> the rail itself kept in a weird thing called National Rail that has an odd public/private structure that I don't understand No, it wasn't. The rail itself w

> the rail itself kept in a weird thing called National Rail that has an odd public/private structure that I don't understand No, it wasn't. The rail itself was sold off as Railtrack. Following on from the Hatfield crash, after which it spent £580 million on repairing similar track faults as which caused the Hatfield crash, and a few hundred million more on compensation, which led to the failure of the company and it entered "railway administration" (essentially a special form of administration created along with the privatisation of the railways to avoid the railway ceasing operating when in administration). Network Rail then bought Railtrack in 2002, bringing the railway infrastructure back into public hands. Railtrack was then subsequently liquidated.