Serco are a worldwide facilities management company and bought into the British railway market via Railtest. As well as running Docklands Light Railway (DLR) and formerly Manchester Metrolink trams (now run by Stagecoach) they now have a share in Northern Rail and Merseyrail.

The BR business became known as Serco Railtest and concentrated on the infrastructure monitoring contracts which it acquired with Railtrack.

Nothing much changed except the liveries of a number of the vehicles. Work went on much as before based initially on video surveys. This was pioneered by my colleagues who recruited expertise to enable the vehicles to be fitted with 'broadcast quality' video cameras utilising digital technology.