Britain’s railways have got a lot of flack in recent years, and rightly so.
Delays and cancellations are commonplace, while the industrial dispute that has raged for over two years is still yet to be fully resolved. Perhaps the most striking representation of the failure of UK train operators to provide any semblance of adequate service in recent years is in the performance of both Avanti West Coast and Transpennine Express.
The latter was nationalised after reporting the highest cancellation rate in the country, while Avanti has become a punching bag for politicians amid ongoing issues on the West Coast Main Line. The new transport secretary, Louise Haigh, is hauling bosses in this week for a dressing-down.
The point is, its been a rough ride since the pandemic decimated passenger numbers and left the railway system’s finances in tatters. You’ll have a hard time finding any positive news coverage since 2020.
But is the UK really that bad?
Take a look around Europe and you’ll find many of the continent’s wealthiest countries also can’t run a railway system properly.
Once lauded for its excellent service, Germany’s state railway Deutsche Bahn has been exposed at this summer’s European football championships. Years of underinvestment has sent cancellation rates soaring, with typically admiring English fans now wondering if they don’t have it so bad on home turf after all.
The issues have been such that journalists seeking to cover new investment into German rail on a Deutsche Bahn press trip faced a 45 minute delay to their train earlier in July.
Meanwhile in Paris, you’ll find warning shots from Mayor Anne Hidalgo that there aren’t enough trains for the Olympic Games later this month.
In western Europe, Switzerland may be the only country that can boast a successful railway system as of today. It has easily topped European rankings in recent years, due largely to the investment it puts into maintaining its railroad infrastructure.
So where does this leave the UK? Our position is a tricky one and the issues are wide-reaching, but the mood among many railway executives has shifted in recent months.
Regardless of the debate over nationalisation, Labour’s victory has given the railway industry something vital; clarity.
For years, the network has languished somewhere between nationalisation and privatisation, never fully committing to, or gaining the full benefit of, either. Post-pandemic, we have had some of the highest levels of government intervention since the days of British Rail – but shareholder dividends remain in the billions.
It is no surprise that many of Britain’s train companies have publicly backed Labour, despite the implications of what will amount to the biggest shake-up of the system in decades.
Driving their support is the new government’s commitment to Great British Railways (GBR), a long-delayed plan to create a ‘guiding mind’ for the sector that was endorsed by the creator of the Conservatives’ own rail policy.
Nationalisation has also brought the RMT and ASLEF unions on side, which could prove pivotal in bringing about an end to the strike dispute.
And most importantly, passenger numbers are continuing to rebound across the network. A total of 1.6bn journeys were made in Great Britain in the latest year, a 16 per cent jump on the previous year, topping up the coffers.
There’s a long way to go yet, but the UK’s railway industry is slowly starting to get back on track.