Rail privatisation was a controversial, widely unpopular policy whose implementation was not inevitable. This article employs counterfactual history methodology to examine whether the move to rail privatisation in Britain might have failed. It places the privatisation proposals in context by...

Purpose – The paper aims to examine the role, funding and status of Network Rail, a very significant example of New Labour's attempt to operationalise the “third way”. The analysis of Network Rail is used to critique the “third way” approach to policy-making in Britain....

Following the development of the New Right Agenda, Conservative Governments in Britain introduced incrementally an extensive privatization programme. This paper focuses on the failure of the last privatization of the Conservatives: British Energy, the company established to run the eight most...

<title/> In March 2006, the Rail Regulator made a controversial decision to award open access rights to a new train operator on the east coast route. A 10-year franchise had been granted to GNER on this route in 2005 on the assumption that there would not be competition from open access operators. This...

<title/> In July 2004, the Government published a white paper on ‘The Future of Rail’, which outlined its planned third attempt to reform the railways. This article reviews the new blueprint for rail, in the context of the performance of the industry and its regulatory bodies. The changes proposed...

In August 2012, the UK's Department for Transport (DfT) announced the award of the new West Coast rail franchise to FirstGroup. The incumbent operator, Virgin Rail Group, then launched legal proceedings to challenge the decision. The DfT initially defended the award, but cancelled the franchise...