Railtrack was the first company created. It took over ownership of all track, signalling and stations. Railtrack let out most of the 2,509 stations to the franchised passenger train operators, managing only a handful (twelve, later seventeen) of the largest city termini itself. Since maintenance and renewal of the infrastructure was to be sub-contracted (to the private purchasers of the IMUs and TRUs), Railtrack's directly-employed staff consisted mostly of signallers. Three newly created rolling stock leasing companies (ROSCOs) (Angel Trains, Eversholt Rail Group and Porterbrook) were allocated all British Rail's passenger coaches, locomotives, and multiple units. Completion of the privatisation process involved converting the passenger TOUs to train operating companies (TOCs) through the process of franchising, performed in the first instance on a "lowest-cost bidder wins" basis. Freight locomotives and wagons were not passed to ROSCOs, instead being owned directly by the freight train operators. Full privatisation of the freight operators saw five being bought immediately and merged into what became known as the English Welsh & Scottish (EWS) (now DB Cargo UK), leaving just Freightliner as the only other ex-BR freight business to be privatised to someone other than EWS.