The exceptions are South Eastern Trains and Translink. South Eastern Trains, which took over from Connex, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Strategic Rail Authority. The SRA hopes to award the franchise to a private operator in 2005. Translink is the Government-owned train company in Northern Ireland, where services were never privatised. A number of metropolitan railways - such as in Merseyside and Tyneside - are let by regional transport authorities.
At first glance it looks as if a large number of companies are involved in the UK's rail system. However, many of the train operating companies are in fact parts of larger companies which operate multiple franchises. The biggest are National Express Group, First Group, Virgin Trains and Arriva.
Central Trains (to be dissolved and split between Silverlink, Chiltern, Virgin CrossCountry, Midland Mainline and the Serco-NedRailways-operated franchise in 2006)
A number of operating companies have ceased to exist for a number of reasons, including premature withdrawal of the franchise; the natural term of the franchise has expired; bankruptcy; or there has been a merger.
Docklands Light Railway, which operates overground services in East london as a bolt-on to the tube network, is also included in the official list of rail operators in the UK - as is London Underground and Eurostar.
The remaining UKtrainoperatingcompanies on the official list are freight operators - EWS and Freightliner.
If your company is listed on this page but you think we have listed it incorrectly, or you think our listing is out of date, please email us.
Several UK cities have their own metro or tram systems, which are also not part of the National Rail network.
Finally there are a significant number of privately owned or heritage railways, as listed in the list of British heritage and private railways, which are not part of the National Rail network.
List of trainoperatingcompanies from National Rail website, retrieved 6 March 2006.
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