The running of the UK rail network will pass on to a new company
John Robinson maintained that Railtrack had not been insolvent when the government "pulled the rug" from under it last month.
He also said it had "absolutely not" been asking for extra government money month after month.
Mr Robinson said the only reason Railtrack had been put into the control of administrators was Transport Secretary Stephen Byers' decision to withdraw future financial support and "renege on a £450m transaction".
But Lawrie Quinn, chairman of the All-Party parliamentary rail group, dismissed Mr Robinson's claims saying Railtrack had been a "disaster".
Mr Quinn, Labour MP for Scarborough and Whitby, said Mr Robinson was trying to "rewrite history".
"I don't think the government should take any lectures from Railtrack, who were a company that continued to pay massive dividends to shareholders, while at the same time coming cap-in-hand to the taxpayer for yet more public money."
He said Railtrack was a company in financial meltdown.
"The government had to act to safeguard the interests of the travelling public."
Mr Robinson, speaking at the annual dinner of the National Railway Museum in York, said "misinformation" had left staff - 92% of whom are shareholders - feeling "bitter and undervalued".
"Trust and honesty are the basics of business relationships and government to business relationships - this was clearly lacking.
'Blank cheque'
"The history of the railway shows us that investment is the key to success, while government interference is the route to fail," he added.
Ministers have promised to transfer control of Britain's 23,000 miles of track and 2,500 stations from Railtrack to a new firm within six months.
But Mr Robinson said he feared that in the meantime investment would be "scared away" by the treatment of Railtrack shareholders and "stagnation" would undermine the hard work of the industry.
Mr Byers has proposed a not-for-profit company.
But Mr Robinson, who has already refused an offer to head the new company, warned it could become a "hybrid from hell" with a "blank cheque" from the government.
"Dipping in and out of the railway - taking credit for the good and castigating the bad - is unhelpful, as is a flood of investment followed by a drought," he concluded.