Taking Train Operation into public ownership - Govt planning from 4.12.2024

[whole diary]

[broadgage]

I am not convinced that public ownership will improve matters, but it is IMHO^▸ ('in my humble opinion') worth trying.
A very close eye should be kept on newly nationalised TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) in order to determine if they are doing better under public ownership than previously.

Consider both customer satisfaction and finances.

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

Greater Anglia to be nationalised - rail operator

Greater Anglia is set to be nationalised later this year, the rail operator has said.

The company, which runs trains across the East of England and into London, said it would be brought under public ownership on 12 October.

It said train services, timetables and station facilities would be unaffected by the transition, and employees' roles would all transfer across.

Martin Beable, the company's managing director, said the firm would "remain focused" on delivering its services. The Department for Transport has been approached for comment.

Greater Anglia runs trains throughout Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire, including the Stansted Express airport service.

Mr Beable said: "I am very proud of what we have achieved here in East Anglia over the past 13 years, significantly improving standards, investing in a complete fleet of new trains and working closely with the local community."

[stuving]

In March, the Times reported that the new GBR^▸ (Great British Railways) branding and logo would be appearing on trains this month (May); that must be SWR^» (South Western Railway - about). But yesterday the Sunday Times had a story that GBR's branding will not be used until services are of sufficient quality. ("Train firms must be travelling in the right direction to earn Union Jack logo.") Nothing was said about how "Limbo Rail" trains would look in the interim, nor on whether SWR has met this standard.

I also got an e-mail from SWR today about the transition, but that was on the subject "Important information - How we'll look after your data post-nationalisation". I guess that's down to statutory requirements. There is just this short bit at the start about running trains:

As you may know, on 25 May 2025, South Western Railway services will be operated by a new company – South Western Railway Limited – as part of a planned transition into public ownership.

Although the legal operator is changing, your experience won’t. You’ll continue to see the same branding, same services, and the same teams running your trains.

I understand that one of the "new" 701s will be done up for a launch of the new livery next Monday. I don't see that as contradicting what was said by SWR or the ST article - it's just PR^▸ (Public Relations).

There was another. longer, article in the business bit of yesterday's ST. This was a general piece about the difficulties still to be overcome in creating GBR. It quoted a number of individuals in the industry, but I didn't see anything really new. There was a list of "expected" reversion dates not yet announced, though the dates given are the current contract end dates (core, or extension if taken).
WMT   20/9/26
EMR^» (East Midlands Railway, also known as EMT^» (East Midlands Trains - about) (East Midlands Trains - about)    18/10/26
AWC   18/10/26
CC       17/10/27
Chilt    12/12/27
GTR^» (Govia Thameslink Railway - about)     1/4/28
GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)    25/6/28

Those don't fit with the government's stated plan of doing about three a year, which they see as what the team setting up OLR management organisations cane manage. The last date in 2028 even contradicts the other article, which says the last one will be in October 2027.

[grahame]

I got one (actually two) emails ... titles

Action needed: do you want to keep receiving offers, discounts and travel inspiration?

and

Sorry. We fixed the link - Action needed: do you want to keep receiving offers, discounts and travel inspiration?

It seems that routine travel updates will continue, but under GDPR I have also given the current operating company to contact me occasionally with offers and ideas, and I have to do so again for the new (HMG) operator.  On livery it does not need to initially change as the new setup is being done by a transfer to the First / MTR^▸ (Mass Transit Railway, based in Hong Kong) subsidiary company to the government.  May be a need to remove "a subsidiary of" tag lines.

[ChrisB]

From the Guardian

Will Labour’s shake-up really fix Great Britain’s ailing railways?

As South Western becomes the latest operator to be renationalised, there are questions about whether the changes will lead to lower fares

At the rarely experienced hour of 6.14am on Sunday, the first train to carry the Great British Railways branding will make its way out of London Waterloo to Shepperton: traversing the Surrey commuter belt emblazoned with a red, white and blue GBR^▸ (Great British Railways) logo, and proudly renationalised to boot.

The next train with the planned state body’s branding may be some years behind it. But the Labour government hopes to grab the moment to demonstrate to an increasingly impatient electorate that the wheels of change – in rail at least – are finally turning.

The first renationalisation, landing on the late May bank holiday weekend, is one of Britain’s biggest commuter services – although the trains, including the one currently getting the GBR paint job in a Bournemouth depot, will still run as South Western Railway for some time. As the first emblem of a potential new era pulls into the station, what does the shake-up mean for the rail industry – and will passengers notice the difference?

How did we get here?

Legislation to bring train operators into state hands barely needed one sheet of A4. The bigger puzzle, in which renationalisation is one crucial piece, is achieving the goal shared by all parties of an integrated railway, where track and train are managed by one directing or guiding mind.

