The corporation has existed under a number of guises since 1982, when the old New Zealand Railways Department was corporatised followed by deregulation of the land transport sector.

Negotiations with Toll over track access charges concluded after four years with no agreement reached, so the government purchased the entire rail and ferry operations, naming the service KiwiRail.

[4][6] The Fourth Labour Government passed the New Zealand Railways Corporation Restructuring Act 1990 on 28 August of that year.

Speedlink Parcels was sold to New Zealand Post, and InterCity bus services were sold in 1991 to InterCity Group, a group of four of the country's largest private coach companies – Ritchies Coachlines, Tranzit, PTL Route Services and Nelson SBL.

Railway stations in Auckland, Rotorua, Christchurch, Dunedin, Napier and Oamaru were sold, along with substantial tracts of land previously used for rail operations.

[8] Ownership of the railway corridor underneath the tracks remained with NZRC, which managed the lease of the land to New Zealand Rail Limited.

[11] For the subsequent periods the track access charges were to be renegotiated, along with the commitment by the Government and Toll to further investment in the rail network.

[11] From 1 July 2004 NZRC assumed the Crown's responsibilities under the National Rail Access Agreement and adopted the trading name ONTRACK.

[12] ONTRACK and Toll NZ were in dispute about track access fees from mid-2006 and an independent arbitrator, Bill Wilson QC, was called in to resolve the issues.

On 31 January 2007 Toll stated that[13] "...the discussions with the Crown on a long term sustainable access regime have generally been positive", but "Toll NZ is still concerned that the Crown appears to be unwilling to recognise the inequality of the funding support between road and rail and the need to adopt a more commercial approach to track access management".

[15] It planned to spend an estimated NZ$1 billion over five years to develop a modern effective rail system.

[21] On 27 June 2012 it was announced by the company that the value of the land and rail operations will be written down from NZ$7.8 billion to $1.1 to $1.3 billion, and KiwiRail will continue as the rail and ferry operator, while the New Zealand Railways Corporation will manage KiwiRail's land.

[25] From its inception in 1982 coinciding with land transport deregulation, the Railways Corporation struggled to retain market share, and its performance in terms of freight tonnage carried reflected this (figures are in thousands (000s)):[26]