South Western Railway, which runs trains into Clapham and Waterloo, to become first train operator nationalised under Labour

by BulkyAccident

18 comments

  2. So we get 4 years for much needed upgrades and reinvestment, then sold off by the Tories, probably to one of their mates/family.

  4. About time, one of the most appallingly ran train services in the entire country – delays and cancellations every single morning. Not to mention them still running that completely outdated, crumbling and low capacity train stock when they have newer trains available.

  5. Hopefully they can finally turn it into a reliable service!

  9. Long time SWR sufferer here. However not clear how this will actually benefit me as a passenger.  

    For me the biggest issues are infrastructure failures (managed by Network Rail, already public) and the failure to reintroduce pre covid service frequencies (and service frequencies are already dictated by DfT – SWR have no agency to increase them) 

    Northern, for example, is already in public ownership and most would argue is not an effective rail operating company. 

    Tomorrow’s announcement better come with a clear service improvement plan (and necessary funding) as otherwise it’s just shuffling deckchairs.

    Edit for the downvoters: rather than just silently downvote me, please do explain to me how this is going to make my commute better? I’m happy to be educated, but at the moment I genuinely don’t see anything materially changing as a result of this.

  10. Under Labour, sure, but multiple franchises are already operated by DfT including Southeastern.

  11. This will change nothing.
    Let’s do what the Czechs do have public national and regional operators that maintain a service and allow open access operators to compete with each other. This will drive down prices and increase quality. Take the Praha to Ostrava route it’s operated by 4 companies each with a different service quality and price: CD, RegoJet, Leo express and Super city.

    Our railway just needs some computation. Lumo isn’t allowed to compete with LNER is just stupid.

  12. Good. I know it’s common to moan about train operating companies but I can’t stress how awful SWR are in comparison to other TOCs.

    When they were South West Trains many years ago operated by Stagecoach they actually ran a decent service, but things really started to take a nosedive pretty much the moment MTR took over and they became SWR. Living in Bucks now, I enjoy travelling on Chiltern Trains and whenever I have to travel back South West I am immediately reminded of the one thing I don’t miss about living that way.

  13. We need TfL to takeover all the metro services in London already. Then they can also follow through with their plan to fix the mess of lines in the south.

  14. Putting the people responsible for the worst problems in charge of everything instead of just most things. Great. No way this could go wrong…

  15. Good, nationalisation of infrastructure is a must. Ideally the govt will be able to prevent it being sold off next time the tories get in though.

    New legislation is needed to prevent rail (and water) companies being asset stripped before they’re nationalised though. Board members and the top 10 executives should be prosecuted for paying out dividends and bonuses if the company is making a loss too

  17. And they just replaced their aging rolling stock too. Longer trains on a very highly used network, more standing room, faster acceleration and braking (aka shorter journey times).

    No level boarding though. Shouldn’t even be something that needs mention. We know it can be done and it’s worth the investment to make it possible for everybody to get on and off of trains independently.

    Now also nationalise the rolling stock companies and whoever maintains these messes of tracks.

  18. Didn’t SWR get new rolling stock? Thought I saw they were going from 8 to 10 car trains.

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