(28 Mar 2016, 11:26 pm)northern156 wrote Rolling stock is bought by ROSCOs ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_...ng_company ) and then leased to various operating companies.
The railway network is made up of various franchises; which private operators bid to run when the franchise is up for renewal. A rather controversial situation especially when you have Stagecoach running all three principal routes between London and the North (they half own Virgin Trains, and EMT is fully Stagecoach).
Other operators run on the network on an Open Access basis; essentially extra services which are not franchised. One example is Grand Central, part of Arriva.
Cheers, it's all making a lot more sense to me now
