Prism Rail was established by a number of individuals from the private bus industry with the intention of securing one or more of the
passenger rail franchises that were being created by the
privatisation of British Rail. During January 1997, Prism Rail was forced to abandon a £30 million bonus share scheme intended for its management after several of the company's investors expressed their dissatisfaction, with some claiming it to have been excessively generous. In May 1996, it was announced that the
Director of Passenger Rail Franchising had awarded the
London, Tilbury and Southend franchise to Prism Rail for a period of 15 years; operations of
LTS Rail commenced later that same month. The terms of franchise included its potential to be curtailed to only seven years if the operator did not fulfil bid commitments to replace the existing
rolling stock with new trains. Accordingly, during 1997, Prism Rail placed an order valued at £92 million with the multinational rolling stock manufacturer
Adtranz for the production of 44
Class 357 "
Electrostar" EMUs. In its bid for the
West Anglia Great Northern (WAGN) franchise, Prism Rail promised that it would make a premium payment of £24.8 million to the franchising office in 2004. During December 1996, it was announced that the company had been awarded a seven year concession to operate the WAGN franchise; it was the fourth awarding of a passenger train franchise to Prism Rail by that time. By 1999, according to statistics compiled by the
Office of Passenger Rail Franchising, West Anglia Great Northern was amongst the best performing franchises, being one of only seven franchises to obtain a B grade, for which its average punctuality had to be above 90 per cent while its average reliability figures had to be exceed 99 per cent. In July 2000, the company had agreed to invest £20.5m into the network, and had reported that the
Great Northern portion of the franchise' operations were running at a profit. The integration of the two companies was formally completed on 19 September 2000. On 2 July 2000, LTS Rail was rebranded as c2c. In March 2001, National Express combined the management and support functions of c2c,
Silverlink, WAGN, and
Stansted Express in a single organisation called
London Lines. During October 2001, the company's two franchises in Wales,
Valley Lines and
Wales & West, were reorganised, after which the new
Wales & Borders franchise assumed responsibility for the majority of services in Wales as shown on its map.{{cite web |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20030614202259/http://www.walesandborderstrains.co.uk/uploads/documents/106.pdf |url = http://www.walesandborderstrains.co.uk/uploads/documents/106.pdf ==References==