Rail Partners and its founding members – the owning groups of passenger train companies – took the decision in November 2024 to close Rail Partners at the end of the 2024/25 financial year. In the three years of Rail Partners, we contributed to the public policy debate about the future of the railway on behalf of passenger owning groups and freight operating companies – priding ourselves on holding governments to account with evidence-based arguments and providing policy solutions to the challenges that the railway is facing.

While train companies lost the argument over nationalisation, ultimately everyone at Rail Partners wants the railway to succeed. The overall direction of public ownership is now set, but many of the big questions of how the railway will grow and thrive under this new model are, at time of writing, still being worked through and debated. We hope the evidence-based policy held within these pages, remain a useful secondary resource to interested parties. They will be available until 31 March 2026, when this website will close.

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank our dedicated team, our members and our stakeholders for their engagement and support over the last three years and wish colleagues across the sector all the best for the future.

The Rail Partners Team