Rolling Stock Company

Short description: Company owning railway engines and carriages

A rolling stock company (ROSCO) or rolling stock leasing company owns and maintains railway engines and carriages which are leased to train operating companies who operate the trains.

Rolling stock companies have been criticised as rentier capitalist, in that they add little value to the end product compared to direct ownership of the trains by the train operating companies, and extract profits from what were once in many cases government-owned and government-financed assets.^[1] However, the arrangement removes the need for the train operating companies to raise capital to purchase the rolling stock.