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Finneeee. It’s not like I don’t want to do it. Look what I have open: #emfcamp

Ok. Quick on update:
The newest railway bill basically only amends the TOC aspect of the current setup - it forces the private companies at the end of their franchise agreement to end the agreement and the government steps in. I did cover this in my talk. However, more interesting stuff after this. has happened since, so I will add replies to explain

1. The existing private providers are not going quietly. A number of them have registered to be Open Access Operators, which is where they can still run trains, just not under a franchise agreement - they'd pay Network Rail (and others) fees, the profits and fares are all theirs.

2. All these TOCs have negotiated separately with the unions and have drifted apart over the past 3 decades - some regions have overtime, some have shift allowances instead, and this is merging all back together into a messy NHS-style reorg.

3. The overall "Great British Railways" new brand for everything together is originally from the Conservative government cabinet, and honestly the doc is filled with sly union bashing comments (and factual errors - yay!). Labour intend to keep this plan, likely not with the union bashing aspects I'd guess. But no one has announced what that would look like yet.

4. ROSCOs are still staying. So the trains are still not owned by the government, and still would need bailing out by the government (ie the subsidies received during the first couple years of the covid pandemic).

The last time we tried to organise a network of private entities disjointed as this, it was during the first world war, and then cemented with the Railways Bill 1921 (yes, a century ago!) And even then, we grouped them into the "big four" and didn't attempt a whole GB grouping.

5. To explain the original diagram, I've circled round the final 10 TOCs which are still privately owned - these would be the entities switching to being covered by publicly owned organisations

6. A lot of this work will be covered by the "Operator of Last Resort" who are significantly increasing staff to cover this transition.

7. And - this is not the only change coming! This is the first, quickest win. And not too many pages of law amendments to pass.