The story of Railtrack (Anglia) LimitedThe original Railtrack PLC went into liquidation a few years ago and the company was dissolved. This released the name Railtrack Limited which became available to anyone; an internet acquaintance of mine John Hein acquired it. He does not trade, but on a regular basis he still gets letters, especially from firms of solicitors trying to claim compensation for a client’s accident on railway premises. He always replies direct to the client not the solicitors and the following example (quoted without permission) will give you the flavour of what he does.
 John Hein
RAILTRACK LIMITED
78 Montgomery Street
Edinburgh EH7 5JA
Telephone: 0871 7110638
Arthur Jackson 49 Carlile Hill Hemlington MIDDLESBROUGH Cleveland TS8 9SL 3rd of May 2010 Dear Sir, We’ve recently received correspondence from a firm of so called solicitors (Thompsons) in respect of a claim which you are making over your contraction of vibration white finger. We’re sorry to hear about your condition, but we regret that we are unable to help you. Thompsons too appear to be beyond all help. We’ve crossed swords with them before but, being such a large and incompetent firm (with a list of partners that is too long to put on their notepaper and can only be found displayed on the walls of their sumptuous offices), they don’t seem to be able to get it into their crania that we have nothing whatsoever to do with the railway industry and are a dormant company which has never traded and wasn’t even incorporated until 2003 which is long after the period they claim you were in our employ.. You really should get a decent firm of solicitors on the job - perhaps you can take this up with your Trades Union (Unite) which appears to be funding the case? At the very least, they shouldn’t be charged for Thompsons’ correspondence with us. We hope that you eventually recover from this rather nasty occupational ailment. However, in the meantime, we would ask you on our behalf to raise your middle finger be it of whatever colour and vibrate it in the direction of The St Nicholas Building - that Holy Happy Place wherein Thompsons reside. Sorry if we appear to be unduly flippant, but this is a Bank Holiday and we should all be out either at the pub or canvassing for the political party of our choice. Perhaps a new Government will legislate to ensure a basic level of competence in personal claims practitioners, but we fear that they may be urinating into the coming storm that will engulf us all. Yours faithfully, J White Secretary Railtrack Limited. Registered in Scotland. Company Number: 249080. Registered Office: 78 Montgomery Street, Edinburgh. EH7 5JA. WWW: http://www.railtrack.ltd.uk/ I only quote the
above because it is what gave me the idea to call my company Railtrack (Anglia) Ltd. The
rest of this story is nothing to do with John Hein or his Railtrack.company.
In 2005 a dispute arose over the ownership of a ditch between a developer Redmer Developments and some near neighbours of mine - Daniel Gardens, a small development of 16 houses and bungalows. Daniel Gardens were advised that they probably owned the ditch, which created a problem for the developer, since the ditch somewhat restricted his access to his land and might have prevented any development on it. The developer used Woolpit planning consultant/solicitor called Michael Andrew Jones (trading under the name Able Bishop and Company) and decided that the Daniel Gardens people could be frightened into submission by a suitably aggressive solicitor letter.
Mr. Jones wrote the following letter which was hand-delivered by Redmer’s agent Peter Childs to each of the occupants of Daniel Gardens:
  Had I not been on the scene this rambling repetitive unpleasant letter might have had an effect on the elderly residents of Daniel Gardens, but I am pleased to report that it backfired. Have you ever heard of “SLANDER OF TITLE” (capital letters)? Have you ever come across anybody who quotes 12 sets of letters as his qualifications - . LLB (hons) LLM DMS MBA MA Msc MCipd FCIArb LARTpi MCMi PGDipPDM DipMgt? Notice the dogmatic way he affirms several times that the ditch belongs to his client.
The ditch was shown as a narrow area on the title plan of Daniel Gardens. I hate to see people wasting money on solicitors, I relished the prospect of personally arguing with Michael Andrew Jones (who to me seemed a right twit) and I was on friendly terms with Daniel Gardens. Daniel Gardens were quite happy to transfer the disputed ditch to me for £500. The Land Registry created a separate title for the ditch and registered me as the owner with no problems. I thought it would be fun to hide the ownership of the ditch. So I created a company Railtrack (Anglia) Limited and transferred the ditch to Railtrack (Anglia) for £5000. I paid myself £5000 and that amount is registered.
Companies are registered at Companies House and the public can access the names and addresses of their officers and shareholders and the registered office address. But a registered office can be anywhere and (at the time) any officers and shareholders can be other companies. My plan was to create 3 companies A, B and C such that
Director of A is B, Secretary is C. Shareholders B and C. Director of B is C, Secretary is A. Shareholders C and A. Director of C is A, Secretary is B. Shareholders A and B.
Thus nobody can determine the people behind any of these companies.
I did not get round to this idea but having ownership of the ditch has enabled me to be in a good negotiating position this year since I am planning to build a new house next to Redmer’s land. I am now transferring to ditch to Redmer in exchange for a piece of land of value to me, better access for me and a restrictive covenant on their land so that it does not have too much adverse effect on me. Here is the plan of my ditch as registered at HM Land Registry:  |