"A new era for rail": the British government renationalizes a first railway group

A turning point for British railways. South Western Railway, a railway company operating in the southwest of England, became the first to return to public ownership this Sunday as part of the British Labour government's rail renationalization campaign.

It's "a new era for rail," the Department for Transport said in a statement. "We're going to say goodbye to 30 years of inefficiency, waste and passenger frustration," said Minister Heidi Alexander during a visit this week to a train depot in southern England. "We're going to move forward with confidence into a new future for the railways."

The privatization of rail operators took place in the mid-1990s under Prime Minister John Major, continuing Margaret Thatcher's liberal policies of the 1980s. Despite the promise of better service, increased investment, and lower government spending, the project was highly unpopular, however, and was opposed by trade unions, the opposition, some Conservatives, and a large portion of the population. Passenger numbers initially increased, as did investment.

But a derailment caused by microcracks in the rails, which killed four people in 2000, deeply shocked the public. Cancellations and delays became commonplace, and passengers complained about the prices.

Also read

The rail network has since returned to public ownership, managed by Network Rail. Four of England's fourteen operators have already returned to public control in recent years due to poor performance. However, the idea was to manage them temporarily before returning to the private sector.

The Labour majority, in power since July, approved a law at the end of November that requires private operators to be nationalized when their contracts expire - or even earlier in the event of mismanagement - and to group them into an organization called "Great British Railways." Waiting until the end of the contracts, according to the government, allows it to avoid paying compensation to current operators. They will all expire by 2027.

The sector's unions, which have launched a wave of strikes in recent years under pressure from the purchasing power crisis caused by inflation, welcomed the state's takeover. "Everyone in the rail sector knows that privatization [...] has not worked and still isn't working," said Mick Whelan, general secretary of the Aslef train drivers' union, in statements released Thursday.

Returning these companies to public ownership will "ensure that services are run in the interests of passengers, not shareholders," but resolving "the structural problems that are hampering the rail network [...] will take time," warned Minister Heidi Alexander. The government announced in December that the first company affected would be South Western Railway. The company "c2c" will follow on July 20 and then "Greater Anglia" on October 12.