Regional Railways was the operator of all local services and express trains that didn’t fall into either Network SouthEast or Intercity. What it inherited was a vast remit of underperforming branch lines and underutilised express services that survived the Beeching cuts of the 1950s and 1960s, as well as the commuter networks around the many urban centres outside London. These were operated by a selection of first generation diesel multiple units and a variety of different diesel locomotives hauling second hand Inter-City coaching stock, as well as limited use of electric trains in Liverpool and Manchester. Regional Railways upon it’s introduction cost the taxpayer the most in subsidy of any of the newly created sectors, it’s costs being 4 times of it’s revenue.

To improve the service as well as cut costs, British Rail intended to introduce a fleet of brand new diesel multiple units to see the end of these aging and costly forms of traction in operation across the network. These would be introduced during the era of Regional Railways, as the Class 141, 142, 143 and 144 ‘Pacer’ trains and the Class 150 ’Sprinter’, Class 155 and 156 ‘Super Sprinter and the Class 158 ‘Express Sprinter’. The introduction did improve the service from what was inherited by BR, with the many different classes suited to the wide variety of roles performed by the outgoing traction.

Although the Sprinters were a success many of the passenger transport executives, who controlled transport in many of the urban centres outside London, were keen on replacing diesel trains with electric traction. Expanding of electrification surrounding Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds meant that existing services could begin operation with electric trains, in many of these areas these came in the form of Ex-Network SouthEast hand me downs, however in Birmingham and Manchester the brand new Class 323 units were introduced which was built specifically for the Regional Railways network.

The Regional Railways sector would be broken up during the privatisation of the Railways during the 1990s, with service split into 8 companies to operate service across the vast network. Of these, 6 would see operation of electric trains, the exceptions being the new Wales & West and Valley Lines operations, as much of Wales, Devon and Cornwall remained untouched by any improvements in electrification. Central Trains and First North Western received the Class 323 fleet, which by the 1990s had entered service in both Birmingham and Manchester.