Angel Trains is a British
rolling stock company
A rolling stock company (ROSCO) or rolling stock leasing company owns and maintains railway engines and carriages which are leased to train operating companies who operate the trains.
Africa
* Sheltam Grindrod
* Swifambo Rail Leasing
Austral ...
(ROSCO). Together with
Eversholt Rail Group
Eversholt Rail Group is a British rolling stock company (ROSCO). Together with Angel Trains and Porterbrook, it is one of the three original ROSCOs created as a result of the privatisation of British Rail.
Eversholt was established in March 1994 ...
and
Porterbrook
Porterbrook is a British rolling stock company (ROSCO), created as part of the privatisation of British Rail. Together with Angel Trains and Eversholt Rail Group, it is one of the three original ROSCOs.
Porterbrook was established in March 199 ...
, it is one of the three original ROSCOs.
Angel Trains was established in March 1994 as part of the
privatisation of British Rail
The privatisation of British Rail was the process by which ownership and operation of the railways of Great Britain passed from government control into private hands. Begun in 1994, it had been completed by 1997. The deregulation of the industr ...
. In November 1995, it was bought by
Nomura Holdings
is a Japanese financial holding company and a principal member of the Nomura Group. It, along with its broker-dealer, banking and other financial services subsidiaries, provides investment, financing and related services to individual, institut ...
Babcock & Brown
Babcock & Brown LP was a global investment and advisory firm, established in 1977, based in Sydney, Australia, that went into liquidation in 2009.
Babcock & Brown Securities LLC was an active investment banking firm focused on equipment and proj ...
and former
InterCity
InterCity (commonly abbreviated ''IC'' on timetables and tickets) is the classification applied to certain long-distance passenger train services in Europe. Such trains (in contrast to regional, local, or commuter trains) generally call at m ...
manager John Prideaux. By September of the following year, Angel Trains had contracts with 19 of the 25
train operating companies (TOCs) in the UK, and owned approximately 3,755 vehicles. During December 1997, Angel Trains was sold on to the
Royal Bank of Scotland
The Royal Bank of Scotland plc (RBS; gd, Banca Rìoghail na h-Alba) is a major retail and commercial bank in Scotland. It is one of the retail banking subsidiaries of NatWest Group, together with NatWest (in England and Wales) and Ulster Bank ...
, leading to criticism of the firm having been previously undervalued. The firm quickly expanded into the continental European rail leasing business; this international branch of the firm would be split off as ''Angel Trains International'' during 2008 and was subsequently rebranded as
Alpha Trains
Alpha Trains is a rolling stock leasing company operating in the European Union and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) regions of mainland Europe.
It was created as ''Angel Trains International'' as a spin-off from the British rolling stock ...
.
In addition to its British Rail-era inventory, Angel Trains acquired new rolling stock, such as the
Class 390
The British Rail Class 390 ''Pendolino'' is a type of electric high-speed passenger train operated by Avanti West Coast in the United Kingdom, leased from Angel Trains. They are electric multiple units using Fiat Ferroviaria's tilting train ...
'Pendolino'
electric multiple unit
An electric multiple unit or EMU is a multiple-unit train consisting of self-propelled carriages using electricity as the motive power. An EMU requires no separate locomotive, as electric traction motors are incorporated within one or a numbe ...
s (EMUs), which was introduced by
Virgin West Coast
Virgin Trains (legal name West Coast Trains Limited) was a train operating company in the United Kingdom owned by Virgin Rail Group, a joint venture between Virgin Group and Stagecoach, which operated the InterCity West Coast franchise from ...
during the early 2000s. Following another takeover of the business in 2008, at which point it reportedly held over 40 per cent of the railway rolling stock leasing market in Britain, a major restructuring was undertaken. Since the 2010s, Angel Trains has arranged deals involving
Hitachi
() is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is the parent company of the Hitachi Group (''Hitachi Gurūpu'') and had formed part of the Ni ...
-built high speed
bi-mode trains, such as a deal for 19 five-car
Class 802 for train operator
TransPennine Express
TransPennine Express (TPE), legally First TransPennine Express Limited, is a British train operating company owned by FirstGroup that operates the TransPennine Express franchise. It runs regional and inter-city rail services between the major c ...
(TPE). Angel Trains has also participated in numerous programs to boost its rolling stock's efficiency and environmental credentials, such as converting several vehicles into
hybrid diesel and battery-powered trains, as well as
hydrogen
Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, an ...
fuel cell
A fuel cell is an electrochemical cell that converts the chemical energy of a fuel (often hydrogen) and an oxidizing agent (often oxygen) into electricity through a pair of redox reactions. Fuel cells are different from most batteries in requ ...
s, as well as other initiatives.
History
Angel Trains was established on 21 March 1994 as a subsidiary of
British Rail
British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...
; its creation was one of many preparatory steps involved in the
privatisation of British Rail
The privatisation of British Rail was the process by which ownership and operation of the railways of Great Britain passed from government control into private hands. Begun in 1994, it had been completed by 1997. The deregulation of the industr ...
during the 1990s.
