Railtrack was a group of companies that owned the

track Track or Tracks may refer to: Routes or imprints * Ancient trackway, any track or trail whose origin is lost in antiquity * Animal track, imprints left on surfaces that an animal walks across * Desire path, a line worn by people taking the shorte ...

signalling In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The ''IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing'' ...

tunnel A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube cons ...

bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...

level crossing A level crossing is an intersection where a railway line crosses a road, Trail, path, or (in rare situations) airport runway, at the same level, as opposed to the railway line crossing over or under using an Overpass#Railway, overpass ...

s and all but a handful of the

stations Station may refer to: Agriculture * Station (Australian agriculture), a large Australian landholding used for livestock production * Station (New Zealand agriculture), a large New Zealand farm used for grazing by sheep and cattle ** Cattle statio ...

of the

British railway system The railway system in Great Britain is the oldest railway system in the world. The first locomotive-hauled public railway opened in 1825, which was followed by an era of rapid expansion. Most of the track is managed by Network Rail, which in ...

from 1994 until 2002. It was created 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 ...

, listed on the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pau ...

, and was a constituent of the

FTSE 100 Index The Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 Index, also called the FTSE 100 Index, FTSE 100, FTSE, or, informally, the "Footsie" , is a share index of the 100 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange with (in principle) the highest market ...

. In 2002, after experiencing major financial difficulty, most of Railtrack's operations were transferred to the state-controlled non-profit company

Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is an "arm's leng ...

. The remainder of Railtrack was renamed RT Group plc and eventually dissolved on 22 June 2010.

History

Background and founding

During the early 1990s, the

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

decided to pursue the

privatisation Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...

of Britain's

nationalised Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...

railway operator

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 ...

. A

white paper A white paper is a report or guide that informs readers concisely about a complex issue and presents the issuing body's philosophy on the matter. It is meant to help readers understand an issue, solve a problem, or make a decision. A white paper ...

released in July 1992 had called for a publicly-owned company to be primarily responsible for the railway infrastructure, including the tracks, signalling, and stations, while train operations would be

franchise Franchise may refer to: Business and law * Franchising, a business method that involves licensing of trademarks and methods of doing business to franchisees * Franchise, a privilege to operate a type of business such as a cable television p ...

d out to various private companies. However, Robert Horton, who would become the first chairman of Railtrack and thus play a leading role through the early years of the organisation's existence, lobbied for the infrastructure-holding company to be privatised as well in order to maximise financial gains; this position was also supported by several figures within the Conservative government, such as the

Chancellor of the Exchequer The chancellor of the Exchequer, often abbreviated to chancellor, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom, and head of His Majesty's Treasury. As one of the four Great Offices of State, the Chancellor is ...

Kenneth Clarke Kenneth Harry Clarke, Baron Clarke of Nottingham, (born 2 July 1940), often known as Ken Clarke, is a British politician who served as Home Secretary from 1992 to 1993 and Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1993 to 1997 as well as serving as de ...

and the

Secretary of State for Transport The Secretary of State for Transport, also referred to as the transport secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with overall responsibility for the policies of the Department for Transport. The incumbent i ...

Brian Mawhinney Brian Stanley Mawhinney, Baron Mawhinney, (26 July 1940 – 9 November 2019) was a British Conservative Party politician. He was a member of the Cabinet from 1994 to 1997 and a member of Parliament (MP) from 1979 to 2005. Early life Mawhinney ...

. On 1 April 1994, in accordance with recently passed

legislation Legislation is the process or result of enrolled bill, enrolling, enactment of a bill, enacting, or promulgation, promulgating laws by a legislature, parliament, or analogous Government, governing body. Before an item of legislation becomes law i ...

, the newly-established Railtrack took control of Britain's railway infrastructure from British Rail. Its primary revenue sources were the track access charges levied on train operators and the

lease A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user (referred to as the ''lessee'') to pay the owner (referred to as the ''lessor'') for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial ...

station Station may refer to: Agriculture * Station (Australian agriculture), a large Australian landholding used for livestock production * Station (New Zealand agriculture), a large New Zealand farm used for grazing by sheep and cattle ** Cattle statio ...

s and

depot Depot ( or ) may refer to: Places * Depot, Poland, a village * Depot Island, Kemp Land, Antarctica * Depot Island, Victoria Land, Antarctica * Depot Island Formation, Greenland Brands and enterprises * Maxwell Street Depot, a restaurant in ...

