Mainline Freight

Company History: Mainline Freight was a trainload rail freight operator based in Islington, London, England with operations extending to Yorkshire in the north and Somerset in the west. It was formed from part of British Rail's Trainload Freight division as part of the privatisation of British Rail.

Mainline Freight, Loadhaul and Transrail were purchased by a consortium led by Wisconsin Central in 1996 and amalgamated into a new company, English Welsh & Scottish.

Successor/Parent History: Wisconsin Central Ltd. (reporting mark WC) is a railroad subsidiary of the Canadian National Railway. At one time, its parent Wisconsin Central Transportation Corporation owned or operated railroads in the United States, Canada (Algoma Central Railway), the United Kingdom (English Welsh & Scottish), New Zealand (Tranz Rail), and Australia (Australian Transport Network).

Wisconsin Central Ltd. (WC) started in US in the mid-1980s using most of the original Wisconsin Central Railway's rights of way and some former Milwaukee Road rights of way after the Soo Line Railroad acquired the Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Minnesota holdings of the bankrupt Milwaukee Road and divested its older railway trackage in Wisconsin. In 1993 the Wisconsin Central also acquired the Green Bay and Western Railroad and the Fox River Valley Railroad.

At the time of its sale to Canadian National, Wisconsin Central operated over 2,850 miles (4,590 km) of track in the Great Lakes region. The railroad extended from Chicago into and through Wisconsin to Minneapolis/St. Paul and Duluth, Minnesota, to Sault Ste Marie, Michigan, and north (through the Algoma Central Railway) to Hearst, Ontario.

A condition of Soo Line’s acquisition of Milwaukee Road was that they had to sell a number of lines in Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. They established Lake States Transportation to separate these lines from the rest of Soo Line. In 1987, Lake States was sold to a group of investors and Wisconsin Central was born. Much of the track had belonged to the original Wisconsin Central, a Soo subsidiary which had been merged into Soo in 1960. In 1993, WC acquired Fox River Valley Railroad and Green Bay & Western. In 1995, they founded a Canadian subsidiary and acquired the Algoma Central. Then in 1997, they picked up another 200 miles of former C&NW line running north from Green Bay from Union Pacific. At this point, the 2,850 mile WC (between GM&O and Erie Lackawanna in relative size) linked: Chicago, Milwaukee, Green Bay, Minneapolis/St.Paul, Duluth/Superior, then down Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to Sault Ste. Marie where they connected to Algoma Central north to Hearst, Ontario. WC’s parent company also went on a buying spree of railroads in other countries including New Zealand, Britain, and Australia. Wisconsin Central was sold to Canadian National in 2001. It operates as a paper railroad under CN’s flag today.

From Wikipedia and Bluford Shops

Brief History: The United Kingdom, made up of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, is an island nation in northwestern Europe. England – birthplace of Shakespeare and The Beatles – is home to the capital, London, a globally influential centre of finance and culture. England is also site of Neolithic Stonehenge, Bath’s Roman spa and centuries-old universities at Oxford and Cambridge.