Historically, all the mainline railways were operated by the Tasmanian Government Railways, which was absorbed into the Australian National Railways Commission in 1978 and renamed TasRail. In November 1997, TasRail was sold to the Australian Transport Network, a partnership of New Zealand based Tranz Rail and United States railroad Wisconsin Central. This sale also included a 50-year lease of the Crown land on which the Tasmanian railway network was situated. Tasrail was granted the exclusive right to use and occupy the land, but owned the infrastructure situated on that land and was obliged to maintain at its own cost.