It was named Angel Trains after the
London neighborhood in which British Rail's offices were located. During November 1995, Angel Trains was sold to a consortium of the Japanese financial services company
Nomura Holdings
is a Japanese financial holding company and a principal member of the Nomura Group. It, along with its broker-dealer, banking and other financial services subsidiaries, provides investment, financing and related services to individual, institut ...
(85%), global investment specialist
Babcock & Brown
Babcock & Brown LP was a global investment and advisory firm, established in 1977, based in Sydney, Australia, that went into liquidation in 2009.
Babcock & Brown Securities LLC was an active investment banking firm focused on equipment and proj ...
(10%) and former
InterCity
InterCity (commonly abbreviated ''IC'' on timetables and tickets) is the classification applied to certain long-distance passenger train services in Europe. Such trains (in contrast to regional, local, or commuter trains) generally call at m ...
manager John Prideaux (5%); a private consultancy company owned by Prideaux, ''Prideaux & Associates'', was utilised in this deal.
By September 1996, Angel Trains had contracts in place with 19 of the 25 train operating companies in the UK, and owned approximately 3,755 vehicles, a third of which were less than eight years old at that time. Less than one year after the acquisition, Nomura was already examining options to merge or sell on Angel Trains, or form a joint venture with a
train operating company
A train operating company (TOC) is a business operating Passenger Trains, passenger trains on the Rail transport in Great Britain, railway system of Great Britain under the collective National Rail brand. TOCs have existed since the Privatisation ...
(TOC); it had reportedly encouraged by the recent sale of other ROSCOs, such as
Porterbrook
Porterbrook is a British rolling stock company (ROSCO), created as part of the privatisation of British Rail. Together with Angel Trains and Eversholt Rail Group, it is one of the three original ROSCOs.
Porterbrook was established in March 199 ...
to
Stagecoach
A stagecoach is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses although some versions are draw ...
in addition to alleged approaches by unidentified third parties.
During December 1997, Angel Trains was purchased by the financial services group
Royal Bank of Scotland
The Royal Bank of Scotland plc (RBS; gd, Banca Rìoghail na h-Alba) is a major retail and commercial bank in Scotland. It is one of the retail banking subsidiaries of NatWest Group, together with NatWest (in England and Wales) and Ulster Bank ...
in exchange for £395 million. The company had been sold at
auction
An auction is usually a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bids, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder or buying the item from the lowest bidder. Some exceptions to this definition ex ...
by its previous owners, according to the British newspaper
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
, the bidding for Angel Trains had been quite vigorous.
Around this time, allegations arose that companies such as Angel Trains had been privatised for sums that were far too small by the British Government, which led to an in-depth investigation being conducted by the
National Audit Office in addition to separate reviews by regulators.
![Class 66 FPL66001](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Class_66_FPL66001.jpg)
Throughout the late 1990s and into the 2000s, Angel Trains considerably expanded its leasing business, especially in the continental European market. It entered into a
joint venture
A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acces ...
with the German locomotive manufacturer
Vossloh
Vossloh AG is a rail technology company based in Werdohl in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The SDAX-listed group has achieved sales of around €930 million in 2016 with more than 4,000 employees (as of 2017).
Vossloh is a global ...
, which led to the formation of another leasing company ''Locomotion Capital'', during 2000. Additionally, through investment in its international branches
Angel Trains Cargo (leasing freight rolling stock) and ''Angel Trains Europa'' (leasing passenger rolling stock), the company became one of the largest rolling stock leasing companies in Europe - specifically in terms of freight locomotives.
![Pendolino at Beck Foot - geograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/Pendolino_at_Beck_Foot_-_geograph.org.uk_-_358839.jpg)
Angel Trains also entered into new leasing arrangements for brand new rolling stock around this time. One high profile example was the
Class 390
The British Rail Class 390 ''Pendolino'' is a type of electric high-speed passenger train operated by Avanti West Coast in the United Kingdom, leased from Angel Trains. They are electric multiple units using Fiat Ferroviaria's tilting train ...
'Pendolino'
electric multiple unit
An electric multiple unit or EMU is a multiple-unit train consisting of self-propelled carriages using electricity as the motive power. An EMU requires no separate locomotive, as electric traction motors are incorporated within one or a numbe ...
s (EMUs), the initial order for which comprised 54 nine-car units at a cost of £500 million on behalf of
Virgin West Coast
Virgin Trains (legal name West Coast Trains Limited) was a train operating company in the United Kingdom owned by Virgin Rail Group, a joint venture between Virgin Group and Stagecoach, which operated the InterCity West Coast franchise from ...
.
Unusually, these trains featured an active
tilt
Tilt may refer to:
Music
* Tilt (American band), a punk rock group, formed in 1992
* Tilt (British band), an electronic music group, formed in 1993
* Tilt (Polish band), a rock band, formed in 1979
Albums
* ''Tilt'' (Cozy Powell album), 1981
* ...
system, designed to provide higher passenger comfort while travelling at speed around curves.
