A fundamental change in the structure of the British railway industry took place on 1 April 1994.

Until that date, British Rail had owned all the track, stations and other infrastructure and had owned and operated all the trains using it (with some exceptions such as London Underground, lines run by local authorities, private lines such as the Bluebell line and the Orient Express - owned by Sea Containers but driven by BR employees).On 1 April Railtrack was established.

This is a government-owned company which took control of almost all British Rail's track, stations, depots, signals and operational land, together with the responsibility for co-ordinating train movements over the network.In the short term, British Rail remains the operator of most of the trains.

But its passenger train operations have been divided into 25 units, and these are in the course of being incorporated into separate companies.Gatwick Express Ltd was established in April 1994 and European Passenger Services Ltd in May, Great Western Ltd was established last summer, South West Trains Ltd, InterCity East Coast Ltd, London Tilbury Southend Ltd and Scotrail Ltd last autumn.

All 25 are to be established by the end of March 1995.A similar process is under way in all the other areas of British Rail.

On 1 April 1994 nearly all its passenger rolling stock was transferred to three leasing companies, which will lease it to train operators.

British Rail Maintenance Ltd, which currently provides heavy maintenance for that rolling stock, is already a separate BR subsidiary.

British Rail's Trainload Freight business will have been vested into three separate companies by the end of October 1994.

Its infrastructure maintenance operations are being reorganised into over a dozen different units.In due course all these companies will be transferred into the private sector.

Each passenger train operating company will be acquired by a franchisee, which will agree with the franchising director to run services over the relevant part of the network for a specified period of time in return for specified payments.

At the end of that period, the franchise business will be transferred to the next franchisee.

The other companies will be sold outright.For a litigation solicitor representing a passenger injured in a rail accident, a rail employee with an industrial injury claim, or a motorist whose car is damaged in a station car park, the important dates are those of establishment of the new companies as separate.Before 1 April 1994 any such claim needed to be brought only against BR - in most cases if anyone was at fault it must have been that company.Soon there will be a number of potential defendants: in a personal injury claim arising out of a collision, the potential defendants could inc lude two train operators (which ran the trains), Railtrack (responsible for the points and signals), one or more infrastructure maintenance companies (which maintained the points and signals), British Rail Maintenance Ltd (which carried out heavy maintenance on the trains) and one or two leasing companies (which own the trains and are responsible for design defects - and, indeed, may have claims against the train manufacturers).If nothing was done to help the passenger, he or she would have to sue all those defendants and prove which of them caused the accident and which was negligent.This is not the first time there have been independent train operators, running trains over track that does not belong to them.

The same situation occurred before 1948 (although trains running on another company's track were the exception rather than the rule) and the common law assisted an injured plaintiff faced with a number of railway defendants.

Res ipsa loquitur was invoked where damage was caused by an incident which was under a train operator's control and would not have occurred in the ordinary course of events if proper care had been used (for example, Ayles v South Eastern Railway Company [1868] LR 3 Exch 146).A term is also implied into a passenger's contract of carriage that he or she will be carried with reasonable care, such that the carrier is liable for the negligence of an independent contractor to which it has delegated any task connected with carrying the passenger (Thomas v Rhymney Company [1871] LR 6 QB 266).The government's aim was to leave a plaintiff in no worse a position than he or she had been in prior to 1 April 1994, and these presumptions were insufficient to achieve that.

Res ipsa loquitur is a rebuttable presumption.

It is arguable that the Thomas v Rhymney term is only implied if there is nothing in the carrier's contract to rebut its implication.

Where there are several potential railway defendants to a claim, a plaintiff should not have to sue more than one of them, and should not have to prove which of them was at fault.In the international rail context, this is a problem that has been addressed, at least partially, by the convention concerning international carriage by rail (COTIF).

That makes the operator of a line (and, since 1 January 1995, the operator of rail services on a line) liable for personal injury claims occurring on the line.This primary liability on the operator continues in relation to claims arising in the UK in the course of international journeys.

But it is clearly too unsophisticated a basis of liability to govern all claims arising on the British network.The solution adopted has been to establish a central claims handling agency, Railway Claims Ltd (RCL).

All licensed rail industry parties are members of RCL and are obliged by their licences to participate in the arrangements described below.Passengers are requested to address to RCL all claims arising out of railway operations such as those by individuals for personal injury or damage to property, for example.

Complaints about delay or poor service go to the customer complaints manager of the relevant train operator in the normal way.

Personal injury claims by employees are within the scheme, but other claims arising out of the contract of employment are not.RCL conducts the initial investigation of a claim, handles and settles small claims, assists in handling larger ones and acts as a nominal defendant in any litigation.RCL's address, to which claims should be sent, is Macmillan House, Paddington Station, London W2 1FT.

RCL's agreement with its members requires it to acknowledge claimants' letters and return telephone calls promptly, to notify a claimant of the name of the person dealing with the claim and to send promptly to a claimant a claim form for completion and return.RCL is authorised by industry parties to handle and settle, without reference back to them, claims below £7500 (this threshold is calculated by including interest, excluding both parties' costs and aggregating all claims resulting from the same event or circumstance).The exceptions are employee liability claims and where a particular industry party accepts liability for the claim, or all such claims.

In those cases the party may handle the claim itself.Claims above £7500 are handled by the industry party which is likely to bear the largest proportion of liability for the claim (the lead party), in consultation with the other parties which are potentially liable.

