Chiltern Railways’ services became the latest to transition into public ownership on Sunday, marking the sixth train operator to be nationalised by the Government.
The UK’s largest train operator, Govia Thameslink Railway, alongside c2c, Greater Anglia, South Western Railway, and West Midlands Trains, have already been brought into public ownership by the Government.
From December, the Department for Transport (DfT) confirmed that 25 additional daily Chiltern Railways services will be introduced to help tackle “overcrowding”, delivering 10,000 extra seats during each weekday. This plan incorporates half-hourly weekday trains running along the Chiltern main line between London and Birmingham, as well as an increase in weekend journeys.
Jeez as a South African looking at our own nationalised train/railway service, called Transnet, all I can say is good luck Britain, really hope you do not follow our footsteps, please learn from us. Luckily thanks to all it’s failures the government has started privatisation of certain parts with amazing success, similar to our Nationalised electricity provider Eskom being forced to allow private generation into the grid. Hopefully Britain has systems in place to ensure there isn’t anything like corruption that loots funds through connected businesses or putting incompetent people loyal to the ruling party in charge as a form of rent seeking.
Good luck Britain, hopefully yours turns out great, like how I am hoping for privatisation to turn our railways around