s. Furthermore, the company routinely received funding from the British government; the resulting money was largely spent on the railway network in accordance with plans laid out by the rail regulator. Between its creation and late 1998, the company reportedly had a relatively calm relationship with its first economic regulator, John Swift QC, who exercised a strategy of encouraging Railtrack to make its own commitments towards improvement. According to the railway historian

Christian Wolmar Christian Tage Forter Wolmar (born 3 August 1949) is a British journalist, author, railway historian and Labour Party politician. In January 1996, the British government confirmed its plans to privatise Railtrack for £2 billion with a total asset value of £4 billion. During May 1996, the company was floated on the

, albeit at a lower than planned price, allegedly in response to a threatened intervention by the Labour Party. This action effectively privatised Railtrack, although the company remained closely intertwined with the British government from an operational standpoint. Railtrack's initial operations were disrupted by an

industrial dispute Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike, or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to Labor (economics), work. A strike usually takes place in response to grievance (labour), employee grievance ...

that largely ran between June and September 1994; at one point, the company's management proposed dismissing all of its signallers, comprising roughly 4,600 staff. Railtrack's first chief executive, John Edmonds, pursued a strategy of disposing of engineers and

outsourcing Outsourcing is an agreement in which one company hires another company to be responsible for a planned or existing activity which otherwise is or could be carried out internally, i.e. in-house, and sometimes involves transferring employees and ...

their work wherever possible with the goal of reducing costs. Within its first few years of operation, Railtrack appeared to perform well financially, annual profits were recorded while its share value quadrupled within a relatively short timeframe. Furthermore, during the mid-to-late 1990s, several high-profile investment projects in cooperation with train operators and other partners were announced by the company. However, as early as 1997, Railtrack was being criticised for paying little attention to infrastructure investment.

Issues and controversies

The

Southall rail crash The Southall rail crash occurred on 19 September 1997, on the Great Western Main Line at Southall, West London. An InterCity 125 high speed passenger train (HST) failed to slow down in response to warning signals and collided with a freight trai ...

in 1997 and the

Ladbroke Grove rail crash The Ladbroke Grove rail crash (also known as the Paddington rail crash) was a rail accident which occurred on 5 October 1999 at Ladbroke Grove in London, England, when two passenger trains collided almost head-on after one of them had passed a ...

in 1999 called into question the negative consequences that the fragmentation of the railway network had introduced to both safety and maintenance procedures. Railtrack was severely criticised for both its performance in improving Britain's railway infrastructure and for its safety record. It was observed in Lord Cullen's inquiry into the Ladbroke Grove accident that trains would have been prevented from passing any signal at red had an

Automatic Train Protection Automatic train protection (ATP) is a type of train protection system which continually checks that the speed of a train is compatible with the permitted speed allowed by signalling, including automatic stop at certain signal aspects. If it is ...

(ATP) system had been fitted and operational; however, ATP's national adoption, a recommendation made after the

Clapham Junction rail crash The Clapham Junction railway crash occurred on the morning of 12 December 1988, when a crowded British Rail passenger train crashed into the rear of another train that had stopped at a signal just south of Clapham Junction railway station in L ...

in 1988, had been abandoned as the cost was considered to be excessive for the increase in safety. One particular area of criticism was that the regulator was not tough enough on Railtrack and, as a result, the company had been able to abuse its

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situati ...

position. In particular, Railtrack's customers, the passenger and freight train operators, were allegedly desperate for regulatory action to compel the company to improve its stewardship of the network and its performance. During 1993, Swift had been appointed rail regulator by the then Conservative transport secretary John MacGregor MP. When the

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

government took over after the general election in May 1997, the new transport secretary (and deputy prime minister)

John Prescott John Leslie Prescott, Baron Prescott (born 31 May 1938) is a British politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and as First Secretary of State from 2001 to 2007. A member of the Labour Party, he w ...

took a much harder line. When Swift's five-year term of office expired on 30 November 1998, he was not reappointed. After an interim period, during which

Chris Bolt Christopher Bolt Order of the Bath, CB is a British economist and, formerly non-executive chairman of the Office of Rail Regulation, the national economic and safety regulatory authority for Britain's railways, and (separately) the arbiter for th ...

, Swift's chief economic adviser and effective deputy, filled the regulator's position, in July 1999 a new rail regulator began a five-year term, starting a much tougher regulatory era.

