Railways Bill 2025: introducing and designing Great British Railways - general topic

[whole diary]

[ChrisB]

I spent over 15 mins trying to do that, unsuccessfully!!

[Oxonhutch]

And here was me thinking that Scotland and Wales are also in Great Britain.

[grahame]

And here was me thinking that Scotland and Wales are also in Great Britain.

Interestingly missing Northern Ireland too.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Just to bear in mind, it is a Whitehall based Department for Transport document. 

[Oxonhutch]

Interestingly missing Northern Ireland too.

But that is Ireland rather than Great Britain

[Image from here is not available to guests]

wikipedia/commons/4/40/British_Isles_Venn_Diagram-en/size]

[John D]

New names for the old TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) in the file attached

Thanks, Chris - I have extracted the new names from that

Great British Railways | Southern
Great British Railways | South East
Great British Railways | Thameslink
Great British Railways | Great Northern
Great British Railways | Great Western
Great British Railways | South Western
Great British Railways | Island Line
Great British Railways | Chiltern
Great British Railways | Anglia
Great British Railways | East Coast
Great British Railways | West Coast
Great British Railways | West Midlands
Great British Railways | North Western
Great British Railways | North
Great British Railways | TransPennine
Great British Railways | East Midlands
Great British Railways | CrossCountry
Great British Railways | High Speed
Great British Railways | Sleeper

One of the class 701 Artiero fleet used in London suburbs has appeared with its new GBR^▸ (Great British Railways) South West branding.

I used to think of South West as Somerset, Devon, Cornwall etc.
Clearly DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) has now defined it as Surrey and Berkshire

Is it just me, or does anyone else think some of the names are geographically stretching it.   Another example : West Coast has about 50 miles within about 10 miles of western coast, about 80 miles near north coast of Wales, and over 400 miles that is better described as inland rather than near any coast.

[eightonedee]

Is it just me, or does anyone else think some of the names are geographically stretching it.

It's a bit of an odd mix of old TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) names carried forward and some elimination of old commercial identities. It does indicate that we'll be stuck with a lot of the anomalies of the current system if this reflects the management structure underneath the new labels.

A few thoughts occur-

1 - How will the much-vaunted vertical integration work when (for example) "West Coast" "North Western" "West Midlands" and "Northern" will have considerable geographic overlap of the lines they use and "Cross Country" largely (almost exclusively?) uses track in other divisions' areas. We also seem to be left with a mish-mash of some that cover all trains in their area (like GW^» (Great Western - used as an abbreviation for the area / lines under the Great Western franchise, as opposed to FGW which includes "First", the company operating them too. For tickets - about)) and others split local and long distance/express services (like Northern and Trans-Pennine)

2- Does the separate "Sleeper" identity indicate that the two sleeper networks (GW and Caledonian) will be consolidated or that the former is for the chop?

3 - Are these just marketing names?  If so, I agree that some seem to merit revisiting.

It does indicate that re-nationalisation will not be the panacea some claim.

[stuving]

If these names are described as applying to TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company), in place of their current names, then surely they can only by interim names. If new geographical partitions are created later, which I though was the intention, then I'd expect them to get new names. Whether such names will apply to train services and so be visible to passengers, or just to the organisation (like NR^» (Network Rail - home page) region or route names) is another matter.

[grahame]

I should clarify - "Sleeper" referred purely to the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) sleeper being its own operating division, and "Anglia" is Greater Anglia + C2C ; LNW has become "North Western" with no mention of London.   

ChrisB - I did a screen capture then used an online .png to text converter to OCR^▸ (Overhead Condition Renewals team) the attachment into something I could include in a post - left out the old names because it gave me those as separate line and it would have taken significant time to correlate and check  ... thank you for the source material ...

Yes, the names geographically "stretch" it - as they have done under the franchise / management contract system. No changes.

[TaplowGreen]

New names for the old TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) in the file attached

Thanks, Chris - I have extracted the new names from that

Great British Railways | Southern
Great British Railways | South East
Great British Railways | Thameslink
Great British Railways | Great Northern
Great British Railways | Great Western
Great British Railways | South Western
Great British Railways | Island Line
Great British Railways | Chiltern
Great British Railways | Anglia
Great British Railways | East Coast
Great British Railways | West Coast
Great British Railways | West Midlands
Great British Railways | North Western
Great British Railways | North
Great British Railways | TransPennine
Great British Railways | East Midlands
Great British Railways | CrossCountry
Great British Railways | High Speed
Great British Railways | Sleeper

One of the class 701 Artiero fleet used in London suburbs has appeared with its new GBR^▸ (Great British Railways) South West branding.

I used to think of South West as Somerset, Devon, Cornwall etc.
Clearly DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) has now defined it as Surrey and Berkshire

Is it just me, or does anyone else think some of the names are geographically stretching it.   Another example : West Coast has about 50 miles within about 10 miles of western coast, about 80 miles near north coast of Wales, and over 400 miles that is better described as inland rather than near any coast.

Is that list really the best they could come up with?

Only civil servants could manage to make it that dry..........I can almost imagine all the "working parties", consultations and Conferences that were necessary before arriving at it..............

[grahame]

Is that list really the best they could come up with?

Only civil servants could manage to make it that dry..........I can almost imagine all the "working parties", consultations and Conferences that were necessary before arriving at it..............

I am still having trouble in London knowing my Sufragettes from my Windrushes though I suspect I'll get used to them in time - so perhaps I'm thankful at this current and (?) interim stage the names are recognisable to the previous operations.

Into the future, we may end up with operation divisions such as diesel trains and local bimodes based out of Bristol and Salisbury, under the heading "Wessex Trains",  local and regional trains based out of Exeter and Plymouth as "West Country Trains", diesel services based out of Reading, Oxford and Aylesbury as "Thames Valley Trains", etc ... and I would rather quasi -geographic names rather than "Brunel", "Trevithick", "Whitworth", "Beeching" and "Williams-Shapps".

[TaplowGreen]

Is that list really the best they could come up with?

Only civil servants could manage to make it that dry..........I can almost imagine all the "working parties", consultations and Conferences that were necessary before arriving at it..............

I am still having trouble in London knowing my Sufragettes from my Windrushes though I suspect I'll get used to them in time - so perhaps I'm thankful at this current and (?) interim stage the names are recognisable to the previous operations.

Fair point - easiest to remember that all of them are what used to be known as the London Overground - now renamed and equipped with brand new (virtue) signalling 

[Mark A]

"Great British Railways | Sleeper" - are Scotrail's sleeper services to be prised from their hands?

Mark

[TaplowGreen]

"Great British Railways | Sleeper" - are Scotrail's sleeper services to be prised from their hands?

Mark

Unlikely. Scotrail is devolved and is the responsibility of the Scottish Assembly.

[ChrisB]

Note NO Gatwick, Heathrow or Stansted Expresses.....Hopefully, that means the ed of their inflated fare structures too