Prism Rail was a British passenger rail company formed in July 1995 to bid for rail franchises in the United Kingdom during the

privatisation of British Rail The privatisation of British Rail was the process by which ownership and operation of the Rail transport in Great Britain, railways of Great Britain passed from government control into private hands. Begun in 1994, the process was largely compl ...

. It expressed interest in eighteen franchises, was shortlisted for twelve and was ultimately awarded four, LTS Rail, Valley Lines, Wales & West, and West Anglia Great Northern.

History

Prism Rail was established by a number of individuals from the private bus industry with the intention of securing one or more of the passenger rail franchises that were being created by the

. In order to finance its bid for its first franchise, the company secured external backing, initially from a small number of institutional investors and subsequently via an the company's listing on the

Alternative Investment Market AIM (formerly the Alternative Investment Market) is a sub-market of the London Stock Exchange that was launched on 19 June 1995 as a replacement to the previous Unlisted Securities Market, Unlisted Securities Market (USM) that had been in opera ...

in May 1996. During January 1997, Prism Rail was forced to abandon a £30 million bonus share scheme intended for its management after several of the company's investors expressed their dissatisfaction, with some claiming it to have been excessively generous. In May 1996, it was announced that the Director of Passenger Rail Franchising had awarded the London, Tilbury and Southend franchise franchise to Prism Rail for a period of 15 years; operations of LTS Rail commenced later that same month. The terms of franchise included its potential to be curtailed to only seven years if the operator did not fulfil bid commitments to replace the existing

rolling stock The term rolling stock in the rail transport industry refers to railway vehicles, including both powered and unpowered vehicles: for example, locomotives, Railroad car#Freight cars, freight and Passenger railroad car, passenger cars (or coaches) ...

with new trains. Accordingly, during 1997, Prism Rail placed an order valued at £92 million with the multinational rolling stock manufacturer Adtranz for the production of 44 Class 357 " Electrostar" EMUs. In its bid for the West Anglia Great Northern (WAGN) franchise, Prism Rail promised that it would make a premium payment of £24.8 million to the franchising office in 2004. During December 1996, it was announced that the company had been awarded a seven year concession to operate the WAGN franchise; it was the fourth awarding of a passenger train franchise to Prism Rail by that time. By 1999, according to statistics compiled by the Office of Passenger Rail Franchising, West Anglia Great Northern was amongst the best performing franchises, being one of only seven franchises to obtain a B grade, for which its average punctuality had to be above 90 per cent while its average reliability figures had to be exceed 99 per cent. In July 2000, the company had agreed to invest £20.5m into the network, and had reported that the ''Great Northern'' portion of the franchise' operations were running at a profit. In July 2000, Prism Rail was purchased by the British transport specialist

National Express Mobico Group, formerly National Express Group, is a British multinational public transport company with headquarters in Birmingham, England. Domestically it currently operates bus and coach services under brands including National Express. Th ...

. The integration of the two companies was formally completed on 19 September 2000. On 2 July 2000, LTS Rail was rebranded as c2c. In March 2001, National Express combined the management and support functions of c2c, Silverlink, WAGN, and Stansted Express in a single organisation called ''London Lines''. During October 2001, the company's two franchises in Wales, Valley Lines and Wales & West, were reorganised, after which the new Wales & Borders franchise assumed responsibility for the majority of services in Wales as shown on its map. On 1 August 2003, in spite of National Express's bid to retain it, the Strategic Rail Authority awarded the new franchise to

Arriva UK Trains Arriva UK Trains Limited is the company that oversees Arriva's Train operating company, train operating companies in the United Kingdom. It gained its first Rail franchising in Great Britain, franchises in February 2000. These were later lost, ...

References

British companies established in 1995 Defunct companies of the United Kingdom Post-privatisation British railway companies Railway companies established in 1995 Railway companies disestablished in 2000 Railway operators in London 2000 disestablishments in the United Kingdom {{UK-company-stub