Around 1,100 jobs are to be cut at rail maintenance contractor Jarvis by the administrators who are now running the firm.
Deloitte said that without further funding, it was not possible to continue operating parts of the group.
The redundancies will affect staff at the head office in York, plus Doncaster, Glasgow, Leeds, Newcastle and Peterborough.
The facilities management part of the group, Jarvis Accommodation Services, will continue trading as normal, the administrator said.
There has been "a significant amount of interest" in this business, according to Deloitte.
However, Jarvis Rail, the rail contracting part of the group, and Fastline, which supplies rail maintenance equipment, will cease operating.
Rail unions have blamed spending cuts by Network Rail, Jarvis's biggest customer, for the company's troubles.
Stan Herschel, regional organiser at the RMT union, said that talks with Network Rail which would have enabled Jarvis to carry on with rail renewal work had broken down.
Herschel told the BBC: "It is not as if extra money were needed. The contracts and the money for the work is already in place.
"We asked that Network Rail simply pay on time and underwrite the future work while Deloitte looks at the Jarvis business. The work must be done. It's a safety issue.”
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