While not news that directly impacts TSW5 in the here and now but I do wonder whether it could be positive news for DTG. SWR, C2C and Greater Anglia are being renationalised during the summer and autumn of 2025. Hopefully the DfT will be open to agreeing DTG with a licence for the new national branding. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ceqlnrgjr79o Can't wait to see what the national livery looks like.
Should open up some more doors in terms of UK routes which were previously barred because of licensing, like GEML and C2C. That is of course, unless the Govt pulls of some nonsense like SBB, in which case we'll be stuck with routes set pre-2025. I personally am happy SWR is transferring to Government ownership, after the poor service they have given for 6 years.
Depends on what priorities the new operators and parent bodies have, as to whether licensing or access for research for a simulation game gets a look in. As I said in another thread, the names might change but most of these will be run by exactly the same personnel who were in charge as a private company, with the same views as before.
I can imagine there’ll be sort kind of public engagement strategy to get the naysayers and sceptics on their side. Might work in their favour to have representation in the interactive media!
Potentially good news to open up some routes that are currently lacking in ai such as BML through Clapham Jct which look empty on the west side, I also hope the new Overground 378’s will appear as ai over that side soon.
Don’t SWR run the Isle of Wight line? Wonder if it opens up the possibility to getting the proper livery for that.
They are a government of contradictions. They have just sold off the Elizabeth line to a foreign operator.
It depends who you speak to. It seems to me that there has been so many new trains delivered in the last 20 years, more than under British Rail, I feel there has been a lot of investment. However the service on my local line has not improved in fact it seems to be worse, driver shortages, unit shortages but we do have fancy new PIS screens to tell us the latest woes. But people were moaning constantly about British Rail although it seemed to be half decent by the time it was privatised. I don't trust any government to run a bath but are they going to be worse than what we have now, probably not.
There is nothing to stop any routes currently barred by licencing being produced. There were railways before the year 2014!
Probably won't see any changes for a while in real life so it will probably be about the same on get license in to the game will dtg find out information on what it will go like I can't see Rivet going back to give island line class 484 proper branding or giving the 483 branded london transport red wich is what's it was called
Like our good friend theorganist I was about to give you an equally ambiguous response. It was poorly executed, rushed and most importantly did more to remove experienced senior railway positions when their expertise was most needed. It was a pipe dream that it would introduce genuine competition when the vast majority of travellers have a choice of one Train Operator from their station. Making operators lease trains from ROSCOs added another layer of cost that drained money out of the railways and into banks and hedge funds. But since Network Rail took over infrastructure there's no doubt that safety on the railway is at levels I've rarely seen in my lifetime (when growing-up there was usually a mass-casualty event somewhere on the network every year) and investment in brand new rolling stock has been impressive over the last decade. However, on balance, the real losers have been the passengers with soaring ticket prices and increasingly complex conditions of travel. A friend recently got a saver ticket from Stockport to Colchester. His Northern train was cancelled, missing his chosen Avanti train which was then delayed which found him at Liverpool Street in the rush hour which meant he had to beg the second two operators' staff not to charge him a full price fare. I could write a book on it but I'll leave that to the experts who didn't flee British Rail when it was privatised, like I did.
Southeastern are now nationalised (apparently) not much has changed, apart from 100s of services cut. Nationalisation has never worked tbh. I remember the British rail days, when you could turn up to the station at 10:30 and still wait around for the 10:00 train. Br ment that even though the line runs direct from strood to Tonbridge, you had to change trains 3 times!
Many regular users of Northern are saying it's worse now than it was when it was privatised. Nationalisation on its own will fix nothing - it will still be run for-profit, like it always has, just it's owned by the government instead. Most of the issues of privatisation are down to the government (train companies are basically just a name and a livery now).
Not quite. Colloquially there was "Bus Red" and "Train Red" the latter, darker, red was phased out in the 70s. That's why the TS1938 for the Bakerloo Line trains come in two shades of red. The Bus Red ones represent the units that were given life extending work and have the white London Transport roundel on the sides. The other rolling stock to be so treated where the CO/CP units that ended up on the District Line in the 70s after being ousted by C Stock on the Hammersmith & City and Circle Lines. Personally, I always preferred Train Red with the gold lettering.
As I've always said, it doesn't matter if it private or public the most important thing is whether it's being well run. The Operator of Last Resort system under which Northern, Trans-Pennine, South Eastern and LNER (and someone will let me know if I've missed any) is different to the new GBR model. For example, under GBR the fare structure will be integrated, there will be one rolling stock procurement plan that will hopefully improve commonality across the fleet making short-term allocation changes possible again. For example when my line, LTS Rail, had a shortage of available trains we'd send some drivers to Ilford to borrow a couple of their units for a few days, no crew training required because they had the same units as us. Doing that currently would be an administrative and lengthy nightmare requiring lawyers, a safety case to be written, gauge testing, contracts and lengthy crew training. By which time, the temporary shortage as passed and trains were cancelled and short-formed. GBR isn't perfect and its success depends on the DfT whose hands are tied by The Treasury. While reintegration will solve a lot of current issues, there needs to be a shift in the Governmental attitude towards a more holistic approach to transport in the UK. One that opens-up public transport as a genuine and convenient alternative to using the roads. Perhaps the experiences of our friends in Wales and Scotland can inform us of what to expect.
I don't think that we'll see a national livery for some time as they're only becoming operator of last resort and looking at current OLR operators (TPE, SouthEastern, NORTHERN and LNER) all have retained their old livery with minor tweaks. On a personal note I'm not sure I want to see a national livery as it'd mean loosing a lot of the variety visually we have at the moment.
In truth there's a lot of work for GBR to sort-out on branding beyond the return of an updated BR logo. The big idea is to have a national livery with regional variations, whether that will be England/Wales/Scotland or sectors or even the old BR regions. I did ask my contact at the DfT about it a few weeks ago but he said it's "all a bit TBC at the moment".
