A highly successful model? The rail franchising business in Britain

A crucial feature of rail privatisation in Britain was franchising. Passenger services were franchised in competitive bidding processes to train operators which were meant to function with declining subsidy. The paper adopts the framework of social cost-benefit analysis to examine rail privatisation's impact on three key groups; consumers, producers and the government. It establishes that privatisation did not achieve all the supposed benefits. Further, franchising only appears to be profitable through the use of calculative accounting practices, where by franchised train operators are portrayed as discrete business entities, whereas they are supported by very substantial, ongoing direct and indirect government subsidies

A highly successful model? The rail franchising business in Britain

A crucial feature of rail privatisation in Britain was franchising. Passenger services were franchised in competitive bidding processes to train operators which were meant to function with declining subsidy. The paper adopts the framework of social cost-benefit analysis to examine rail privatisation's impact on three key groups; consumers, producers and the government. It establishes that privatisation did not achieve all the supposed benefits. Further, franchising only appears to be profitable through the use of calculative accounting practices, where by franchised train operators are portrayed as discrete business entities, whereas they are supported by very substantial, ongoing direct and indirect government subsidies

Strengthening of Railtrack owned highway bridges Guidance for implementation

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:f99/3681 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Annual report 1994/95

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:7243.495(1994/95) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Railtrack Annual report and accounts 1996/97

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:7243.49510(1995/1996) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Transport and works transport The Railtrack (Thameslink 2000) (Variation) Order 199[9]

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:m00/37868 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Transport and works transport The Railtrack (Thameslink 2000) Order 199[8]

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:m00/37869 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Railtrack (Thameslink 2000) Order Explanatory memorandum

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:m00/37866 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo