The last Labour government nationalised Network Rail, putting the state in charge of tracks, signals and stations. Well over half the cancellations and delays experienced by passengers in recent years have come from problems at Network Rail. Damaged track, track repairs, signal failures, prolonged maintenance have all hit service reliability and punctuality.
We also have experience of lines where the state has been running the trains over the nationalised track. There is no sign of these fully nationalised groups doing better on punctuality and service reliability, with some doing worse than the hybrids.
In recent years the train operating companies have been put under more and more state control, limiting private sector managements from innovating or managing better. The timetables are state controlled, dictating what services to run, and many fares are controlled.
When we last had a chance to compare a fully nationalised railway with a privatised one during privatisation in the 1990 s the privatised railway did a better job, reversing passenger number decline and improving service quality. When John Prescott took over as Minister he in 2000 announced a 17 % rise in passengers and 22% rise in freight since 1997 for the privatised railway .
It looks as if the fully nationalised railway if this government will develop more of the bad characteristics of the largely nationalised system they inherited. Expect more losses, more service cuts to try to rein in costs, more delays and cancellations. Two years in and still no revised business plan to tackle extreme delays and financial overruns at fully nationalised HS 2. If they cannot even manage a railway with no passengers and no trains yet, what chance of running an existing railway with staff problems and unhappy passengers?
June 1, 2026
I am sorry but rail privatisation was a complete disaster. I have been an industry observer for 55 years and BR up to the 1990’s knocked spots off anything since. All we will end up with in GBR is a state owned privatised mess, public in name only. I’m afraid we’ve all been taken for a ride.. since 1994/5. Pun intended.
Reply We will end up with a nationalised very expensive mess. Old nationalised rail post war spent most of its time slashing services, closing track and stations and making staff redundant.
June 1, 2026
Indeed, I often catch trains when I fly to the UK Gatwick, London, Birmingham, Kent, Cambridge typically. They typically cost about £1 a mile. My old diesel car can carry up to seven people for about 40p a mile it also goes door to door is far better for the luggage and can take more direct routes without the end taxi connections. Furthermore about 50% of the 40p is tax. Trains have virtually no fuel taxes nor vat and about 50% of this £1 per mile is subsidy already. Yet still they can cost 10 plus times more if four in the car. So without the tax and subsidy rigging they are already about 40 times more per passenger mile. Assuming 4 in the car.
Yet government pretend public transport is so much more efficient (and this does not even allow for indirect train journeys or the end connections needed.
When self driving cars and far cheaper self driving taxis arrive trains will be even less competitive. The government are hopeless at running things but rather hopeless at subcontracting thing too. Not their money they are wasting so what do they care?
Please can the government stop blocking the roads and fix the potholes. If trains were not subsidised and car were not over taxed what would the real demand for trains be perhaps 30% of current demand and then when the driverless taxis arrive!
June 1, 2026
The government claim that train journeys cause far less CO2 than cars and that bike and walking cause no CO2 direct or indirect per mile both statement are drivel when properly accounted for track, staff, end connections, ticketing, indirect routes, transport police..