Northern Rail (often referred to simply as Northern) is a British train operating company that has operated local passenger services in Northern England since 2004. Northern Rail's owner, Serco-NedRailways, is a consortium formed of Abellio (formerly NedRailways, the British unit of ) and Serco, an international operator of public transport systems. When it won the Northern England franchise, the consortium had already secured the contract to operate north-west England's Merseyrail network in 2003. The current managing Director of Northern Rail is Ian Bevan.