4 December 2024, 10:55

By Christian Wolmar

The ‘renationalisation’ of the railways announced by Labour today is nothing of the sort.

It is a bringing together of train operations with Network Rail which has been back in the state sector for more than a decade. It is not the recreation of British Rail which had total control over all aspects of running the railways from timetabling and ticketing to engineering and owning the rolling stock.

In many respects, that is a shame. British Rail, contrary to the frequent cheap jibes about the quality of its sandwiches, was actually a very efficient and effective organisation in the last decade of its existence.

And it was a transport organisation, not a catering........

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