A consultation on the plans to create a dedicated public body only finished last month – about four years after the then prime minister, Boris Johnson, announced his own Great British Railways, with his government declaring an end to a “broken system”. Even that moment was long delayed: the rail review announced after the timetabling fiasco of 2018 promised reform by 2020.

GBR proved not to be, as some once declared, dead, but it does not yet live, after an arduous, costly gestation; a 100-strong “transition team” spent £135m working on the railway’s restructuring before being quietly disbanded in March.

Industry figures insist that Labour, with the ex-Network Rail chair Peter Hendy on the inside as the rail minister, has given fresh impetus to the process despite perceptions of continued drift.

The Department for Transport (DfT^» (Department for Transport - about)) said it was “working quickly” on “fixing the railway with generational reform”, but legislation expected by the summer could slip into the autumn, and it now says GBR will be up and running in new Derby headquarters in 2027 rather than late 2026.

The first steps are yet to be officially announced but Southeastern – nationalised after an accounting scandal in 2021 – is expected next month to become the first regional integrated railway, with track and train becoming the ultimate responsibility of a single managing director in Kent.

For now, government sources say, GBR is “less of a new organisation than a standard we want railways to meet”. But as the consultation has demonstrated, important questions remain.

Who will be in charge?

Promises to move fast and fix things have not been enough to convince Sir Andrew Haines, the chief executive of Network Rail and the leader of the GBR transition team, to stave off retirement plans. That might improve the optics for those who insist GBR will not simply be a Network Rail takeover of the railway.

Whoever ends up at the helm will want to know how much they are beholden to the government and regulators. Ministers have declared, but not always demonstrated, that they do not wish to micromanage rail; and rail bosses are keen to see the Office of Rail and Road’s remit cut for a different era.

Is open access welcome or not?

Not least among the ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road, formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about)’s current powers are decisions over “open access” trains, where a competing company sets up new direct trains on a specific, previously unserved route – now seen as the last gasp for private train operations.

Labour has liked to stress that nationalisation is pragmatic not ideological – with a place for open access services, which coincidentally run into “red wall” constituencies. But a slew of applications has led to the transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, sounding a more discouraging note.

Open access trains, such as Grand Central and Lumo, are supposed to stoke new passenger demand and avoid “abstraction” of revenue – or taking ticket money away from the DfT. Senior figures in rail are dubious, but others also suggest that the government should be wary of driving companies such as First Group – a British transport firm running buses and trams as well as trains – completely out of the industry.

How does devolution meet freight?

In the quest to cut carbon, backing rail freight appears a no-brainer – according to Network Rail, one freight train is the equivalent of 76 lorries on the road.

The legislation gives GBR a “duty to promote” rail freight. However, the private freight operators fear for their position when other trains are unified under the controlling brand – particularly if metro mayors can control local lines. Freight shares tracks in London that are now used intensively for Overground services; Andy Burnham, who hopes to take trains into Manchester’s Bee Network, has already spoken of his frustration at freight “trundling” through the city centre.

Will GBR end – or fuel – strikes?

For all the rhetoric over two years of industrial action, the Labour offer that ended strikes was no different from the Conservatives’ in cash terms; only conditions and context.

A nationalised railway was a big aspiration of the rail unions. But as the drivers’ union Aslef acknowledges, a fragmented, privatised railway rapidly increased its members’ wages; short-term franchises pushed some operators to poach drivers rather than fully train new ones. How pay rates work out under a single employer remains to be seen. Disputes could spread across the country more quickly in response to attempts to bear down on costs, such as extending driver-only operation of trains – let alone the next pay round.

Will the money keep flowing?
With revenues flatlining and office workers in the south-east, once the bedrock of rail finances, showing no appetite for a renewed five-day commute, taxpayer subsidies have needed to stay high, with roughly £2bn more a year to fund train operations. Next month’s spending review is unlikely to bring good news for the DfT’s budget – let alone for the future of rail infrastructure projects pledged by the previous government, which Alexander has characterised as “promising the moon on a stick”.

The Railway Industry Association has sounded a warning that even the five-year funding settlement that rail counts on could be jeopardised. Labour sources insist GBR should have more long-term funding – but RIA, representing the supply chain, said that a consultation reference to potential “mid-period reductions to funds available” would cause more concern and uncertainty.

Will GBR make things better for passengers?

If a passenger had a pound for every time a minister vowed rail reform would put them first, they could almost afford a walk-up intercity train fare.

Most benefits are indirect. Greater accountability is perhaps the critical change: as Lord Hendy has put it, one person waking up and knowing that they have to fix their bit of the railway. Regional managers will be in charge of track and train, with no one else to blame. An overview of the issues and needs of both sides should improve reliability.

Labour has also promised that a new passenger watchdog, to be created alongside GBR, will have more teeth than the current Transport Focus – or at least bark louder.

