Why the government is not actually renationalising the railways

Great British Railways is not a reincarnation of British Rail, Jon Stone explains

Fundamentally, there are a limited number of ways you can run trains, especially on a busy network like the one in Britain where operators have to squeeze out every drop of capacity (Getty/iStock)

The government this week unveiled major reforms to the way Britain’s railways will be run. There’s no doubt that these are significant changes and represent the biggest change to the industry’s structure since privatisation in the 1990s.

Some commentators have suggested that the railways are effectively being renationalised, but this isn't really correct. To understand why, let’s unpack the reforms.

Before the pandemic, railways were operated by private franchise holders. Private companies bid for and won contracts to operate a certain franchise for a number of years, in a competition run by the Department for Transport (DfT).