I n the UK we can thank the rail privatisation in the 90s for the development of‘open-access’ operators.
The idea behind open-access was to provide the incumbent train operating companies (TOCs) with some competition, and ultimately lead to passenger benefits.
But matters haven’t quite worked as intended, with open-access mainline operators still fairly rare. In the UK, this includes Grand Central, Heathrow Express, Hull Trains and Lumo.
Unlike TOCs, who pay the government hefty
