If you’ve heard of Total Rail Solutions and wondered what the organization was, or why it’s not operational anymore, you’re not the only one. TRS was widely recognised in the rail plant and subcontracting sector in the UK for more than 15 years. It was acquired by Readypower Group in October 2023 and was placed in voluntary liquidation. In this article, we’ll take a look at what Total Rail Solutions did, who owned it, the major highlights when it came to the exit process, and what happened to its employees and operations.

Company Overview

Detail	Information
Full name	Total Rail Solutions Limited
Also known as	TRS
Incorporated	January 31, 2007
Company number	06076007
Headquarters	Thatcham, Berkshire, UK
Regional offices	South Wales, North East, North West
Core services	Road-rail, point-of-sale, plant hire, subcontracting and rail labour
CEO (final)	Paul Bateman
Private equity backer	From 2018, the legal team was joined by Rutland Partners LLP
Acquired by	Readypower Group Limited (OCT 16, 2023)
Current status	In this instance the company is wound up and becomes an extinct entity (Liquidation)
Successor operations	The mobile phone is fully integrated into Readypower Group

What Total Rail Solutions Did

Total Rail Solutions wasn’t well known, and that was intentional. It was a specialist subcontractor, not a principal contractor, and was of the UK rail industry.

It was the manufacturer of the Road Rail Vehicle (RRV), its primary product. These are machines which can be run on public roads as well as railway tracks and are vital to maintenance and renewal work when tracks are being used overnight or on weekends. These were operated by TRS, and featured special models like the Doosan Ultimate 270 crane with a lifting capacity of 3,500 kg at 11 metres radius.

The company served the following services:

• Operated and non-operated RRV hire, providing plant with or without trained operators
• POS (possession) services, overseeing machinery and personnel in the access tracks
• Labour solutions, which involves offering trained rail workers to the principal contractors
• The installation and upkeep of electrification infrastructure, OLE (overhead line equipment) services

That OLE ability was very useful. TRS was found attractive to larger organisations in the UK because very few organisations in the UK can deliver overhead line work at scale.

Important Projects and Clients

In its working life, TRS had close working relationships with Network Rail and the main Principal Contractors in the UK rail supply chain. The company was engaged in subcontracting work relating to Crossrail, the largest single infrastructure investment in the UK in a generation, with intensive plant activity both on and off the track at the central tunnel facility and on the surface at the Great Eastern and Great Western main lines.

Network Rail plans maintenance and enhancements activity in five-year chunks known as Control Periods. TRS worked predominantly in CP6 (2019 to 24), during which time a variety of track renewal and electrification projects were delivered across the national rail network.

It had its head office at Thatcham, with strategic regional offices in South Wales, the North East and the North West, providing national coverage across the UK rail network.

Who Owned Total Rail Solutions

It’s important to note that the TRS ownership history is key to understanding its growth as well as its eventual exit.

Established in 2007, the company developed organically into a well-respected mid-tier RRV operator. Private equity firm Rutland Partners LLP invested in TRS in 2018 to grow the business through CP6. The plan for Rutland was simple from the start: expand the company in the CP6 spending cycle before exiting before the end of CP6 in April 2024.

The planned exit took place on 16th October 2023, on the day of TRS’s sale of its entire share capital to Readypower Group Limited. Ben Slatter, Partner at Rutland, called it an “easy way to end a carefully considered strategy.” The deal was confirmed publicly by Readypower CEO Russell Jack, who said TRS was facing a decreasing work bank as the industry was closing out CP6.

The Coming Together of the Readypower Group

Readypower Group is one of the largest providers of services to on-track plant and railway services in the UK. Readypower acquired the Total Rail Solutions fleet, trained staff, OLE system and client base.

The integration process continued until the end of 2023, with the operations of TRS being fully integrated into Readypower before the CP7 period (2024-2029). The full consolidation was confirmed by Readypower’s website and TRS’s LinkedIn profile. The TRS LinkedIn page now reads: “Total Rail Solutions is no longer a business and has ceased to exist as such, the business has been acquired by Readypower Group and is now a full part of the Readypower business.”

Readypower’s acquisition of Angel Trains, a rolling stock and rail asset investor, further added to the acquisitions of TRS’s former operations by a larger infrastructure group.

