Is it the end for GBR??

[krus_aragon]

Rail England

If "England" doesn't suit, maybe Anglia Greater Anglia Even Greater Anglia?

 

[domcoop7]

To be honest, I would take the Gareth Dennis position on nationalisation, which is that a slower transition is probably good, just to avoid unnecessary disruption for the most part.

In terms of your points on regional control, I would really disagree with the sentiment. A lot of politicians for the big city regions or nations are generally more pragmatic than you think. Northern cities tend to support infrastructure investments in other areas, because they see the knock on effects of delayed intercity services due to various bottlenecks. (E.g. Leeds sees delayed TPE train from Liverpool because of bottleneck in Manchester)

Devolution doesn't mean that regions can do whatever they want, and any kind of deal can ensure through ticketing and access for IC and freight services.

The issue is, the current system has a lot of people who are very out of touch signing off on the final decisions. Regional control seems to help rebalance that. Ridership numbers on Merseyrail, London Overground seem to confirm this!

Labour Party northern mayors are happy to ask for investment when they can say "Tories this, Tories that". Labour mayors under a Labour government would toe the party line which would involve not upsetting the electorate in other Labour heartlands. But either way they are responsible to their voters. A mayor of Greater Manchester isn't going to get any more votes by suggesting infrastructure improvements at Barrow in Furness to help the Airport to Barrow trains. A mayor of Greater Manchester would get more votes by getting the Airport to Barrow train turned around at Bolton (or taken out of the path altogether) so he could say "we've increased seats on Bolton to the Airport by 'x'%". And your Merseyrail and London Overground services point is an example of what I'm saying. These are self-contained systems that largely don't go beyond the boundaries of their area (Chester and Orsmkirk aside).

I'm not sure a Greater Manchester Bee Rail, a West Yorkshire overground, a South Yorkshire Metro Rail, etc., is going to be helpful. Especially if it share the infrastructure with out of area services, but the prioritisation, control, and maintenance is run by, as part of, and for the benefit, of the local service.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Tanmanjeet Singh Desi Labour Opposition transport spokesman asked a question at Transport topical questions this morning about whether GBR was being scrapped usual obfuscated answer given Kevin Foster which gave nothing away although did say the location of GBR HQ would be announced shortly so maybe it is still work in progress.

Its at 10.06 on

https://www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/74f7cbc1-2d94-46d2-afc9-a81d9d1f2

there are other questions on the railways.

 

[317 forever]

Starmer has committed Labour to "renationalisation as contracts expire" - what precisely this means is unclear.

Maybe all operations going over to OLR once the current agreements expire. Had Boris Johnson called a General Election for August instead of stepping down as Prime Minister (leaving aside the disclaimer of how unlikely a GE in August would be), the Avanti contract could have been concluded tomorrow and the West Coast operation gone to OLR.

I never saw the point of the name Great British Railways. Keeping the name National Rail seems simpler.

 

[Roast Veg]

I do have to wonder what Labour would do, when they did nothing during their 13 years in power last time.

Very different government then to the one we can expect come the next general election.

 

[Mag_seven]

Tanmanjeet Singh Desi Labour Opposition transport spokesman asked a question at Transport topical questions this morning about whether GBR was being scrapped usual obfuscated answer given Kevin Foster which gave nothing away although did say the location of GBR HQ would be announced shortly so maybe it is still work in progress.

I think on that note we will once again bring this thread to a close until we hear something actually concrete. Anything else is just pure speculation at this point.