Great British Railways: What form do you think it will take?

[Purple Orange]

With the fascinating news of Great British Railways being formed to take responsibility for track & trains, what do you expect to see? What will happen to service provision, branding or investment in new rolling stock and infrastructure?

I would like to see a common brand identity and although service operation may be outsourced, like regulated bus operation and our light rail networks. Crucially I’d like to see customer facing sales being under one umbrella.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

With the fascinating news of Great British Railways being formed to take responsibility for track & trains, what do you expect to see? What will happen to service provision, branding or investment in new rolling stock and infrastructure?

I would like to see a common brand identity and although service operation may be outsourced, like regulated bus operation and our light rail networks. Crucially I’d like to see customer facing sales being under one umbrella.

Since when is this happening?

 

[MontyP]

Sounds more like cost cutting and service reductions than investment and new services. Where do we think the 10-20% cost cuts being floated are going to come from?

 

[Sad Sprinter]

With the fascinating news of Great British Railways being formed to take responsibility for track & trains, what do you expect to see? What will happen to service provision, branding or investment in new rolling stock and infrastructure?

I would like to see a common brand identity and although service operation may be outsourced, like regulated bus operation and our light rail networks. Crucially I’d like to see customer facing sales being under one umbrella.

I hope they keep using the BR logo and don’t change it to something else. Perhaps see it used more on rolling stock too.

Would the National Rail brand be done away with?

 

[PTR 444]

Perhaps this will be a return to a sectorisation-like model, with a handful of very large regional operators in charge of both running services and maintaining track under contract for the government. It could look a bit like this:

• Network South (SWR, Southern, Thameslink & Southeastern)
• Network West (GWR & Chiltern)
• Network Midland (LNWR, WMT, EMT & Avanti)
• Network East (c2c, Greater Anglia, Great Northern & LNER)
• Network North (Northern, Merseyrail & TPE)
• Transport for Wales
• Scotrail
• HS2
  
  Even with fewer operators, branding could be more diverse, so for example SWR might be split into Southwestern Mainline, Southwestern Metro and Windsor Lines. They would all be part of the Network South operation however, so train crew could interchange between these as well as Southern, Thameslink and SE routes since they would also come under the same region.

 

[JohnElliott]

I'd like to see a return of the lion and wheel. And trains painted depending on the fuel type: green for electric / battery, blue for hydrogen, maroon for diesel.

 

[Pete_uk]

A background organisation that will specify what the railways need to do and how much it has to do it.

 

[Purple Orange]

A background organisation that will specify what the railways need to do and how much it has to do it.

Isn’t that just the DfT?

 

[Pete_uk]

Well I think people are as usual jumping the gun and thinking 'Intercity' and 'Regional Railways' will come back.
I for one hope the current 'franchises' stay roughly as they are, with maybe a few sensible changes where needed.

 

[Purple Orange]

Well I think people are as usual jumping the gun and thinking 'Intercity' and 'Regional Railways' will come back.
I for one hope the current 'franchises' stay roughly as they are, with maybe a few sensible changes where needed.

So, what would those changes be?

 

[Jorge Da Silva]

Isn’t that just the DfT?

Nope the new organisation is independent from the DfT

 

[Purple Orange]

Nope the new organisation is independent from the DfT

Yes I understand that. I was making a pithy point that if the new org is just sat in the background, with franchises staying much the same as today, what real difference is there between the new org and the DfT keeping responsibility?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Yes I understand that. I was making a pithy point that if the new org is just sat in the background, with franchises staying much the same as today, what real difference is there between the new org and the DfT keeping responsibility?

Less meddling? I suspect that Blackpool Transport is all the better for politicians not directly meddling in it, for example.

Give it a strategy and budget and let the railwaymen get on with it.

 

[Purple Orange]

Less meddling? I suspect that Blackpool Transport is all the better for politicians not directly meddling in it, for example.

Give it a strategy and budget and let the railwaymen get on with it.

Railway people!

 

[Bletchleyite]

Railway people!

Indeed, apologies.

(I was using the term in the manner of "manhole" or the Americanised "guys" but it did give the wrong impression)

 

[gg1]

As nostalgia seems to be the dominant theme in this and the other thread on the same subject, I suggest going the whole hog and legislating that all future high speed lines should be built to a track gauge of 7ft 1/4"

 

[Purple Orange]

As nostalgia seems to be the dominant theme in this and the other thread on the same subject, I suggest going the whole hog and legislating that all future high speed lines should be built to a track gauge of 7ft 1/4"

Well to be fair, railuk is doused in people who love a bit of nostalgia. I’d argue that beneath the surface not much will change - the private sector will operate the rail services. In the public eyes there might be change and rebranding to something that represents a nationwide brand name isn’t necessarily nostalgic, but rather far more practical, with a consistent level of customer service across the industry.

For example, I have had a season ticket between Wilmslow & Manchester for years. Some years I bought the ticket at Piccadilly station, other times at Wilmslow station. The problem is, when I bought the ticket at Wilmslow and because Wilmslow was run by Northern, if I had a query about my ticket while at Piccadilly, there was no record the staff could access. I was told to go to a northern run station. That is fairly useless to me at that moment in time. The reverse happened when I bought the ticket at Piccadilly. Then there was the time I bought my ticket through my employer and a few months months later I changed jobs, resulting in ever greater confusion.

 

[Pete_uk]

So, what would those changes be?

I'm just thinking about the odd service change, like a service run by South Western Railway transfering to GWR for example