A new crisis looms over Britain’s troubled rail system: UK Exchange newsletter

2025-07-09 05:30:01

This report is from the UK exchange newsletter for this week. Every Wednesday, Ian King brings you experts about the most important working stories from the United Kingdom and other major developments that you will not want to miss. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.

Transmission

About 31 years after its privatization, the UK railways returned to public ownership.

The railways, stations, tunnels and signs in the country were effectively reshaped in 2002, but it was a policy of current work management, when they were elected last year, to restart trains to the country.

Only traded stocks – trainers, locomotives and shipping vehicles – and most of the railway shipping operators should remain in private hands, except for one important one, we will come to.

Accordingly, in May of this year, the railways responsible for operating trains to and from London Waterloo – which were reorganized to the south of the western railway – was re -owned by the state.

Optimizing, for the British of a certain age they remember the rolling trains of the British railway and the horrific service before privatization, included the first alternative to a railway bus.

The promotion process will continue when the C2C is later moved this month, which runs trains between London and ACEX, to the ownership of the state, with Greater Angelia, which runs trains in eastern England, because of their followers in the coming months.

With four Eastern LERES, Northeast, Southheast and Transpennine Express-the government, the government promised that all the remaining railway privileges from the private sector be reinforced by the end of this parliament.

It also intends to integrate and follow the train operations into a new entity, the Great British Railways, and end the network separation and train operations that occurred in privatization.

Lner Train was seen at the King’s Cross Station.

SOPA photos | Lightrockket | Gety pictures

But this is not the complete end of the story.

Although the debate is still about whether or not the privatization of the railway was successful – on the positive side, it led to a significant increase in the number of passengers and the best traded stocks; On the other hand, this led to much higher-positive prices agreed upon by most industry experts is the appearance of the so-called “open access” operators.

Those who are privileged, who are now nationalized, who have held contracts with the government are competing with the government to operate services. Unlike distinguished operators, open access operators face all other tickets and revenues that lack expectations.

Their presence was warmly on the main coast line, which connects Edinburgh with London and serves Yorkshire, East Midlands and northeastern England.

Approaches to open access operators such as Lumo and Hull Trains raising standards and dropping prices. Miscellaneous, the main line of the eastern coast is the only part of the UK rail network where the number of passengers recovered to the levels of prenatal.

Despite these achievements, open access is not universal. Britain is strong Railways unions you hate it Thus, it has been suspected long ago, civil service staff at the Ministry of Transport (DFT). The focus has become more because, during the past year, there was a Application registration number By companies to operate trains under open access.

This prompted Heidi Alexander, the new Minister of Transport, to write in January to Diklan Koller, head of the Railways and Roads Office (OrR), the organizer of the industry, warns him against adopting more Strict approach Towards open access applications.

It was ordered to take into account whether there is sufficient capacity on the rail network to obtain new services and monitor fears that open access operators do not pay the full cost to access the track. I also told him to realize whether new operators deprive the current revenue operators.

This has sparked fears that Alexander can simply provide bids for railways and looks forward to protecting state operators such as LNER from the explosion of competition. These concerns were increased when Richard Godman wrote, at the end of June, a senior civil service employee in DFT, to Coller Enhancing Alexander’s message.

“DFT analysis indicates that the total annual abstraction of each of the direct open access applications will be up to 229 million pounds (24/25 prices), does not represent the effects of revenue resulting from those services that interact.”

“This represents a great additional cost of taxpayers and will financially affect the funds available to the Foreign Minister.”

Some saw this message as an attempt by two ORR to agree to new requests.

If this is the intention, the tactic appears to have succeeded.

Last week, ORR rejected requests from three companies seeking access to the path with Network Rail to run services on the main line in the West Coast, which connects Glasgow to London and serves major cities, including Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester.

“It was clear that there was not enough ability to agree to any of the services without a dangerous negative impact on the level of the train performance facing the passengers on the main line of the West Coast.”

Among those whose application was banned, Richard Branson Virgin Trines, a former – and famous franchise operator – was on the main western coast line, which was called the decision “a blow to selecting consumer and competition.”

The news was also disappointed with the disappointment of companies in parts of the country currently enjoying the current network. A good example of this is Sheropsheer, as there was strong support for plans from a new operator, Wrexham, Shropshire, Midlands Railway, owned by Alstom, owned by ALSTOM, to operate five trains daily between Shropshire and London.

It has sparked all this concerns that Alexander and Railways Minister Peter Hindi, a life in the industry, are determined to kill open access – whose operators will be very expensive for their promotion – completely.

For its part, the Ministry of Transport says this is not true.

“We support open access services as they encourage growth, improve communication and provide more options for passengers,” CNBC spokesman told CNBC. “However, open access should not come at a cost to the taxpayer or negatively affect the performance.”

Geographical gap

The ongoing debate about open access can lead to an interesting clash within the government.

Alexander, while now the representative of Swindon, in Wiltsheer, spent her entire career in London in both local and national policy. Indian also spent his career in the capital, as he was working mainly in the state of state transportation in London and its predecessor in London for transportation. As such, the transportation system in the capital, which is completely different from their thinking on the railway, was informed.

Other big personalities in the government, such as the Minister of Interior YVETTE COOPER and the Minister of Education, Bridge Philipson, may have an alternative view. The couple represents the electoral districts in Yorkshire and the northeast, respectively, and will be known for the popularity of open access operators among their components to maintain competition and reduce prices.

They may also be able to rely on the support of Chancellor Rachel Reeves, whose circle is located in Leeds – the largest city in Yorkshire not yet enjoys a direct service provided by the open access operator.

Representatives representing seats that include stock manufacturers such as Alstom, Siemens and Hitachi – that support thousands of skilled manufacturing functions – can also support open access.

Alstom and Siemens recently warned of the ministers’ failure to sign the accumulation of new orders, while Hitachi won a 500 million pounds of Lumo to introduce 14 new trains in December last year.

In any case, Alexander and Hindi must have other priorities. For example, it is not clear when Great British Railways will be officially launched, or who will be its CEO.

There is also a running ulcer that is HS2, a project that originally aims to build a new high -speed rail between London and cities in Midlands and northern England, but it will now work Running only to Birmingham Both years are delayed in the timetable and billions of pounds on the budget.

Meanwhile, after it was in a position when the railway was about to cover the daily operating costs before the epidemic, the taxpayer support has ever over.

In 2022-23, which is the last year in which the numbers are available, the total government subsidies for the railway railway reached 21.1 billion pounds, an increase of 64.5 % at the pre-epidemic level, while passenger revenues amounted to 9.2 billion pounds only, a decrease of 31 % at prenatal levels.

Growth at home from home means that the number of passengers is unlikely to recover to prenatal levels. This means that if the total passenger numbers are to be rebuilt, the railway will have to do more to attract entertainment travelers. This is a task in which open access operators, while trying to innovate in prices and services, are perfectly suitable.

Ian King

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In the market

UK FTSE 100 It declined well over the past week, as about 0.65 % increased temporarily, about 0.35 % of the record in June.

In the event that you missed, the collection of donations from the subscriptions of London has declined to A to A. Three decades In the first half of this year – asking new questions about the UK’s attractiveness as a global capital center.

The Financial Stock Exchange Index performed 100 Securities during the past year.

aware Lack of strong support For British Finance Minister by her Prime Minister last week, she struck both the currency market and government links in the United Kingdom. the British pound About $ 1.35 to dollars is currently trading, less than $ 1.37 – as it was before June 2.

Similarly, Gossip Currently trading by 4.63 % has not yet decreased to the levels that were seen before the start of the parliamentary confrontation.