Prism Rail was 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 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 ...

. It expressed interest in eighteen franchises, was shortlisted for twelve and was ultimately awarded four, LTS Rail,

Valley Lines Valleys & Cardiff Local Routes ( cy, Llwybrau Lleol y Cymoedd a Chaerdydd) (formerly Valley Lines) is the network of passenger suburban railway services radiating from Cardiff, Wales. It includes lines within the city itself, the Vale of Glam ...

Wales & West Wales & West was a train operating company in the United Kingdom that operated the South Wales & West franchise from 1996 until 2001. The franchise was operated by Prism Rail from October 1996 until July 2000, when the firm was taken over by N ...

, and

West Anglia Great Northern West Anglia Great Northern, commonly shortened to ''WAGN'', was a train operating company in England. It operated the West Anglia Great Northern franchise between January 1997 and March 2004, as well as the Great Northern franchise between Apri ...

. Prism Rail was founded by a number of individuals from the bus industry. The company raised the money to acquire its first passenger rail franchise from a small number of institutional investors, following which the shares were listed 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 (USM) that had been in operation since 1980. It allows ...

in May 1996. In July 2000 Prism Rail was purchased by

National Express National Express Group is a British multinational public transport company headquartered in Birmingham, England. It operates bus, coach, train and tram services in the United Kingdom, Ireland (National Express operates Eurolines in conjunction ...

.National Express buys Prism for £166m
''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' 19 July 2000 In the following four years LTS rebranded as

c2c Trenitalia c2c Limited,Companies House extract company no 789726 ...

, Valley Lines and Wales & West merged into Wales and Borders, and WAGN was split.

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