LONDON: Britain’s South Western Railways on Sunday becomes the first private train operator to be returned to public ownership under the Labour government’s plans to renationalize the country’s much-maligned railways.
Renationalizing all of the UK’s rail operators is among the key policies launched by Prime Minister Keir Starmer since his party’s return to government last July following 14 years in opposition.
“Today is a watershed moment in our work to return the railways to the service of passengers,” Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said in a statement.
Train passengers in Britain suffer from frequent cancelations, in addition to high ticket prices and regular confusion over which services they can be used on.
The privatization of rail operations took place in the mid-1990s under the then Conservative prime minister John Major, but the rail network remained public, run by Network Rail.
Four of the 14 operators in England are already run by the state owing to poor performance in recent years, but this was originally meant to be a temporary fix before a return to the private sector.
Labour triumphed over the Conservative party in elections last year, re-entering Downing Street with promises to fix the country’s ailing transport services.
Legislation was approved in November to bring rail operators into public ownership when the private companies’ contracts expire — or sooner in the event of poor management — and be managed by “Great British Railways.”
Alexander said this will end “30 years of fragmentation,” but she warned that “change isn’t going to happen overnight.”
“We’ve always been clear that public ownership isn’t a silver bullet, but we are really firing this starting gun in that race for a truly 21st-century railway, and that does mean refocusing away from private profit and toward the public good,” she added.
In an example of how passengers might not immediately notice much difference, South Western’s first service under public ownership on Sunday was set to be a rail replacement bus.
Government figures show that the equivalent of four percent of train services in Britain were canceled in the year to April 26.
Rail unions — which have staged a stream of strikes in recent years over pay and conditions due to a cost-of-living crisis — welcomed the state takeover.
“We’re delighted that Britain’s railways are being brought back where they belong — into the public sector,” said Mick Whelan, general secretary of union Aslef.
“Everyone in the rail industry knows that privatization... didn’t, and doesn’t, work,” he added.
Two operators serving towns and cities in southeastern and eastern England are next to be brought back into public ownership by late 2025.
All the current contracts are set to expire by 2027.
The government has said renationalization will save up to £150 million ($203 million) per year because it will no longer have to pay compensation fees to rail operators.
The main rail operators in Scotland and Wales, where transport policy is handled by the devolved administrations in Edinburgh and Cardiff, are also state-owned.
