British railways new home *

The public is to have its say with an online vote as the Government publishes a plan to find a home for Great British Railways.

A statement published on Saturday (5 February) says that towns and cities across the country with strong links to the railways are encouraged to enter the nationwide competition.  It is all part of the Michael Grove levelling up scheme.  The claim is Great British Railways will integrate the railways and deliver simpler, cheaper, passenger-focused travel.

The announcement is a reminder to train users that a Department for Transport commitment was made in May 2021 as part of the Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail, focusing on delivering sweeping reforms and creating what it called “a truly passenger-focused railway serving a single, accountable public body responsible for running Britain’s railways”.  It was followed up (see BTN 11 October 2021) with controversial plans for its location to be away from the capital.  

BTN’s railway expert Andrew Sharp, former Director General of the International Air Rail Organisation, had this to say at the time. “A very competent, charismatic, imaginative and outspoken railway manager (Gerry Fiennes) is quoted as saying, ‘When you re-organise, you bleed’. Very true.  The Office of National Statistics moved from London to Newport: 90% of its London-based staff didn’t. The loss of expertise had a detrimental effect on official statistics. Network Rail centralised its timetabling function in Milton Keynes: a lot of expertise decided not to move too. That impacted on railway timetabling – an incredibly complex business”.

Two former aviation chiefs are involved with the scheme, Keith Williams, ex-BA boss, and Andrew Haines, former CEO of the Civil Aviation Authority, as CEO of Network Rail and leader of the transition team.

https://gbrtt.co.uk

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OUR READERS' FINEST WORDS (All times and dates are GMT)

All comments are filtered to exclude any excesses but the Editor does not have to agree with what is being said. 100 words maximum

John Hepworth, United Kingdom

Is this part of leveling up/sideaways or down.Seems like more useless expenditure that the Tramsport Minister is "in charge of"

Jack Brush, Manchester

The idea of moving the hub of the British railways system from London is pure madness, or a clever plan to make staff use the trains in order to make representation to the centre of government. If it is to bring all year round work to local communities can I propose Yarmouth.