Once upon a time there were three creatures called roscos, or rolling stock leasing companies, which under the arrangements put in place at the time of the rail privatisation owned the trains that were leased to the operators. These turned out to be spectacularly good investments, if not so great for the public purse, which may explain why the current crop of big rail projects is being done rather differently.
On the Intercity Express Programme, providing new stock for the West Coast and East Coast main lines, the private company making and maintaining the trains has a long-term contract with the Department for Transport, not the operator. Agility Trains is 70 per cent owned by Hitachi, which builds the trains, and 30 per cent by