why was Railtrack put into administration in the first place?
Former transport secretary Stephen Byers decided to put Railtrack into administration in October 2001, after a series of events left the company in financial crisis. A key catalyst was the Hatfield rail crash in October 2000, which was found to be the result of a broken rail. This exposed a series of errors and the weak state of the rail network in the UK and led to numerous speed restrictions. But these resulted in enormous compensation claims by the train operators, and Railtrack went from being a profitable company, to reporting losses of 534m. Hatfield alone may not have seen Railtrack off. But at the same time, the company had been spending vast sums of money refurbishing the West Coast Main Line. Mr Byers said company had told him in July that it was facing financial disaster. He said that by December 2001, losses would have been 700m, rising to 1.7bn by March 2002. If the company was put into administration, how come I can still buy shares in the company? Railtrack shares were s
