40% of the railway is already in public hands, including the entirety of Wales and Scotland. Freight, rolling stock and open access operators will still be in private hands even at the end of this years long process they're calling nationalisation, which has already seen the railway endure years of rudderless management.
Even now, nobody in government seems to want to answer even the most basic of questions regarding how the railway will be run once it had been nationalised. Up to and including whether the unionized workforce will have the ability to negotiate with one voice across the table from one management team.
Whatever this is, it certainly feels on brand for Kier Starmer. He's neither an ideologue or a pragmatist, a free marketeeer or a socialist. He sounds like a technocrat, but on straight performance, you'd probably not hire him.
Like many before him, ultimately his contribution to railway policy might be entirely forgotten, because in hindsight, nobody can be really sure what he actually did, never mind if it was of any lasting benefit.
Neither management contracts or operators of last resort were his ideas. Neither was vertical integration or devolution. He certainly didn't invent negotiating with the unions. The experts can pick holes in his messaging quite easily, and have largely decided not to inspite of him, not because of him. The public probably aren't even listening, blissful in their ignorance.
In all likelihood, the major changes and significant benefits will only occur under the next leader. And while you hope that won't be as a reaction to another lost half decade at the altar of indecision, you certainly can't rule it out on this evidence.
On the flip side, if Starmer deserves any credit, he won't get it. Not least because this is the one policy he decided not to dump when he ousted the Corbynites. His previous transport secretary included. She paid dearly for her two major mistakes in office, mistakes borne of her zeal for all things socialist.
