British Rail - Successor Companies

Successor Companies

Under the process of British Rail's privatisation, operations were split into more than 100 companies. The ownership and operation of the infrastructure of the railway system was taken over by Railtrack. The Telecomms infrastructure and British Rail Telecommunications was sold to Racal, which in turn was sold to Global Crossing and merged with Thales Group. The rolling stock was transferred to three private ROSCOs (ROlling Stock COmpanies). Passenger services were divided into 25 operating companies, which were let on a franchise basis for a set number of years, whilst freight services were sold off completely. Dozens of smaller engineering and maintenance companies were also created and sold off.

British Rail's passenger services came to an end upon the franchising of ScotRail; the final train that the company operated was a Railfreight Distribution freight train in Autumn 1997. The British Railways Board continued in existence as a corporation until early 2001, when it was replaced with the Strategic Rail Authority.

Since privatisation, the structure of the rail industry and number of companies has changed a number of times as franchises have been relet and the areas covered by franchises restructured. Franchise-based companies that took over passenger rail services include:

• Midland Mainline—superseded in 2007 by East Midlands Trains
• Great North Eastern Railway—superseded in 2007 by National Express East Coast, which has since been brought back full circle into public ownership with the creation of the new government controlled East Coast operator.
• Virgin Trains (West Coast)
• Virgin CrossCountry—superseded in 2007 by CrossCountry
• ScotRail operated by National Express—superseded in 2004 by First ScotRail (now branded as ScotRail—Scotland's Railway)
• Great Western Trains—from 1998: First Great Western
• Wales and West—became Wessex Trains and Wales and Borders (including the Cardiff Railway Company services operated as Valley Lines) in 2001, after being split into two separate franchises, and now run by First Great Western and Arriva Trains Wales
• Arriva Trains Northern originally Northern Spirit, succeeded in 2004 by First TransPennine Express and Northern Rail
• First North Western originally North Western Trains, succeeded in 2004 by First TransPennine Express and Northern Rail
• Anglia Railways, Great Eastern (later First Great Eastern), and the West Anglia section of WAGN were all merged to become ONE later renamed National Express East Anglia, superseded in 2012 by Abellio's Greater Anglia
• Thameslink and Great Northern Section of WAGN grouped together to form First Capital Connect as part of the Thameslink Great Northern Franchise
• LTS later renamed c2c
• Connex South Eastern became South Eastern Trains, then Southeastern
• Connex South Central became South Central and later renamed Southern
• Merseyrail Electrics superseded by Arriva Trains Merseyside and now Merseyrail
• South West Trains
• Central Trains—divided in 2007 between London Midland, CrossCountry and East Midlands Trains
• London Underground for the short underground Waterloo & City line
• Silverlink Trains—divided in 2007 between London Overground and London Midland