‘Great British Railways is dead’: rail industry at lowest ebb since the days of Railtrack

theguardian.com:

Barely 18 months have elapsed since a starry-eyed Grant Shapps unveiled the blueprint for a “revolutionary” Great British Railways, but it already has the flavour of an optimistic misnomer. Even an adequate British railway would be welcomed by those passengers stranded by everything from Avanti’s collapse to failing infrastructure and unprecedented strikes.

Only a fraction of the timetabled trains continue to run between London and Britain’s biggest cities, though operator Avanti has pledged to start its recovery to full service this week. National strikes, the likes of which had not been seen for 30 years, are now a regular occurrence, with little sign of breakthrough in talks. Infrastructure projects have been pared back or shelved, with the public all but gaslit with reannounced schemes for new railways.

Rail’s financial structures, credited by proponents of privatisation with revitalising the industry for 25 years, have been ripped up. The pandemic played a hugely damaging role, prompting the blanket scrapping of franchising as passenger revenue disappeared. But Covid arguably only accelerated the death of a system that was already acknowledged to be falling apart.

The Williams-Shapps review, commissioned back in 2018, long gestating and long delayed, ended up with the proposed creation of Great British Railways – a guiding mind, bringing together Network Rail and train operators, issuing better contracts, with sensible fares and ticketing, putting passengers first and independent of government micromanagement. Few in the industry argued with the conclusions. But few now are sure exactly when – or if – they will be followed through.

A transition team is in place, working up the details from the white paper. But many see