The company was originally established in 1994 as a private consortium to own European Passenger Services and build the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL) under a contract agreed with the government.

After the full length of the CTRL was opened and rebranded as High Speed 1 (HS1) in late 2007, the company subsequently ran into financial difficulties and was nationalised in June 2009.

To aid the construction process, Union Railways was empowered by the British government to make use of compulsory purchase orders as a reserve measure for land acquisition.

[3] The original shareholders of LCR were Bechtel (19%), Warburg (19%), Virgin Group (18%), National Express (17.5%), SNCF (8.5%), London Electricity (8.5%), Arup (3.5%), Halcrow (3%) and Systra (3%).

[5][6] In January 1998, LCR ran into major financial difficulties after finding that income from its share of the Eurostar operation was not at the level it expected.

[16] Following a series of rail accidents and a subsequent share price collapse, Railtrack announced in April 2001 that it would not take up its option to project manage and then purchase Section 2.

[26] Over the next few years, rumours repeatedly circled that numerous parties, including the businessman Adrian Montague, intended to acquire LCR from its current shareholders.

[27][28] By late 2007, reports were emerging that the British government were contemplating breaking up LCR into three separate companies and their sale to private owners.

[30][31] By May 2009, LCR had become insolvent, and the government received an agreement to use state aid to purchase the line and to open it up to competition to allow other services to use it apart from Eurostar.

[32] Following the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (Supplementary Provisions) Act 2008, the Department for Transport took direct ownership of LCR in June 2009 for a nominal price.

This was possible due to the company's dependence on £5.1bn of government-guaranteed debt, and the government's special share in LCR giving it a wide range of control over the business.

[41][42] Following the abolition of BRB (Residuary) Limited (BRBR) on 30 September 2013, LCR took ownership of a number of former British Rail offices in Croydon, Derby, Manchester and Birmingham, as well as sites in Oxford and Leeds.

LCR plans to bring forward property developments on several railway sites in North West England, including Manchester Mayfield.