Who owns the WC line in England?

Who ownes the Ex-WC line in England that the Wisconsin Central Railroad owned before they were brought by CN?

they never owned the actual line , just the right to run trains over it .
All railway lines in Britan are owned by a government company .
It then tenders out contracts to run trains on each line , and either pays a subsidy to the company operating the trains , or gets a payment off them if the route is profitable .

David Benton wrote:they never owned the actual line , just the right to run trains over it .
All railway lines in Britan are owned by a government company .
It then tenders out contracts to run trains on each line , and either pays a subsidy to the company operating the trains , or gets a payment off them if the route is profitable .

Thank You for that help. Did they ever run trains on it?

AmtrakFan wrote:Who ownes the Ex-WC line in England that the Wisconsin Central Railroad owned before they were brought by CN?

Wisconsin Central did not I think own English, Welsh and Scottish Railway completely. The part they owned is now owned by Canadian National. I understand from the railway press that they want to sell it. I don't know who they want to sell it to. From a visit to Wisconsin I notice that the EWSR locomotives use the same colour scheme as in Wisconsin.

EWSR runs freight trains, both within Britain and through the tunnel. There are other, smaller freight companies. Direct Rail Services used to be exclusively for moving nuclear materials about but now carries other things. Freightliner specialises in containers. GB Rail also carries freight, and some mail.

The track is owned by Network Rail, a company whose ownership is not entirely clear. It has no shareholders and is not for profit. In the end most people think the government is answerable. EWSR and the other freight companies have to apply for slots to run trains. Most slots are occupied by passenger trains. Network Rail makes the complete timetable for the whole system. Every freight train has to be timetabled.

I thought Britain's railways were privatized in 1990? Not sure though

CNW_4404_Lover wrote:I thought Britain's railways were privatized in 1990? Not sure though

British Rail's freight business was split into a number of comapnies that were supposed to compete with each other. Wisconsin Central formed a company called English, Welsh and Scottish railway which bought three of the companies. I think they had financial partners. Ed Burkhrdt was clearly the main influence.

EWSR has been successful in increasing the amount of freight business. Under BR it had been steadily declining.

The company owns locomotives it took over from British Rail but has bought large numbers of GM locos, classified mostly as Class 66. Some of these are also in use in other countries. Many of the locos they inherited have been sold, scrapped or are unused. I suspect that many of them are in fact leased from the ROSCOS, companies owned by banks that own most of the rolling stock in Britain. These are the companies who have financed all the new trains we have now.