Labour plans to sort-of-not-quite-oh-go-on-then nationalise the railway

Labour announces its plan to bring passenger rail franchises under public control as they expire, meaning most of them will effectively be nationalised within the first term of a Labour government if it wins the election.

They don’t plan to forcibly purchase freight companies or rolling stock leasing companies (these were sold outright and don’t have franchises) and of course Network Rail (the walking calamity formerly known as Railtrack) was somewhat controversially brought back under public control relatively early on in the Blair years.

They will also not ban Open Access operators from running routes (in practice there are very few of these) and they will not prematurely terminate long duration franchises (East Midlands runs until 2030). So where does this leave us? On the road to rail heaven or rail hell? Or some weird purgatory in between?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68889345

[Pierre]

I'm totally non-plussed about the whole thing.

I have notice no difference on the East Coast Main Line (the main route I use) as it has bounced between public and private ownership.

[jfman]

Rail purgatory, ideology (and NIMBYISM) will still prevent the investment required to improve anyway. However, it at least ends the practice of privatising the profits and nationalising the losses - the worst of both worlds.

[Hom3r]

Liebour has a plan

I wish they would buy the stock as well but I am pleased with this. It's pretty much happening by default and the franchise system never worked properly. Most other countries didn't privatise their rail networks because there is no real scope for competition, you have a monopoly on the line.

The question is how much additional investment do we get? Will tickets be subsidised?

I would like them to ensure that there is a unified company running it. So you just have 'Great British Rail' branding, website, union flag-inspired train liveries. It would make is easier for tourists as well as given us the sense that it's a public company.

This also means that we can blame the Government for failures rather than have them hide behind private companies.

I’m not certain of the value of buying a lot of second hand rolling stock or shelling out a fortune to nationalise the companies that own them. If Labour wants to bring rolling stock procurement back under state control I suspect they are going to have to simply stop using the leasing companies and buy direct from manufacturers, reducing and eliminating the RoSCos role in our railways over time. They could of course go the whole hog and try to re establish BREL (British Rail Engineering Limited) or something like it. There is absolutely no chance of such a body designing and building everything we need though. In the globalised market for the design and manufacture of rolling stock I fear we have long since lost what advantage we had.

I dont care much about railways, very rarely use a train.

They need to fix the damn potholes, our roads are a joke.