Tom Winsor Sir Thomas Philip Winsor (born 7 December 1957) is a British arbitrator and mediator, lawyer, consultant and economic regulatory professional. Between 1 October 2012 and 31 March 2022, he served as Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Constabular ...

, the new rail regulator, had been Swift's general counsel (1993–95), and adopted a more interventionist and aggressive regulatory approach. The relationship between the two parties was reportedly stormy at times; in April 2000, it was reported in ''The Guardian'' that "Railtrack is adopting a deliberate 'culture of defiance' against the rail regulator".

Gerald Corbett Gerald Michael Nolan Corbett DL (born 7 September 1951) is a businessman who was the chairman of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). A businessman, over a long career he has been a director of thirteen public companies, seven of which he has chair ...

, Railtrack's chief executive at the time, and Winsor did not share the same vision for the network. 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. Winsor informed Railtrack that if it did not improve passenger train performance by 12.7 percent by March 2000, the company would have to pay fines out of its profits. On 17 October 2000, the

Hatfield rail crash The Hatfield rail crash was a railway accident on 17 October 2000, at Hatfield, Hertfordshire. It was caused by a metal fatigue-induced derailment, killing four people and injuring more than 70. The accident exposed major stewardship shortcomi ...

occurred; this would prove to be the defining moment in Railtrack's subsequent collapse. The cause of the fatal accident was quickly determined to be an infrastructure-related failure, and thus within Railtrack's remit. In Hatfield's aftermath, major repairs were undertaken across the whole British rail network which were estimated to have cost in the order of £580 million. Railtrack had no idea how many potential Hatfields were waiting to happen, nor did they have any way of assessing the consequence of the speed restrictions they were ordering, largely because the majority of the engineering skill of British Rail had been sold off into separate maintenance and renewal companies. These restrictions brought the railway network to an almost total standstill and drew significant public ire. According to Wolmar, the Railtrack board had panicked in the wake of Hatfield. Railtrack sign

Around this time, regulatory and customer pressure on Railtrack audibly increased while the company's share price fell sharply as it became apparent that there were serious shortcomings in the company's ability to tackle and solve fundamental problems with its core activities. During February 1999, a significant fall in Railtrack's share price occurred in response to the company's launch of a

bond Bond or bonds may refer to: Common meanings * Bond (finance), a type of debt security * Bail bond, a commercial third-party guarantor of surety bonds in the United States * Chemical bond, the attraction of atoms, ions or molecules to form chemical ...

issue intended to finance the West Coast Main Line modernisation and

Thameslink Programme The Thameslink Programme, originally Thameslink 2000, was a £6billion project in south-east England to upgrade and expand the Thameslink rail network to provide new and longer trains between a wider range of stations to the north and to the s ...

s. The modernisation of the

West Coast Main Line The West Coast Main Line (WCML) is one of the most important railway corridors in the United Kingdom, connecting the major cities of London and Glasgow with branches to Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Edinburgh. It is one of the busiest ...

had suffered from spiralling costs, rising from an estimated £2 billion to roughly £10 billion. The modernisation programme had failures that were technical as well as managerial, such as the

moving block In railway signalling, a moving block is a signalling block system where the blocks are defined in real time by computers as safe zones around each train. This requires both knowledge of the exact location and speed of all trains at any given ti ...

signalling apparatus being immature for such a busy mixed-traffic mainline. In 2000, reports emerged that Railtrack may not be able to go through with its planned commitment to purchase section 2 of

High Speed 1 High Speed 1 (HS1), legally the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL), is a high-speed railway linking London with the Channel Tunnel. It is part of a line carrying international passenger traffic between the United Kingdom and mainland Europe; ...

, resulting in disruption and uncertainty for that programme as well. In February 2001, Steve Marshall, the company's chairman, stated that Railtrack could have a net debt of approximately £8 billion by 2003. During May 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. This loss compelled the organisation to approach the government for funding, which it controversially used to pay a £137m

dividend A dividend is a distribution of profits by a corporation to its shareholders. When a corporation earns a profit or surplus, it is able to pay a portion of the profit as a dividend to shareholders. Any amount not distributed is taken to be re-in ...

to its

shareholder A shareholder (in the United States often referred to as stockholder) of a corporation is an individual or legal entity (such as another corporation, a body politic, a trust or partnership) that is registered by the corporation as the legal own ...

s in May 2001. Months later, Railtrack sought another bailout from the government.

