South Western Railway: First nationalised train is bus service
Amongst collectors of memorabilia there is one specialised field - train tickets.And their current prize is a rare one: An example of the ticket for the first train to run on South Western Railway (SWR) after re-nationalisation this weekend.But there is a problem - engineering works.SWR becomes Great British Railways on Sunday at 01:59 BST precisely. The next scheduled service would normally be the 02:27 from Guildford to Waterloo, but that's been cancelled.The next is the 05:36 from Woking - and tickets are on sale for £15:20. But this is also affected by the bank holiday repairs.It's not the best start - the first nationalised train is a bus replacement service.
Not that you would have guessed all that from the launch of the new Great British Railways logo by the Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander in Bournemouth this week.It was a slick and impressive affair. And Labour MPs like Portsmouth's Amanda Martin are looking forward to public ownership."My granddad was a train driver," she tells me. "I'm really proud of what we're intending to do."But will fares be lower? Perhaps not straight away. But she says things will improve."It will take time but now we will be able to look at increasing our passenger services. Make the passengers feel better on the trains from planning the journey to finding your tickets and if you're delayed, they'll be an instant repayment."Liberal Democrat MP for Didcot and Wantage Olly Glover is on Parliament's transport committee and says nationalisation has potential, but will require vision and leadership."What the industry needs is for the government to be really clear on what they want them to deliver in terms of wider economic and social and environmental policies."They need to provide that clarity in multi-year funding and let the industry get on with delivering that. They need to take a step back from the detail and my worry is that this will encourage them to get more involved. "
Former Conservative MP Chris Loder used to work for South West Trains and says they should be not be ashamed of the time they held the franchise."We saw passenger numbers double over the period of privatisation until just before Covid. We saw huge levels of investment that we haven't seen before."But now he's calling for more competition even within the nationalised framework, using Open Access Train Operators, competing on the same line with the government-owned operator."We're in a different era. Passenger behaviour has changed and therefore that means that different structural changes are required."Open access operators should be allowed to run across the network. That of course is not the current Labour policy."Even supporters of nationalisation admit it will take time before the effects are felt.But maybe it won't be long before passengers don't have to check before travelling, that their train has been replaced by a bus, or they need a small mortgage to buy the ticket.
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