Great Western (and other TOCs) - nationalisation

[Russel]

It isn't a punishment this time, though. And a few months either way aren't going to fix the problems at XC, might as well leave them where they are for now.

But given many of XC's problems are actually quite easy to resolve, or at least, alleviate, such as taking on the remaining 221s sat doing nothing to reduce overcrowding and giving the current management a good dressing down and the resources needed to sort employee relations...

It could be a good flagship project if the will was there.

 

[Sorcerer]

But given many of XC's problems are actually quite easy to resolve, or at least, alleviate, such as taking on the remaining 221s sat doing nothing to reduce overcrowding and giving the current management a good dressing down and the resources needed to sort employee relations...

It could be a good flagship project if the will was there.

Maybe that's the plan of the DfT? Bring CrossCountry under control and do the exact things you're proposing and enhancing the brand image of GBR as something the public can have confidence in. Might be a bit of a stretch but nobody is too keen on returning to the days of British Rail which, while doing good with what little it was given, wasn't exactly a bastion of efficiency or a world class railway.

 

[Russel]

Maybe that's the plan of the DfT? Bring CrossCountry under control and do the exact things you're proposing and enhancing the brand image of GBR as something the public can have confidence in. Might be a bit of a stretch but nobody is too keen on returning to the days of British Rail which, while doing good with what little it was given, wasn't exactly a bastion of efficiency or a world class railway.

You have more faith in the GBR project than I do.

Not saying it'll fail, but I can see it being a continuation of what we see now.

 

[Clarence Yard]

The transfer plan is basically being done in (former) franchise award order, at around 3 to 4 monthly intervals. The XC contract break point is effectively the end date for the whole process. There is no real change to the existing DfT TOC business plan on transfer - all they are doing is removing the private sector management contract element from it.

With the DfT deciding TOC budgets, including overall staff numbers and high level training plans, it is doubtful that they can do much in the way of taking contracts back early if their decisions have caused the performance issues. The gloves are off now with these lucrative (“free money”) contracts ending and so the Owning Groups will be only too glad to take the DfT to the legal cleaners if they tried anything stupid. The OG’s have better commercial lawyers.

 

[jamieh27]

So we’ve got:
Greater Anglia 12th October
West Midlands Trains 1st February
GTR 31st May

Then:
GWR
Chiltern
Both to follow at a date to be determined by the Secretary of State (presumably later 2026)

Which by my reckoning leaves:
Avanti
CrossCountry
EMR
to transfer in 2027

Its possible it might be that way.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Sep 2025 ==

Cross country ultimately need more rolling stock and that's not going to materialise so yeah I imagine it's in their interest to delay the transfer as long as possible. Even bent dft and maybe having some more flexibility with rolling stock doesn't help, because there's not really any suitable cascades even.

Wonder if it will help or hinder GWRs plans for their battery tech. That's something they'll need sooner rather than later to get 150s replaced too. Again there's not much diesel stock that isn't also life expired.

CrossCountry are the "Worst" operator in the franchise becuase of short formation, train full and standing and not many seats.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Sep 2025 ==

Cross country ultimately need more rolling stock and that's not going to materialise so yeah I imagine it's in their interest to delay the transfer as long as possible. Even bent dft and maybe having some more flexibility with rolling stock doesn't help, because there's not really any suitable cascades even.

Wonder if it will help or hinder GWRs plans for their battery tech. That's something they'll need sooner rather than later to get 150s replaced too. Again there's not much diesel stock that isn't also life expired.

Well battery is still something GWR are still looking to do with the combined order that Chiltern Railways, Great Western Railway and South Western Railway for them to replace DMUs Class 150s, 158s, 159s, 165s and 166s.

 

[ValentaFan1974]

GBR probably won’t launch as a rail brand until after all the TOC’s have been nationalised. They will want to do a nation-wide launch of GBR.

 

[dutchbedford]

GBR probably won’t launch as a rail brand until after all the TOC’s have been nationalised. They will want to do a nation-wide launch of GBR.

There’s no probably. We are years away from any sort of uniformed national approach to running the railway.

The whole industry just isn’t set up for it. GBRTT being essentially mothballed basically put the nail in the coffin for it happening in the 2020s. Not to mention the chokehold the unions have on the industry.

 

[GordonT]

Happy days for any folk who take a particular delight in submitting FOI requests.

 

[vuzzeho]

GBRTT being essentially mothballed basically put the nail in the coffin for it happening in the 2020s.

GBRTT winding down wasn't a slow/stop in progress, but a planned part of the process. Their work was done, and now they've returned to NR/DfT/DFTO to begin the work of preparing the organisations for the unification. We're already seeing more unification between NR and DFTO with the whole South Eastern Railway, South Western Railway, and the upcoming Anglia Railway partnerships.

