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

[whole diary]

[Electric train]

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".

There is logic behind the GBR^▸ (Great British Railways) names and it would not have been just the Civil Servants the rail industry will have had a large say:-
Firstly, initially it is about brining together 2 separate managements (TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) and NR^» (Network Rail - home page)) so a lot of systems are structured around the NR Regions / Routes and TOCs
Secondly and perhaps the most important the travelling public recognise many of the TOC names therefore maintaining a name link is seen a beneficial as it will reduce confusion.

Also there is a desire in maintaining a safe railway many of the current senior managers and Exec were junior staff at privatisation and saw at first hand what safety problems a "politically" driven change  for change sake brings.

Overtime once all operators are back in public ownership there will be a reshaping.

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]

Northern Ireland was never part of BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)), also it is already State owned and has been since 1967.

Scottish and Welsh TOC's have been in public ownership since 2022 and 2021 respectively under the control of their own devolved Governments

 

[ChrisB]

Something in a conversation that Roger Ford was having on X/Twitter earlier caught my eye.

The major saving meant to emerge from the move to GBR^▸ (Great British Railways) is supposed to be the 2% or so in fees being paid to the operators for operating their management contracts.

However, unannounced, but contained within the Railways Bill, is the fact that the rolling stock, being hired by the operators from the ROSCOs^» (ROlling Stock COmpany - about) - isn't going back to the ROSCOs to be directly hired by GBR - oh no - the stock is being sub-leased by the operators to DfT^» (Department for Transport - about)/GBR.....probably charging them that 2% in admin charges to continue to do this!!

So no real savings either.....unbelievable

[Electric train]

Something in a conversation that Roger Ford was having on X/Twitter earlier caught my eye.

The major saving meant to emerge from the move to GBR^▸ (Great British Railways) is supposed to be the 2% or so in fees being paid to the operators for operating their management contracts.

However, unannounced, but contained within the Railways Bill, is the fact that the rolling stock, being hired by the operators from the ROSCOs^» (ROlling Stock COmpany - about) - isn't going back to the ROSCOs to be directly hired by GBR - oh no - the stock is being sub-leased by the operators to DfT^» (Department for Transport - about)/GBR.....probably charging them that 2% in admin charges to continue to do this!!

So no real savings either.....unbelievable

Possibly the way the rolling stock financing and leasing contracts were setup, and probably originally agreed by DfT, make it complex and or expensive to change the arrangement.   I would like to think GBR / DfT will be reviewing all these arrangement once the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) are under public ownership

[grahame]

On X there is a video of a class 387 painted in the new GBR^▸ (Great British Railways) livery leaving the shed  at the depot near Brighton.

Sorry that livery just doesnt look right

Here it is - in comparison to a couple of others - a few minutes ago.







None of the passengers seem outwardly concerned at the colour of their train, nor asking if this is the new public railway.  Doesn't feel much different.

P.S. I joined the Gatwick Express train.   It's not going to Gatwick and neither am I.  I understand that I do not have to pay a premium "Gatwick Express" fare.

[John D]

How does the new GBR^▸ (Great British Railways) livery work on units with odd numbers of vehicles as stripy triangular pointy bit faces the nearest end.  Which way will it point on middle vehicle ?

Clearly there are 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 vehicle units around network

[ChrisB]

From the Telegraph, via MSN

Safety warning over Labour’s rail nationalisation plans

Labour’s plans to nationalise the railways threaten to undermine passenger safety, the industry watchdog has warned.

The Office of Rail and Road (ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road, formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about)) said the upheaval of bringing train operators and Network Rail under state control meant senior railway executives could lose focus and start to ignore safety issues.

Great British Railways (GBR^▸ (Great British Railways)), the new state-backed operator, is taking back rail line franchises as they come up for renewal, with remaining routes expected to come under government control by the end of next year.

However, Richard Hines, the chief inspector of railways, said in the ORR’s annual report on health and safety that the disruption of nationalisation could bring short-term risks.

“GBR is an opportunity to strengthen safety across the network but change must not weaken protections or blur who is responsible for keeping passengers and workers safe,” he said.

“As rail reform progresses, there must be clear leadership, clear accountability and a relentless focus on known safety issues, such as over-speeding.”

Richard Holden, the shadow transport secretary, said the warnings from Mr Hines were “concerning” and urged Labour to review its timetable for nationalisation.

He said the findings added to concerns about the impact of the GBR plan, which the Conservatives have claimed will drive up costs and leave passengers and taxpayers to pick up the bill.

“The chief inspector of railways has warned that Labour’s reforms risk weakening accountability for rail safety,” he told The Telegraph.

“Safety must always come first. If the evidence shows that Labour’s rushed nationalisation is compromising the safety of passengers and railway staff, it should be paused until ministers can guarantee those risks have been addressed.”

In its report, the ORR also warned that work to tackle deaths on level crossings, worker fatalities and over-speeding at junctions – recent cases of which had come close to “catastrophic outcomes” – should not take a back seat to the creation of GBR.

The regulator said the crash near Bedford last month – which killed a driver and sent 100 passengers to hospital after a stationary train was hit by another travelling at 50mph – had provided a “sobering reminder” of the severe consequences of rail accidents.

The ORR said that while progress had been made in some areas, “the management of risk is not yet delivering the overall level of control and assurance required”.

The regulator singled out over-speeding, in which trains travel faster than the permitted limit for a given section of track, as one of the most significant safety issues.

Mr Hines also said the safety of maintenance staff remains a key concern after a spate of deaths, including one in March when a track worker was killed after being hit by a train at 110mph.

Fatalities on level crossings are also increasing, he said, while the derailment of an express train following a landslide at Shap, Cumbria, indicated the increased importance of “robust infrastructure management in the face of environmental pressures”.

He said the causes of the Bedford collision remain under investigation.

Initial findings suggested the driver who was killed passed a red signal after the train in front came to an unexpected halt when a fault triggered its emergency braking system.

A Department for Transport spokesman said: “Safety on our railways is our number one priority.

“We have been working with industry and independent experts, including the ORR, to make sure safety is at the heart of everything we do as we set up Great British Railways.

“Our rail reform programme will not change the robust rules in place on safety and as we move forward, we will build on the decades of experience which have meant Britain’s railways consistently rank among the safest in the world.”