The privatisation of British rail : how not to run a railway

"This authorative volume assesses the origins and impact of the privatisation of the British railway industry. Conducted through a series of peer reviewed academic papers from leading international journals over the period 1996-2019, it explores why the British government pursued this policy, and analyses the impact on the major sectors of the railway: the infrastructure; passenger services; freight services; and the rolling stock companies. The privatization of the British railway industry was a unique political and economic event. An integrated industry was broken-up into numerous component parts and sold off to private sector interests. The result was a highly fragmented industry that was structurally unsound and operationally dysfunctional. This scholarly analysis presents an enlightening portrait of an industry that is less efficient, more costly, and still more dependent on state subsidy today than its nationalised predecessor and a rigorous evaluation of how and why the industry has become so dysfunctional and costly supported by detailed financial analysis and industry examples. Going far beyond the usual superficial analysis of the topic, this peer reviewed volume will be of great interest to researchers and advanced students of accounting, economics, business history, transport studies, as well as industry and specialised business interests in transport and privatization."