Administration

On 7 October 2001, Railtrack plc was placed into railway administration under the Railways Act 1993, following an application to the High Court by the then

Transport Secretary The Secretary of State for Transport, also referred to as the transport secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with overall responsibility for the policies of the Department for Transport. The incumbent i ...

Stephen Byers Stephen John Byers (born 13 April 1953) is a British Labour Party politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wallsend between 1992 and 1997, and North Tyneside from 1997 to 2010. He served in the Cabinet from 1998 to 2002, and was ...

. This was effectively a form of

bankruptcy protection Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor ...

that allowed the railway network to continue operating despite the financial problems of the operator. The parent company, Railtrack Group plc, was not put into administration and continued operating its other subsidiaries, which included property and telecommunications interests. If this action had not been taken, rail services throughout Britain may have entirely stopped for a time. For most of the year in administration, the government's position had been that the new company would have to live within the existing regulatory settlement (£14.8 billion for the five years 2001–2006). However, it soon became obvious that that was impossible, and that the aftermath of the Hatfield crash had revealed that the network required significantly more money for its operation, maintenance and renewal. It was reported on 23 November 2001, that a further £3.5 billion may be needed to keep the national railway network running, a sum disputed by

Ernst & Young Ernst & Young Global Limited, trade name EY, is a multinational professional services partnership headquartered in London, England. EY is one of the largest professional services networks in the world. Along with Deloitte, KPMG and Pricewaterh ...

, the administrators. During February 2002, the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body o ...

approved the provision of

state aid State aid in the European Union is the name given to a subsidy or any other aid provided by a government that distorts competitions. Under European Union competition law the term has a legal meaning, being any measure that demonstrates any of the ...

to the ailing Railtrack in order to maintain operations. To get Railtrack out of administration, the government had to go back to the High Court and present evidence that the company was no longer insolvent. The principal reason given by the government to the court for this assertion was the decision of the

rail regulator The Rail Regulator was a statutory office, created with effect from 1 December 1993 by section 1 of the Railways Act 1993, for the independent economic regulation of the British railway industry. The office was abolished from 4 July 2004, using ...

– announced on 22 September 2002 – to carry out an interim review of the company's finances, with the potential to advance significant additional sums to the company. The High Court accepted that the company was not therefore insolvent, and the railway administration order was discharged on 2 October 2002.

Transfer of assets to Network Rail

was formed with the principal purpose of acquiring and owning Railtrack plc. Originally the Government allowed private companies to bid for Railtrack plc. However, with limited availability of financial data on Railtrack, the political implications of owning the company and the very obvious preference of the government that the national railway network should go to Network Rail, no bidders apart from Network Rail were forthcoming, and Network Rail bought Railtrack plc on 3 October 2002. Railtrack plc was subsequently renamed to ''Network Rail Infrastructure Limited''. Network Rail's acquisition of Railtrack plc was welcomed at the time by groups that represented British train passengers. The attitude of Railtrack's customers – the passenger- and freight-train operators – was much more cautious, especially as they were wary of a corporate structure under which shareholders' equity was not at risk if the company's new management mis-managed its affairs.

Liquidation

On 18 October 2002, Railtrack's parent company, Railtrack Group, was placed into members' voluntary liquidation as RT Group. The Railtrack business (and its £7 billion debt) had been sold to

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. £370 million held by Railtrack Group was frozen at the time the company went into administration and was earmarked to pay Railtrack shareholders an estimated 70p a share in compensation. The Group's interest in the partially built High Speed 1 line was also sold for £295m. During December 2002, Railtrack Group was delisted from the London Stock Exchange; that same month, the company announced an agreement to sell its remaining property interests, RT Group Developments, to the property developer

Hammerson Hammerson plc is a major British property development and investment company. The firm switched to real estate investment trust (REIT) status when they were introduced in the United Kingdom in January 2007. It is listed on the London Stock Excha ...

in exchange for £63 million.

