Maybe not: "The Transport Secretary announced on 19 October 2022 that the Transport Bill which would have set up GBR would not go ahead in the current parliamentary session."
The actual railways (that is, the tracks and the stations) are already government owned anyway (Network Rail).
Network Rail sells access to the network to train operating companies, which are private (though often state-owned by other countries).
The network was originally built by private companies until nationalisation in 1947 (railway companies were bankrupt after WW2). It was private for a while in the 90s, then went bankrupt and renationalised in 2002. Seems to be quite the money pit!
Why build and maintain the entirety of the infrastructure for a national transport system: payment, timetables, rails, signalling etc. and then hand the very last bit - the only bit that actually generates revenue - to a private company?
It's just another example of the hubris of the Conservative party. We've seen it play out repeatedly over the last decade and even earlier in Thatcher's neoliberalism. Labour's lurch to the right resulted in displays of similar small minded arrogance. Their undermining of the NHS through piecemeal privatisation is nothing short of a crime.
They seem to be re-nationalising the railways: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_British_Railways
Maybe not: "The Transport Secretary announced on 19 October 2022 that the Transport Bill which would have set up GBR would not go ahead in the current parliamentary session."
The actual railways (that is, the tracks and the stations) are already government owned anyway (Network Rail).
Network Rail sells access to the network to train operating companies, which are private (though often state-owned by other countries).
The network was originally built by private companies until nationalisation in 1947 (railway companies were bankrupt after WW2). It was private for a while in the 90s, then went bankrupt and renationalised in 2002. Seems to be quite the money pit!
since covid it has been essentially nationalised: the government took on the risk and any pnl
the franchising sysem won't be coming back
I'm sure TransPennine Express and Avanti West Coast passengers would love that but it's not quite true (yet?)
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Why build and maintain the entirety of the infrastructure for a national transport system: payment, timetables, rails, signalling etc. and then hand the very last bit - the only bit that actually generates revenue - to a private company?
It's just another example of the hubris of the Conservative party. We've seen it play out repeatedly over the last decade and even earlier in Thatcher's neoliberalism. Labour's lurch to the right resulted in displays of similar small minded arrogance. Their undermining of the NHS through piecemeal privatisation is nothing short of a crime.
It just got delayed AFAIK.
"wind power"...