A claim which at first seems likely to amount to less than £7500 but later seems likely to amount to more is from that time on handled by the lead party rather than RCL.A plaintiff cannot be prevented from suing all the industry parties individually, if he or she chooses to do so despite the problems identified above.

The scheme merely provides the opportunity to sue RCL instead and thereby to avoid those problems.Before a claimant can issue proceedings against RCL, as a nominal defendant, a cause of action must be created.

To achieve this, where a claimant threatens proceedings, RCL will make an offer to the claimant that if the claimant sues RCL and no other industry party, and establishes that he or she has suffered loss for which one or more industry parties would be liable at law (taking into account the terms of any contract with them) then even though the claimant may be unable to identify which industry party was at fault, RCL will compensate the claimant for that loss.This offer is made on behalf of all the industry parties which have authorised RCL to represent them.

These include all licensed train operators and Railtrack, together with any independent contractors which have bound themselves into the arrangement by contract: these are specified in the offer.Where a lead party, rather than RCL, is handling the claim, it must make the offer on behalf of RCL.

A claimant accepts the offer by suing RCL and no other industry party.The arrangements ensure that a plaintiff which sues RCL is in no worse a position procedurally than he or she would be if he or she had sued all the industry parties individually.Thus industry parties must make available to RCL all documents relevant to a dispute, any relevant property for inspection and any individual who may be able to provide material evidence, so that RCL can provide full discovery to the plaintiff, make property available for inspection and serve witness statements.Likewise, each industry party has agreed to comply with any order made against RCL in the proceedings as if the order had been made against that party.

Finally, RCL can satisfy a plaintiff as to its financial position, since it has an unqualified right to obtain from industry parties the funds necessary to settle a claim or to pay judgment.

If one of them fails to pay, RCL can draw on a bank facility established for the purpose and guaranteed by industry parties.In the same way, RCL may take an assignment from an industry party of any counterclaim against the plaintiff, or any contribution claim against third parties.

Thus RCL can, as far as possible, stand in the shoes of the vario us industry parties which would otherwise have to be separately represented in the proceedings.In addition to protecting passengers' interests, the claims handling scheme is intended to minimise industry parties' legal costs incurred in dealing with third-party claims.If all parties had to negotiate separately with the plaintiff and needed to be represented separately in proceedings, claims would take forever to be resolved and the costs incurred would spiral.

Having one party negotiate with the plaintiff and defend the proceedings limits the cost.

The procedures for allocating responsibility for a claim have been formulated with the same end in view.It was important to avoid costly disputes over the allocation of minor claims.

Those below £7500 (including interest, but excluding plaintiffs' and defendants' costs) arising out of a single circumstance are pre-allocated according to the type of circumstance.Claims by passengers travelling on a train are borne by the train operator, whatever the cause of the injury.

For example, for anybody injured while crossing a level-crossing claim are borne by Railtrack.

It will therefore be evident from the beginning which industry party will meet any liability arising from most claims.Such a system would be inappropriate for larger claims, over £7500.

Therefore such a claim is borne by the party of parties that are legally liable for it.

In many cases this will be evident by the time the claim is resolved, if not before.

Sometimes it will not, and in such cases a dispute resolution mechanism is needed.A two-stage process has been set up.

It comes into operation once the plaintiff's claim has been settled or decided in court, since it is only then that all the facts relevant to allocation will be known.

If payment to the plaintiff is due before allocation is decided, the industry parties which are potentially liable for the claim share the liability on a without-prejudice basis.

Adjustments are made after allocation.The first stage is informal and non-binding, aimed at a quick, amicable settlement of the dispute.

If the parties involved agree, they may use mediation, with a mediator (selected from a panel) meeting senior managers from the parties.

Otherwise, the dispute goes before the industry's dispute resolution committee, made up of representatives of the various categories of industry party.Decisions of the committee must be unanimous, and a party to a dispute may attend and vote at the meeting, so it cannot impose a settlement.

But the committee has an independent chairman who may, in cases of disagreement, make a ruling.For a claim of less than £7500, a party who refuses to accept such a ruling goes to arbitration (see below) and will usually have to pay all the costs of the arbitration, win or lose.

In all cases there is a degree of peer pressure on the parties to accept the committee's collective view.If the informal stage fails to resolve a dispute over allocation of a claim, it goes to arbitration.

If an arbitrator cannot be agreed between the parties, one is picked by the industry's disputes secretary from a panel of arbitrators and experts with experience of the industry.

Unless he or she orders otherwise, and accelerated procedure applies, with time limits that result in a hearing within eight weeks of the arbitrator's appointment.To achieve this, the procedure provides for no automatic discovery; but each party attaches to its case any documents it relies on.

It is also obliged to produce any specific, identified document which is relevant to the dispute and which either another party or the arbitrator requests it to produce; exchange of witness statements and expert reports; written submissions are served in advance of the hearing; at the hearing, no oral opening submissions or examination-in-chief of witnesses.

Cross-examination of witnesses is allowed as are oral closing submissions, but limited to 20 minutes.Arbitration awards are circulated to all industry parties, so that a body of case law is established.

That should help to limit disputes by enabling parties to predict the outcome if they go to arbitration.Extra complexity is inevitable where an industry run by a single corporation is divided up into a number of companies.

But the result of the above procedures should be that an injured plaintiff will be compensated as fully and quickly as he or she was before 1 April 1994 (possibly more so), while the cost of allocating the liability for that compensation between industry parties is kept to a minimum.