Britain's railway system was built by private companies, but it was nationalised by the Transport Act 1947 and … See more

Network Rail is a not-for-profit organisation. The majority of funding comes from a mix of direct grants and borrowing from the UK and Scottish Governments, payments from train and freight operators and a small amount of i… See more

Network Rail covers 20,000 miles of track, and 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts. They claim to run the world's largest third rail network.
In February 2004, an operations centre at Waterloo st… See more

From 1997 to 2014 (inclusive), passenger numbers have more than doubled, following little growth in the previous decades. To cope with the increasing passenger numbers, Network Rail is currently undertakin… See more

The company is accountable to a body of members through its corporate constitution, to its commercial train operator customers through its contracts with them (the contracts are subject to regulatory oversight), … See more

While generally good, the safety record of the company was marred in February 2007 when a Virgin express derailed at Grayrigg in Cumbria. Network Rail admitted responsibility for the incident. The RAIB investigatio… See more

In 2001, the Labour government denied that it had nationalised the rail network in order to prevent Railtrack's shareholders claiming, via the European Court of Human Rights, the four-year average price of Railtrack, a… See more