Railtrack was a group of companies that owned the track, signalling, tunnels, bridges, level crossings and all but a handful of the stations of the British railway system from 1994 until 2002.
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13 Facts About Railtrack
2.
In 2002, after experiencing major financial difficulty, most of Railtrack's operations were transferred to the state-controlled non-profit company Network Rail.
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3.
The remainder of Railtrack was renamed RT Group plc and eventually dissolved on 22 June 2010.
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4.
Railtrack was severely criticised for both its performance in improving the railway infrastructure and for its safety record.
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5.
Railtrack resisted regulatory action to improve its performance, and as the regulator probed ever more deeply, serious shortcomings in the company's stewardship of the network were revealed.
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6.
In 2001, Railtrack announced that, despite making a pre-tax profits before exceptional expenses of £199m, the £733m of costs and compensation paid out over the Hatfield crash plunged Railtrack from profit to a loss of £534m.
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7.
Railtrack plc was placed into railway administration under the Railways Act 1993 on 7 October 2001, following an application to the High Court by the then Transport Secretary, Stephen Byers.
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9.
Network Rail's acquisition of Railtrack plc was welcomed at the time by groups that represented British train passengers.
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10.
The Railtrack business had been sold to Network Rail for £500 million, and the various diversified businesses it had created to seek to protect itself from the loss-making business of running a railway were disposed of to various buyers.
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11.
Railtrack shareholders formed two groups to press for increased compensation.
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12.
Circumstances in which Railtrack had been put into administration were highly controversial, with allegations in Parliament on 24 October 2005 that the company had not been insolvent at the time and therefore that the administration order had been wrongly obtained.
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13.
Railtrack was succeeded by Steve Marshall, who announced his own resignation in October 2001 and actually stood down in March 2002.
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