About Us

In April 1994, Porterbrook Leasing Company Limited (Porterbrook) bought approximately one third of British Rail’s rolling stock with leases in place with the newly created passenger train operators.

Following a Management and Employee buyout in January 1996 Porterbrook was sold to Stagecoach in August of the same year. In April 2000 Porterbrook was then bought by Abbey National Treasury Services and more recently in December 2008 was sold to a consortium of investors; Antin Infrastructure, Deutsche Bank, Lloyds TSB and OP Trust. Lloyds TSB subsequently exited the consortium in October 2010.

Porterbrook’s investment to date in the UK rail markets totals to almost £2 billion in new trains and over £200 million on existing fleet refurbishment, resulting in:

• Over 1,800 state-of-the-art new passenger vehicles
• Over 2,000 new freight vehicles
• Extensive fleet modernisation, upgrade and refurbishment programmes
• Equipment leased to UK Train Operating Companies and UK
• Freight Companies
• Development of eco-friendly technologies
• Graduate training, bringing dynamic new professionals into the UK rail industry

Porterbrook’s aim in the coming years is to not only continue with investment in new trains and associated equipment for the UK rail industry but to also improve reliability, availability, maintainability and safety characteristics by working closely with the freight operators, train operators and suppliers to identify opportunities.