings are shown to have implications beyond West Yorkshire as simple guide lines for new station site identification and evaluation have been determined.

Drawing on institutional perspective – institutional change, institutional legitimacy and the three institutional pillars – this doctoral study is developed to disentangle a complexity of successive industry reforms that have shaped a development of British railways in general and a growing idea of a railway privatization in particular. This adds to the body of knowledge, which so far has tended to focus on enhancing the sector’s performance outcomes, by arguing that performance improvement is not a whole story of the railway’s privatization. Indeed, as an archival research in British railway’s reform (1960s - 1980s) has revealed, a growing idea of a private sector’s involvement was constructed as the governments at the times sought to draw and (re-) draw boundaries among interest groups in order for British railways to de-lock from a historical development path of nationalization industry. Furthermore, the study also found that the idea of privatization was dynamically legitimized and maintained by the government’s reform agenda that blended a performance rationale with political and socio-economic conditions of British railway at the times. Indeed, this historical-institutional analysis in British railway’s reform suggests that a privatization of British railways is more socially and politically complex than generally understood as the government’s attempt in making an efficient railway sector. As such, in order to advance this field of study both academic scholars and the industry practitioners should pay more attention on the influence of institutional dynamics that shapes a performing of British railway rather than narrowly focusing a performance improvement issue.