Delay-ridden South Western becomes first train company to be renationalised under Labour's 'new dawn for railways' - but don't expect any cheaper tickets

Daily Mail​

25-05-2025

Delay-ridden South Western Railway has become the first train company to be renationalised by Labour.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander hailed it as a 'new dawn for railways' as she stepped on board the first train under Government control.
But she stopped short of promising lower ticket prices despite passengers saying all they wanted was 'cheaper fares'.
The carriages were the first to be adorned with Great British Railways livery with the Department for Transport now responsible for the service.
SWR was recently voted one of the worst rail operators coming third bottom in a recent study by watchdog Transport Focus.
The operator was previously owned by FirstGroup and MTR Corporation. Two other rail firms - C2C and Greater Anglia - will be brought under public control later this year.
A further seven other companies will be renationalised by 2027 with Labour previously saying simplifying the rail network would save taxpayers £2.2billion.
Boarding the 6.14am service from London Waterloo to Shepperton in Surrey, Ms Alexander said: 'Today marks a new dawn for our railways.
'Moving away from 30 years of inefficiency, delayed services and failing passengers, and moving confidently into a new era - the era of Great British Railways.
'That's why I was so adamant I had to be here at Waterloo this morning, alongside all these other excited passengers and rail aficionados, for what really is a watershed moment.
'Most rail users don't spend much time thinking about who runs the trains, but they do want them to work, and that's why there's a genuine excitement here today at the generational opportunity we have to completely transform train travel in this country.
'As the 6:14 service leaves Waterloo, I'll be sat on it with a sense of pride but also a determination to get this right and deliver a railway Britain can be proud of again.'
But some passengers weren't even aware the service had be renationalised as they boarded trains.
Maggie Smith, from Wokingham, told the BBC: 'I haven't heard any information at all and I haven't been given any information about what the impacts might be.'
While John Major told the corporation that he thought it was a 'dreadful' and feared it the service would no longer be reliable.
'British rail were a standing joke and stand-up comedians thoroughly enjoyed British rail,' he said.
All other services run by private companies will be renationalised as contracts reach the end of their minimum terms.
Britain's railway services were privatised in the mid-1990s.
Office of Rail and Road (ORR) figures show the equivalent of 4 per cent of services in Britain were cancelled in the year to April 26. For SWR, the figure was 3 per cent.
Renationalised services will be integrated into Great British Railways (GBR), a new public sector body which will also oversee rail infrastructure.
Legislation to enable the creation of GBR is expected to be introduced in Parliament later this year.
Shadow GBR has been established to ensure closer collaboration within the industry.
Richard Bowker, former boss of the Strategic Rail Authority, which was a public body providing direction for the industry between 2001 and 2005, said it is 'quite easy to be sceptical' about the overhaul but he believes there is 'real potential here for things to get better'.
Mr Bowker, who presents rail podcast Green Signals, went on: 'It has become overly complex, and I think bringing together track and train more now is a pragmatic and sensible thing to do.
'The key with this will not really be who owns it. Are the people that are going to be running it day to day... going to be genuinely empowered to make the right decisions to run the railway?
'We've got plenty of very, very able managers, but over the last five years - particularly since Covid when franchises effectively went bust and national rail contracts were put in place - there has been a huge amount of centralised control, and it's quite stifling.'
Johnbosco Nwogbo, of public ownership campaign group We Own It, said: 'Today is a great day for passengers because our railway is finally beginning its journey back to putting us, our communities and our planet before the profits of private shareholders.
'But the job is not yet done. The Government still has to get public ownership right, so that it really delivers for people.'
Analysis by PA news agency found the renationalisation of SWR means a third of journeys are on publicly owned services.
That is based on passenger journey data for 2024 from the ORR.
Operators that were already under public ownership are LNER, Northern, Southeastern and TransPennine Express.
GBR branding has been added to one SWR train.
It features part of a Union flag, the double arrow symbol that is synonymous with Britain's railways, and the words 'Great British Railways coming soon'.
More trains will be given the branding over the coming months and years.
But the DfT said publicly owned services 'will need to meet tough performance standards to be rebranded Great British Railways'.
These standards will cover factors such as punctuality, reliability and the experience of passengers.
The DfT said its renationalisation policy will save taxpayers up to £150 million per year in fees previously paid to private companies that ran services.
The first SWR service under public ownership was a rail replacement bus.
After the implementation of renationalisation at 2am, passengers travelling on the 5.36am service from Woking to London Waterloo had to change to a bus at Surbiton because of engineering work.