 

[irish_rail]

All they are doing at this moment is removing the private sector management element. They are still working to the existing DfT business plan for each TOC, irrespective of ownership.

Change of ownership doesn’t mean change of plan.

Which is exactly what's wrong with the whole thing. You'd think Starmer would be keen to get some sort of visible change Into the publics eyes, if only to demonstrate Labour are actually achieving anything tangible. It's only when the TOCs stop behaving as individual organisations that the savings of pooled resources and streamlining will be made.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

All they are doing at this moment is removing the private sector management element. They are still working to the existing DfT business plan for each TOC, irrespective of ownership.
Change of ownership doesn’t mean change of plan.

Well, we're still waiting for the regionalisation structure of GBR to know what geographic changes are intended (if DfT knows itself).
Nothing can really change until GBR's powers are announced and the first regional "contracts" let.
The existing NR funding settlement will also apply until 2029 (end of CP7), which is another constraint.

 

[jamieh27]

Well, we're still waiting for the regionalisation structure of GBR to know what geographic changes are intended (if DfT knows itself).
Nothing can really change until GBR's powers are announced and the first regional "contracts" let.
The existing NR funding settlement will also apply until 2029 (end of CP7), which is another constraint.

Saw on Instagram that GTR will be nationalised on 31st May 2026.

 

[SephenWorceste]

Interesting to see how this works. Presumably a big new central bureaucracy is being built to run the trains. This will replace lots of smaller local bureaucracies of course. I wonder how they will organise the railways perhaps into geographical regional departments and a separate long distant department. I am sure we could come up with the names.

At the moment the trains used and type of services offered vary considerably. I wonder if they will level it up or down. Perhaps move some of the IETs from GWR to Cross Country. A few Northern Pacers for the Elizabeth Line. Close first class lounges on the West Coast. Of course anybody who loses out will complain.

I wonder what will happen where companies compete. For example London to Birmingham. I have had some very nice service, food, wine and Advance fares on that route over the years.

My hazy memory of British Rail in the 1980s was that it was not very good. Saying that ticket prices seemed generally quite cheap. Perhaps we paid more for our railways through taxation then.

At least from next year I will be able to blame the government.

 

[dk1]

Interesting to see how this works. Presumably a big new central bureaucracy is being built to run the trains. This will replace lots of smaller local bureaucracies of course. I wonder how they will organise the railways perhaps into geographical regional departments and a separate long distant department. I am sure we could come up with the names.

At the moment the trains used and type of services offered vary considerably. I wonder if they will level it up or down. Perhaps move some of the IETs from GWR to Cross Country. A few Northern Pacers for the Elizabeth Line. Close first class lounges on the West Coast. Of course anybody who loses out will complain.

I wonder what will happen where companies compete. For example London to Birmingham. I have had some very nice service, food, wine and Advance fares on that route over the years.

My hazy memory of British Rail in the 1980s was that it was not very good. Saying that ticket prices seemed generally quite cheap. Perhaps we paid more for our railways through taxation then.

At least from next year I will be able to blame the government.

No pacers have graced the National rail network in passenger service for a few years now

 

[Snow1964]

Well battery is still something GWR are still looking to do with the combined order that Chiltern Railways, Great Western Railway and South Western Railway for them to replace DMUs Class 150s, 158s, 159s, 165s and 166s.

GWR have been looking at it for at least 4 years.

As there tends to be 3 months gaps between each nationalisation, GWR is about 11-13 months away.

Seems to me chance of ordering anything during that period is low, and any new organisation tends to need few months before committing to hundreds of millions of upgrades.

A repeat order tends to take about 3 years to go into service, nearer 5 years for any new design. So looking like might be 2030-2032 for any GWR replacement stock to start to enter service. And might take 2-3 years to build whole fleet, so might be a decade before old trains have gone.

2020 to 2022 was Covid uncertainty
2023 to 2026 is due to Nationalisation blight stopping any decisions / commitments.
How that is an improvement is beyond me.


As for Heidi Alexander saying things will improve, that's not going to be very hard from such a low start point.

In most recent 4 week period
3.31% of GWR trains cancelled overall
8.54% cancelled in 1 of its 12 areas
Lowly 61.59% on time (more than 1 in 3 late)
227 trains shortformed below DfT min contract spec

https://www.gwr.com/-/media/gwr-sc-...performance/GWR-Periodic-Web-Report-P2605.pdf

 

[KNN]

But given many of XC's problems are actually quite easy to resolve, or at least, alleviate, such as taking on the remaining 221s sat doing nothing to reduce overcrowding and giving the current management a good dressing down and the resources needed to sort employee relations...

It could be a good flagship project if the will was there.

Problems being easy to identify, and them being easy to resolve aren't the same thing.

Especially when you are trying to manage the transfer of all the other TOCs at the same time with a finite number of staff.