Reforming fares should be easier, with a single operator ideally making ticketing less confusing for passengers. But changes brought in under the DfT-owned LNER^» (London North Eastern Railway - about) suggest they will not be universally popular – or protect passengers from the extraordinarily high fares to simply take the next train.

According to the DfT, “public ownership will save taxpayers up to an estimated £150m every year in fees alone.” A state-owned online ticket retailer may recoup a decent slice of the £208m that Trainline made from passengers in Great Britain last year. But right now lowering the taxpayer subsidy may be the focus – and passengers may wait some time until a cheaper railway spells cheaper fares.

[GBM]

Interesting blog by Roger French

https://busandtrainuser.com/2025/05/24/drop-the-great-from-gbr/
Drop the ‘Great’ from GBR^▸ (Great British Railways)
Secretary of State for Transport Heidi Alexander reckons tomorrow’s high profile ownership change of South Western Railway from First Group/MTR^▸ (Mass Transit Railway, based in Hong Kong) Corporation over to DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) Operator Limited (DFTO) is “a watershed moment” marking the start of the much heralded re-nationalisation of Britain’s Railways.
..................continues................

Expect an overdose of hype as the first train – the 06:14 to Shepperton – leaves Waterloo’s platform 1 complete with a tease of a new Great British Railways logo on the side of the train and a pledge of better services to come.


A few lines caught my eye-
"It’s the lack of information, reassurance and explanations of alternatives which comes to the fore when using the rail network at times of disruption.
I've lost count of the number of times research has shown rail passengers very much value being kept informed during disruption. But it still fails; all the more so when staff are less informed than passengers as they don't seem to have access to the same sources of electronic information which passengers now enjoy."

[Mark A]

Thanks for this, good observations and he's totally right about the branding...

Mark

[stuving]

There's an update (or restatement) of government policy published today:

Great British Railways is coming soon

Publicly owned Great British Railways (GBR^▸ (Great British Railways)) will be created around 12 months after legislation is passed. It will be the single ‘directing mind’ bringing track and train together, putting passengers and customers first, rebuilding trust in the railway and operating the majority of passenger services under public ownership and control.

GBR will end years of fragmentation and will have a relentless focus on driving up standards for passengers, including simpler fares and ticketing. It will have the independence and tools it needs to deliver improvements to rail services, and plan and run the railway on a long-term basis in the interest of its passenger and freight customers and taxpayers.

Instead of having to navigate 14 separate train operators, passengers will once again simply be able to use ‘the railway’. They will travel on GBR trains, running on GBR tracks, and working to a GBR timetable – all run by a single body focused on their interests. That will mean fewer delays, a better experience, and a timetable that better serves their needs.

Establishing Great British Railways

In February 2025, the government’s consultation on the Railways Bill outlined plans to set up GBR as a new arm’s length body, responsible for rail services and infrastructure.

The Railways Bill is due to go before Parliament this parliamentary session. GBR is expected to be operational around 12 months after the bill receives Royal Assent.

Before the bill becomes law, leaders of Network Rail, DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) Operator Limited (DFTO), and the Department for Transport’s (DfT’s) Rail Services Group are working together, as Shadow Great British Railways (SGBR). SGBR will start to realise the benefits of rail reform to passengers and freight ahead of the formal creation of GBR.

Public ownership programme 

On 4 December 2024, the government launched the rail public ownership programme and announced the first services to transfer into public ownership. South Western Railway’s services are the first under new legislation to transfer into public ownership (on 25 May 2025), followed by c2c’s services on 20 July 2025. Greater Anglia’s services will then transfer on 12 October 2025.

Following the transfer of Greater Anglia’s services, DfT expects the programme will continue with one operator’s services transferring roughly every 3 months. The transfer of passenger services operated under contracts with DfT is expected to complete by the end of 2027.

Ahead of the establishment of GBR, services will transfer to a new publicly-owned operating company which will be a subsidiary of DFTO.

The Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Act 2024 makes provision for rail passenger services to be provided by public sector operators, instead of by means of franchises. This act enables the government to deliver its manifesto commitment to bring passenger services into public ownership as a first step towards wider rail reform. The legislation applies to England, Scotland and Wales.

There was also a graphic within the text:


It's probably best to resist the temptation to call that branding to be applied to trains - it's not referred to in the text as such or anything else.

[TaplowGreen]

Was the branding designed by Reform?

[CyclingSid]

Was the name?

[Sixty3Closure]

Unless I missed it I didn't see any mention of simplifying tickets which I thought would be one benefit of bringing everything under one roof?

[bradshaw]

Green Signals have released a 45 minute interview with Lord Peter Hendy looking at the future. He has some interesting points to make, especially with regard to the role of the MD of SWT^▸ (South West Trains)

https://youtu.be/dYcb9tV0Glw?si=GVc0dcgIV7eZCOzg