Due to a large increase in passenger numbers following the WCML modernisation, the
Department for Transport
The Department for Transport (DfT) is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for the English transport network and a limited number of transport matters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that have not been devolved. The d ...
announced the procurement of four additional Class 390s, each with 11 cars, while 31 of the existing trainsets were also lengthened to 11 cars to provide increased capacity.
[.]
In June 2008, Angel Trains was acquired by a consortium of
Babcock & Brown
Babcock & Brown LP was a global investment and advisory firm, established in 1977, based in Sydney, Australia, that went into liquidation in 2009.
Babcock & Brown Securities LLC was an active investment banking firm focused on equipment and proj ...
,
AMP Capital
AMP Capital is a large global investment manager headquartered in Sydney, Australia. Its owner, AMP Group, was established in 1849, and is one of Australia's largest retail and corporate pension providers. AMP Capital has a strategic alliance ...
, Arcus European Infrastructure Fund and
Deutsche Bank
Deutsche Bank AG (), sometimes referred to simply as Deutsche, is a German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Sto ...
at a reported cost of £3.6 billion. Babcock & Brown's head of European infrastructure, Simon Gray, referred to the purchase as "one of the largest acquisitions in Europe in the last few months". At the time, Angel Trains held more than 40 per cent of the railway rolling stock leasing market in Britain.
The 2008 takeover promptly led to a major restructuring of the business' activities; all of its international operations were split out into ''Angel Trains International'', during January 2010, this division was rebranded as
Alpha Trains
Alpha Trains is a rolling stock leasing company operating in the European Union and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) regions of mainland Europe.
It was created as ''Angel Trains International'' as a spin-off from the British rolling stock ...
. During 2015, AMP Capital Investors and PSP Investments increased their shareholdings in Angel Trains to 55% and 30% respectively after purchasing the stock formerly owned by Arcus European Infrastructure Fund.
Since the 2010s, Angel Trains has been involved in the supply of
Hitachi
() is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is the parent company of the Hitachi Group (''Hitachi Gurūpu'') and had formed part of the Ni ...
-built high speed
bi-mode trains, such as a deal for 19 five-car
Class 802 for train operator
TransPennine Express
TransPennine Express (TPE), legally First TransPennine Express Limited, is a British train operating company owned by FirstGroup that operates the TransPennine Express franchise. It runs regional and inter-city rail services between the major c ...
(TPE).
Referred to as the ''Nova 1'' by TPE, it was procured under plans to bolster its route capacity by roughly 80%.
According to Robin Davis, TPE's Head of New Trains, a major rationale behind the Nova 1 was its bi-mode capability, noting that electrification ambitions often had much uncertainty, while a bi-mode fleet eliminated the operational risk to such uncertainty.
Angel Trains has participated in numerous initiatives to improve the efficiency and environmental credentials of the railways. In September 2018, plans were announced by Angel Trains to convert
Class 165 diesel multiple units into
hybrid diesel and battery-powered trains. For this scheme, the original diesel-hydraulic drives were replaced by electric drives, the engines charge the batteries, making the drive effectively a hybridized diesel-electric drive; in February 2022, the first trainset was entered service with
Chiltern Railways
Chiltern Railways, formally The Chiltern Railway Company Limited, is a British train operating company that has operated the Chiltern Railways franchise since July 1996. Since 2009, it has been a subsidiary of Arriva UK Trains.
Chiltern Railw ...
.
In February 2020,
ScotRail
ScotRail Trains Limited, trading as ScotRail ( gd, Rèile na h-Alba), is a Scottish train operating company that is publicly owned by Scottish Rail Holdings on behalf of the Scottish Government. It has been operating the ScotRail franchise a ...
and Angel Trains announced plans to convert a
Class 314 EMU, equipping it with
hydrogen
Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, an ...
fuel cell
A fuel cell is an electrochemical cell that converts the chemical energy of a fuel (often hydrogen) and an oxidizing agent (often oxygen) into electricity through a pair of redox reactions. Fuel cells are different from most batteries in requ ...
s, as a technical demonstration of the feasibility of using hydrogen to fuel trains.
In July 2020, Riding Sunbeams formed a consortium that included Angel Trains to power electrified railway lines using 100 percent
renewable energy
Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources that are naturally replenished on a human timescale. It includes sources such as sunlight, wind, the movement of water, and geothermal heat. Although most renewable energy ...
. During November 2021, it was announced that Hitachi Rail and Angel Trains would trial the use of
battery
Battery most often refers to:
* Electric battery, a device that provides electrical power
* Battery (crime), a crime involving unlawful physical contact
Battery may also refer to:
Energy source
*Automotive battery, a device to provide power t ...
power on hybrid high speed trains in order to reduce fuel consumption.
By June 2019, Angel Trains' inventory of rolling stock reportedly totalled 4,421 vehicles.
Initial fleet
The fleet Angel Trains inherited from
British Rail
British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...
in 1994 comprised:
[
]
References
External links
*
{{Royal Bank of Scotland Group
Companies based in the City of Westminster
Post-privatisation British railway companies
Privatisation of British Rail
Private equity portfolio companies
Railway companies established in 1994
Rolling stock leasing companies
Royal Bank of Scotland
1994 establishments in England