Besides, the contracts are pretty robust, it seems there was a will to make Avanti a flagship GBR project but there was no cheap way to cancel the contract. The minimum requirements are almost impossible to fail, as I understood it.

 

[Class 170101]

GBRTT winding down wasn't a slow/stop in progress, but a planned part of the process. Their work was done, and now they've returned to NR/DfT/DFTO to begin the work of preparing the organisations for the unification. We're already seeing more unification between NR and DFTO with the whole South Eastern Railway, South Western Railway, and the upcoming Anglia Railway partnerships.

I don't hold out much confidence sadly, having seen Steve White of SE agree to extra access for engineers in the daytime to patrol the railway on a section of line during the summer school holidays which as it happened was during one of the summer heatwaves when people may have wanted to head to the coast.

NR have also put in a late notice block at Gidea Park

Emergency Engineering Work on Sunday 28th September

www.greateranglia.co.uk

Network Rail will be carrying out emergency work to replace a faulty rail between Chadwell Heath and Shenfield this Sunday 28 September.

As a result, there will be no train services between London Liverpool Street and Shenfield.

The faulty rail is a part of the track layout that allows trains to switch lines just outside Gidea Park station. One of the sleepers which holds the rails in place in this location is also deteriorating and needs to be replaced.

I wonder how long that speed restriction has been in situ and whether we will see more of this behaviour to ensure the engineers get their own way?

 

[The Planner]

I don't hold out much confidence sadly, having seen Steve White of SE agree to extra access for engineers in the daytime to patrol the railway on a section of line during the summer school holidays which as it happened was during one of the summer heatwaves when people may have wanted to head to the coast.

NR have also put in a late notice block at Gidea Park

Emergency Engineering Work on Sunday 28th September

www.greateranglia.co.uk

I wonder how long that speed restriction has been in situ and whether we will see more of this behaviour to ensure the engineers get their own way?

And as I always say, operators can say no. The Network Code suddenly hasn't been thrown in the bin.

 

[Roy Badami]

This is my list of English TOCs, with actual and expected nationalisation dates -corrections welcome. Obviously LNER, Northern, Southeastern and TPE had already been nationalised for other reasons.

SWR and c2c were old-style franchises. They had an end date written into the franchise agreement (which I've put in the Earliest column) but could be extended by DfT giving notice prior to expiry. I've put in the Latest column the franchise end dates that would result from the maximum extension permitted in the agreement. In actual fact, the DfT had already given notice (long before nationalisation started) to extend these franchises by the maximum amount, so it was a foregone conclusion that they would end on this latest posssible date.

The remaining franchises are a newer kind. Rather than the DfT being able to extend them, the DfT has some flexibility to end them early. The expiry date written into the franchise agreement (in the Latest column) is the last date the franchise can run till, and the date it will end if the DfT takes no action. The Core Term Expiry Date (in the Earliest column) is the earliest date that the DfT - by giving suitable notice - can choose to end the franchise.

The DfT has stated that the TOCs will be nationalised in order of their Core Term Expiry Dates so this - along with the dates announced so far - almost gives us the order in which nationalisation will occur. The one remaining uncertainty is which of EMR and Avanti will be nationalised first, as they both have the same Core Term Expiry Date. Apart from that, the order should be as given in the table below, unless the DfT decides to change tack for some reason.

If they stick to the one TOC roughly every three months target timetable, then we can expect Chiltern and GWR to be nationalised (in that order) later in 2026, then EMR and Avanti (in either order) in the first half of 2027. XC, then, will likely be nationalised on the Core Term Expiry Date of 17 October 2027 (since this is the earliest date that the DfT can end that franchise).

​	Earliest​	Planned/actual​	Latest​
LNER​	​	24/06/18​	​
Northern​	​	01/03/20​	​
Southeastern​	​	17/10/21​	​
TPE​	​	28/05/23​	​
SWR​	28/05/23​	25/05/25​	25/05/25​
c2c​	23/07/23​	20/07/25​	20/07/25​
GA​	15/09/24​	12/10/25​	20/09/26​
WMT​	15/09/24​	01/02/26​	20/09/26​
GTR​	01/04/25​	31/05/26​	01/04/28​
Chiltern​	01/04/25​	​	12/12/27​
GWR​	22/06/25​	​	25/06/28​
EMR​	18/10/26​	​	13/10/30​
Avanti​	18/10/26​	​	17/10/32​
XC​	17/10/27​	​	12/10/31​

 

[Snow1964]

XC, then, will likely be nationalised on the Core Term Expiry Date of 17 October 2027 (since this is the earliest date that the DfT can end that franchise).

