Labour confirms train services will be brought back under public control from early 2025

Full steam ahead!

With fares going through the roof and punctuality at record lows, public dissatisfaction with the railways reached record highs in recent years, with operators such as Avanti West Coast bearing the brunt of the nation's ire.

Office of Rail and Road figures show Avanti West Coast had the third worst reliability of all operators in Britain in the year to the end of March, with the equivalent of one in 15 trains (6.9 per cent) cancelled.

But the Tories decided to award the FirstGroup-owned operator a new contract anyway, which started in October last year.

Gracefully, that could be short-lived thanks to the Government’s Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill, which was included in the King’s Speech on Wednesday and had its first reading in the House of Commons on Thursday.

Once the legislation is passed, appointing a public sector train operator as private companies’ existing contracts expire will be the default position rather than a last resort.

It means services run by Govia Thameslink Railway – which includes the Southern, Thameslink, Gatwick Express and Great Northern brands – and Chiltern Railways could be the first to be taken into public ownership, as their contracts have core terms ending on April 1 2025.

London North Eastern Railway (LNER), Northern, Southeastern and TransPennine Express are already operated in the public sector after private companies were stripped of control because of poor performance.

Avanti West Coast – whose contract has a core term running until October 18 2026 – could still have its services nationalised first if Louise Haigh takes action over its performance.

She summoned the company’s managing director Andy Mellors and Network Rail bosses for a meeting on Tuesday.

Ms Haigh said: “We are exploring options for Avanti. I had them in this week with Network Rail and made very clear that we wouldn’t tolerate the levels of performance that they’ve been providing on the West Coast for any longer.

“We obviously will eventually bring them into public ownership.

“But I think they can do better even whilst in the private sector and I’ve been really shocked at the levels of performance that the previous government tolerated and how much they let them off the hook.”