The bill was introduced and published on 25 November 2004 and received royal assent on 7 April 2005.
The act implemented the institutional changes published in the Department for Transport's white paper on rail of 15 July 2004, principally: During the final parliamentary stages of the passage of the Railways Act 2005, the government sustained a defeat in the House of Lords over an amendment which would have protected passenger and train operators against a diminution of infrastructure quality or performance – or being held rigidly to their contracts for the provision of railway services which assumed no such diminution - if the Secretary of State for Transport restricted funds available to Network Rail.
The House of Lords did not insist on their original amendment, and the legislation was passed without the protections which the train operators needed.
regarded this as an unjustified interference in an inter-dependent contractual matrix, contrary to the legitimate expectations of private investors in the railway.
[citation needed] The following orders have been made under this section: Media related to Railways Act 2005 at Wikimedia Commons