They could also pull the XC franchise if it is below requirements rather than wait 2 years to 17th October 2027

Just out of interest looked up latest XC performance

Less than half trains on time at 48.9%
Using within 3 minutes, then over 3 in 10 don't meet that either (it is 69.8%)
If you use the very lacklustre within 15 minutes, then that is 94.1% so around 1 in 19 trains
Trains within 30-59 minutes (nowhere near on time) is hefty 1.6%

Cancellations are 6.9% (averaging nearer 8% on 2025 figures)
Cancellations by XC (rather than all canx) 4.2%

Short formed 3.7% (apparently excludes where one set locked out) as based on vehicles that ran, not how many passengers can actually use.

Accessible customer service during disruption quality only 51.25% of target

https://www.crosscountrytrains.co.uk/about-us/key-business-performance-indicators.

So unless cross country make serious improvements then not going to be immune from DfT saying not good enough, hand back early.

 

[GordonT]

So unless cross country make serious improvements then not going to be immune from DfT saying not good enough, hand back early.

Would handing back be a huge panacea? Presumably there's not a limitless bank of untapped new managerial expertise or indeed trained traincrew in areas of shortage. Many of the staff who do the day to day stuff would be unchanged and there will be just as many opportunities for all-operator disrupting occurrences to happen somewhere between Plymouth-Edinburgh, Bournemouth-Manchester etc. on a regular basis.

 

[Snow1964]

Would handing back be a huge panacea? Presumably there's not a limitless bank of untapped new managerial expertise or indeed trained traincrew in areas of shortage. Many of the staff who do the day to day stuff would be unchanged and there will be just as many opportunities for all-operator disrupting occurrences to happen somewhere between Plymouth-Edinburgh, Bournemouth-Manchester etc. on a regular basis.

It's also a bit political spin, is it better to have XC handed back whilst poor, then claim can improve it, or wait and hopefully take it on after improvement, but then not be in position to improve it easily.

Possibly best (from PR spin) to take it over just as staff shortages are easing with newly trained staff becoming available.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

It's also a bit political spin, is it better to have XC handed back whilst poor, then claim can improve it, or wait and hopefully take it on after improvement, but then not be in position to improve it easily.
Possibly best (from PR spin) to take it over just as staff shortages are easing with newly trained staff becoming available.

There's always the possibility of the XC contract (and the others) being terminated "by mutual agreement".
At some point the private managements will want to be deployed on other things, notably their open access operations.
A lot also depends on DOHL/GBR readiness to absorb these operations.
There are likely to be major personnel changes as GBR is formed (eg, who is going to HQ at Derby?).
There's still a mountain to climb with the GBR legislation, once the Bill is tabled in the Commons.

 

[bramling]

Saw on Instagram that GTR will be nationalised on 31st May 2026.

The thought of this being 8 months away fills me with unease. GTR seems uninterested enough in the service as it is, and the knowledge that the end is approaching will only increase this trend. Operationally they have been an appalling operator, no concept of the basics at all.

 

[Roy Badami]

They could also pull the XC franchise if it is below requirements rather than wait 2 years to 17th October 2027

They clearly could do that - and indeed, before the nationalisation programme started there was much speculation that they would use their powers to nationalise the worst performing franchises first. But this doesn't seem to be the DfT's current intention.

 

[dk1]

They clearly could do that - and indeed, before the nationalisation programme started there was much speculation that they would use their powers to nationalise the worst performing franchises first. But this doesn't seem to be the DfT's current intention.

And I think the DfT have enough on their plate at the moment without getting involved in this too!

 

[Clarence Yard]

The.biggest problem in trying to take anything back in house early on performance grounds is that the DfT are effectively now deciding the resource levels at each TOC.

Therefore any move to take back early is legally fraught. It would be a huge opportunity for any of the Owning Groups to go legal and extract even more money out of the DfT.

The DfT know this so they are just sticking to their existing termination timetable with two teams (in turn) doing the transfer arrangements.

 

[Russel]

So unless cross country make serious improvements then not going to be immune from DfT saying not good enough, hand back early.

The DFT are the cause of a lot of XC's problems, what will handing back the keys and the resulting nationalisation actually achieve, other than a bit of empty political spin?

It's painfully obvious any money saved by nationalising XC will not be invested in XC to make meaningful improvements.

 

[Class 170101]

And as I always say, operators can say no. The Network Code suddenly hasn't been thrown in the bin.

Yes and as that same article said,

If the work was not carried out this weekend, the speed restriction could have to be lowered to 5mph, or the line might have to be blocked entirely at short notice. This would mean unplanned disruption that could cause more severe delays to passengers over a longer period.

I'm sorry but whilst Network Code hasn't suddenly been thrown in the bin, in practise NR offer few if any options beyond the options they wish to pursue.

 

[Russel]

Problems being easy to identify, and them being easy to resolve aren't the same thing.

There are 7 (I think) Class 221s off lease that could make a big difference to XC, other than not wanting to spend money, what is the issue?