A rail transport company is a

company A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of legal people, whether Natural person, natural, Juridical person, juridical or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members ...

active within the rail industry. It can be: * a

manufacturing Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of the secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer ...

company, * a railway undertaking providing services through operating rolling stock, * a railway infrastructure manager. In some jurisdictions such as the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, railway companies may combine these roles. Railway companies can be private or

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...

Structure

In Europe, the EU requires its members to separate the national railway infrastructure managers from railway undertakings which are public and private companies providing services by operating rolling stock. This ensures conditions enabling the latter companies to compete fairly among each other, with multiple companies bidding for the privilege to operate the line for a limited time period under public service obligation aided by railway subsidies or under franchising. In addition, other companies offer trackside and rolling stock maintenance. Some countries have in turn a national railway company that owns all track and operates all trains in the country, for instance the Russian Railways (the world's largest rail company by network size). Other countries have many different, sometimes competing, railway companies that operate each their own lines, particularly in the

and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. Countries may have both public and private railway companies, for instance the United States, where the publicly-owned

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak (; ), is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

exists alongside numerous private operators.

References

{{Authority control Railway companies cs:Provozovatel drážní dopravy pl:Przewoźnik kolejowy

Structure

See also

References