Who runs the railways? British Rail, which previously ran the entire system, was privatised by the Conservatives in the mid-1990s and split into three parts. Network Rail, which is state-funded, operates and maintains the tracks and the biggest stations. Private operators run the trains and smaller stations under 20 franchises signed with the government. Passenger numbers are certainly up (having doubled since privatisation), record sums are being spent upgrading the historically underfunded network (£50 billion in the past five years) and it is…

Source: The Times April 30, 2018 22:52 UTC