What Voluntary Liquidation Means

Following the acquisition, the original TRS legal entity (company number 06076007) liquidated itself. This is something that should be understood properly.

Voluntary liquidation is not compulsory liquidation, which is creditor-led and usually indicates financial difficulties. Voluntary liquidation involves a company’s directors undertaking a planned process of wind down, typically to wind up the old company and to cleanly resolve any legacy obligations, and to close the original corporate structure after the transfer of operations to the acquiring company.

The liquidation of the original entity was a clean-up process for TRS after it had been acquired by Readypower, which took over its fleet, people and operations. It is not an indication that the business went out of business, nor does it imply that creditors required a business be shut. The operations continued, just under Readypower’s ownership.

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Where Are the Staff and Skills?

Rail subcontractors have a trained and safety certified workforce, which is something that can’t be replicated. There are a number of skills that are required for an RRV operator, overhead line engineer and possession manager, and these skills are developed and maintained over many years.

Much of the staff were transferred to Readypower when they acquired TRS. During rail sector acquisitions, the knowledge, expertise, and skills of the people are generally a main reason behind the transaction. Readypower was an extension of the technical expertise developed by TRS staff over many years of work on super complex infrastructure projects, which continued to permeate and spread throughout the wider rail supply chain.

This continuity is critical to the rail industry. As CP7 began, losing trained and competent, on-track workers will present a real delivery risk in terms of ongoing maintenance and renewal programmes, a risk which neither Readypower or Network Rail could afford.

Why TRS Is Still Appearing in Searches

Total Rail Solutions is no longer an independent company, as of 2026. The name is still used in:

• Records of the historic projects and tender documents in CP6 works
• The following list shows details of employment for rail employees who had jobs at TRS
• Provide databases for principal contractors and infrastructure clients to use in supply chains
• The industry analysis of the UK rail plant and subcontracting sector was undertaken

For current services, the respective company is now Readypower Group, who have taken over all the capabilities of TRS. All projects, equipment and staff previously connected to TRS are now under the umbrella of Readypower.

Final Thoughts

Total Rail Solutions is a shining example of what a mid-tier specialist company does in the UK rail industry, it’s out there, it’s very efficient and it’s often nothing on the surface less than essential. TRS developed a reputation of getting it right in possession play, as well as aesthetics and a trained staff, during a 16-year development process of a fleet. Investment in the Rutland product has provided a runway for growth, while the Readypower investment has ensured that its capabilities have continued through CP6, and will continue to serve the market in CP7.

This is not a failure, it is part of the orderly administrative dissolution of the original company in the context of a corporate change plan. That distinction is important to anyone who ever worked at TRS, or was responsible for ordering its services, or who had seen its name in a project record.

FAQ

What was Total Rail Solutions? 

Total Rail Solutions (TRS) was a rail services company based in the UK that was incorporated in 2007 and had its headquarters in Thatcham, Berkshire. It focused on road-rail vehicles, plant hire, possession services, overhead line work and labour provision for the principal contractors on the UK rail network.

Will Total Rail Solutions be around in 2026? 

No. The original TRS company (company number 06076007) went into voluntary liquidation after being acquired by Readypower Group in October 2023. No longer operating in its own right. All its operations are now done under Readypower Group, which was later acquired by Angel Trains.

Who bought Total Rail Solutions? 

On 16 October 2023, Readypower Group Limited completed its acquisition of all the shares in TRS. Rutland Partners LLP, a private equity firm, was the seller since it acquired investment in 2018. By early 2024, Readypower had completely incorporated TRS.

What caused Total Rail Solutions to go into liquidation? 

The voluntary liquidation was not pressured by creditors, but as part of the post-acquisition clean-up. A well-established procedure for winding up a company when the assets have been transferred to another company, which is the acquiring company, and the business is no longer in existence.

What did Total Rail Solutions do? 

TRS operated and non-operated road-rail vehicles, overhead line equipment services and rail labour solutions. It featured a specialist plant fleet and was used on a number of large schemes such as infrastructure works for Crossrail as part of Network Rail’s Control Period 6.

Which company’s CEO was Mr. Raghuveer Shetty? 

Paul Bateman was the CEO of Total Rail Solutions in the last years of its operations prior to the Readypower acquisition.