Great British Railways. I don’t know about you, but to me it comes across as an arrogant, old fashioned branding exercise to attract Tory voting baby boomers who are desperate to be told that Britain is still the best. We need a modern, simple naming system like that of Japan Railways (JR). BR South, BR North, BR London, BR Scotland (if they stay with us) etc. We would have a unified logo but with different colours for each region and matching train liveries.
Unlike the Japanese system, we need to fully nationalise it. Privatisation works in Japan because trains are the default way of getting around, and it’s a priority for government to keep it running smoothly and the technology up to date. They will spend big to prop up the private operators. In the U.K., cars are the primary mode of transport and because of that, rail has been underinvested in. The infrastructure is out of date and the prices are high because the government has left it to rot. And private companies are probably not going to invest in improving the service if they don’t see it as an effective transport monopoly as most of the lines are in Japan.
Grant Shapps compared Great British Railways to the London bus and Overground systems. That’s not what we need. We need full public ownership of all of our transport networks. It’s the only way we’re going to be able to make rapid changes in sustainability, pricing and general appeal in order to end car ownership in the face of the climate crisis. It’s not enough to just build bike infrastructure or incentivise e-scooters (not that we’re doing either or those). We need to do everything possible now to cut emissions and make us a healthier and happier society. Public ownership and investment is the only way.
