On Sunday 25 May 2025 all that happened is that South Western Railway now has a new shareholder - and it’s the DfT who have effectively been dictating many policies to SWR since the pandemic. New Great British Railways livery unveiled by Transport Secretary on 22 May.

The Transport Secretary has committed to improve the performance and reliability of rail services, ensuring the rail sector can operate effectively and become financially sustainable. Stewart Palmer, the former managing director of a train operator, explains what is required to achieve this. A poor passenger experience for Cross Country passengers at Banbury on a Saturday evening. Perhaps the passenger disturbance was due to the extreme overcrowding earlier in the day. The 1855 arrived at Southampton over an hour late, and the following 1955 was cancelled. Photo by Chris Page for Railfuture.

Transport Focus, the non -departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Transport, regularly surveys passenger satisfaction and says “Satisfaction with punctuality/reliability is, by a distance, the most important driver of satisfaction...”
Photo taken by Stewart Palmer on 5th January at Dorchester South station. If train operators cannot display up-to-date information, what trust can passengers have in service reliability? Would M&S tolerate this?

The Rt Hon Mark Harper MP, Transport Secretary, gave an address at the Institute of Civil Engineers in London on 7 February 2023 in what was billed as the big announcement on Great British Railways.  Photo via gov.uk.

Railfuture director and vice-president Stewart Palmer, who has and worked in the rail industry for 38 years, puts Railfuture's view on open access passenger operation in Britain. Lumo has shown that rail can attract more passengers and increase revenue if it offers simple high-value product, but not all open access operations have been or will be successful. Lumo class 803 train at Edinburgh. Image by MrBoyt reproduced under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Neil Middleton, a Railfuture Director takes a look at expected Station Ticket Office closures and wonders if, looked at through wider viewpoints such as timing (vs fare simplification), inclusivity, attracting new passengers to rail they are necessarily a wise move. Ticket office at London Marylebone station. Image by by Dr Neil Clifton, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.

COP26: “They cut air passenger duty for polluting aeroplanes, have frozen fuel duty for motorists again and again, but if you want to take the green option and travel by train, the government punishes you with eye-watering fare increases” said Chris Page, chair of Railfuture “It really is crazy that at a time when there is a real need to reduce our carbon usage, all the good news is for the more polluting choices. All rail wants is for it to be treated fairly as we go about reducing carbon usage in transport. Surely the time is right for a fares freeze, which would match the gift to car users and air travellers. Anything else would go totally against the goals of COP26” The Climate Train - image from Avanti West Coast

Register for Railfuture's free webinar 'Attracting passengers back to rail' at 11.00 on Saturday 3rd October 2020.
Speakers confirmed but subject to change.