Is Wales is inching its way towards changing that? The current Welsh Government was certainly ahead of the UK Government in deciding to change the way rail franchising was carried out, and established a brand (TfW) that would suit a remit beyond just trains.
Perhaps Mark Drakeford is looking to re-establish some of that "
clear red water" that Rhodri Morgan once spoke of.
Quite possibly. England has long pushed the right-of-centre "leave them to it" approach, but Scotland is leading a move away from that, and while Welsh politics doesn't have quite as much of a gulf between it and England as Scottish ones do there is in my view certainly a move that way.
There's a lot of difference between Welsh and English politics if you look close enough.
There's no privatisation or competition in the Welsh NHS, with health boards overseeing local services, not trusts.
No privatisation in the education system - no foundation schools or academies, Wales has kept the comprehensive school system and only has a handful of private schools.
Free prescriptions for all, bus passes at 60, free museum entry.
A much more generous higher education financial support package for undergraduates
and postgraduates, including generous grants.
Votes at 16 will be introduced at council elections and soon for elections to the Welsh Assembly, soon to be called Welsh Parliament.
And after much wrangling with Westminster, control over public transport has been devolved (although not rail infrastructure apart from the 'Core Valley lines', but Welsh Govt continues to push hard for this) and we're now seeing long overdue reforms to public transport. Transport for Wales is definitely going to grow it's responsibilities now it's not distracted with awarding and setting up the new rail franchise, and I would like to see it take over control of running Wales' bus network, particularly in the bigger towns and cities. Municipal operators like Cardiff and Newport Bus won't like being taken over, but this was part of Ken Skates' original plans for TfW when it was set up, but perhaps after pushback from councils, these plans seemed to have been dropped.
But if Wales' wants a truly integrated public transport system like London, TfW controlling/overseeing all public transport in Wales under one brand makes most sense to present an integrated and unified network to the public.