Compensation

Litigation

In late 2001, Railtrack shareholders formed two groups to press for increased compensation. A lawyer speaking for one of those groups remarked on

GMTV GMTV (an acronym for Good Morning Television), now legally known as ITV Breakfast Broadcasting Limited, was the name of the national Channel 3 breakfast television contractor/licensee, broadcasting in the United Kingdom from 1 January 1993 ...

that his strategy was to sue the government for incorrect and misleading information given at the time Railtrack was created, when

John Major Sir John Major (born 29 March 1943) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997, and as Member of Parliament ...

was Conservative

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

. An increased offer of up to 262p per share was enough to convince the larger shareholder group, the Railtrack Action Group, to abandon legal action. The Chairman, Usman Mahmud, believed that legal action would not be successful without the support of management and major shareholders. The legality of the decision to put Railtrack into railway administration was challenged by the smaller Railtrack Private Shareholders Action Group. Their action against the government alleged that the Secretary of State for Transport at the time – Stephen Byers MP – had, by deciding to cut off funding for Railtrack and asking the High Court to put the company into railway administration, committed the

common law In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipresen ...

tort A tort is a civil wrong that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. Tort law can be contrasted with criminal law, which deals with criminal wrongs that are punishable ...

misfeasance in public office Misfeasance in public office is a cause of action in the civil courts of England and Wales and certain Commonwealth countries. It is an action against the holder of a public office, alleging in essence that the office-holder has misused or abuse ...

. It is believed that there was £532 million available to Railtrack comprising £370 million in the bank, along with £162 million of an existing Department of Transport loan facility still available to be drawn down, but Stephen Byers MP cancelled this facility, causing shareholders to believe that he had broken the loan agreement. This was the largest class action ever conducted in the English courts – there were 49,500 claimants, all small shareholders in Railtrack. Keith Rowley, QC, the barrister for the shareholders, alleged Byers had "devised a scheme by which he intended to injure the shareholders of Railtrack Group by impairing the value of their interests in that company without paying compensation and without the approval of Parliament". The case was heard in the High Court in London in July 2005; some embarrassment was caused to Byers when he admitted that an answer he had given to a House of Commons Select Committee was inaccurate, but on 14 October 2005 the judge found that there was no evidence that Byers had committed the

. The private shareholders decided not to appeal against the judgment because there were no legal grounds for doing so. For many of them – who had contributed around £50 each, on average, to the fighting fund to bring the action – the case had served its purpose. The 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 (7 October 2001) and therefore that the administration order had been wrongly obtained. This was because of the jurisdiction of the independent rail regulator – at the time Tom Winsor – to provide additional money to maintain the company's financial position. Sir Alan Duncan MP, then the shadow transport secretary, said in Parliament that this aspect of the affair – which was not dealt with in the shareholders' case in the High Court – was "perhaps the most shameful scar on the Government's honesty" and "an absolute scandal". Byers apologised in the House of Commons on 17 October 2005 for having given a "factually inaccurate" reply to the Select Committee but said that he had not intended to mislead them. This personal statement to Parliament was not accepted by the MP who had asked the original question, and the matter was remitted to the House of Commons Standards and Privileges Committee for investigation. As a result of that committee's report, Mr Byers made another statement of apology to Parliament.

Payments to shareholders

RT Group plc (in voluntary liquidation) made a number of payments to shareholders during the winding up of the company's affairs before finally being dissolved on 22 June 2010.

Management

Robert Horton was the first chairman of Railtrack; he resigned from this role in early 1999 amid reports of disagreements between Horton and the company's then-chief executive Gerald Corbett. Steve Marshall became the company's next chairman; following the company's entering into receivership, he announced his own resignation in October 2001 and actually stood down in March 2002. That same month, Geoffrey Howe was appointed chairman of Railtrack Group (the part of the business not in administration) and quickly pursued a strategy of seeking compensation from the British government. Railtrack's first

Chief Executive A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

, John Edmonds, was a keen proponent of

the company's engineering activities and driving down costs. During late 1997,

succeeded Edmonds as chief executive. During his tenure, numerous accidents occurred; Corbett issued multiple apologies and issued recommendations for reforms of the rail industry. In November 2000, Corbett issued his resignation, having been publicly called on to do so by multiple politicians and public figures. Corbett was Railtrack's chief executive as it went into receivership.

References

External links

RT Group Official site

Railtrack Action Group Homepage

Why Rails Crack, the likely cause of the Hatfield crash
''Ingenia'', June 2005 {{Authority control Post-privatisation British railway companies Transportation monopolies Railway companies established in 1994 Companies formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange Defunct companies based in London Privatisation of British Rail British companies established in 1994 Railway companies disestablished in 2002