South Western Railway becomes first renationalised operator

South Western Railway, a rail company operating in southwest England, became the first to return to public ownership on Sunday as part of the British Labour government's push to renationalise rail.

It's "a new era for rail," the Department for Transport said in a statement. "We will say goodbye to 30 years of inefficiency, waste, and passenger frustration," said Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander during a visit this week to a train depot in southern England. "We will move forward with confidence into a new future for the railways."

The privatisation of rail operators took place in the mid-1990s under Conservative Prime Minister John Major, following on from Margaret Thatcher's liberal policies of the 1980s.

Despite the promise of better service, increased investment, and lower government spending, the project was highly unpopular at the time, denounced by unions, the opposition, some conservatives, and a large portion of the population. Passenger numbers initially increased, as did investment.

But a derailment caused by micro-cracks in the rails, which killed four people in 2000, deeply shocked the public. Cancellations and delays also became commonplace, and passengers complained about the prices.

The rail network has since returned to public ownership, managed by Network Rail. Four of England's fourteen operators have already returned to public control in recent years due to poor performance. However, the initial plan was to manage them temporarily before returning to the private sector.

The Labour majority, in power since July, approved a law at the end of November that requires the nationalization of private operators at the end of their contracts (or even earlier in the event of mismanagement) and their consolidation into an organization called "Great British Railways."

According to the government, waiting until the contracts expire allows it to avoid paying compensation to current operators. They will all expire by 2027. The sector's unions, which have launched a wave of strikes in recent years under pressure from the purchasing power crisis caused by inflation, welcomed the state's takeover.

"Everyone in the rail industry knows that privatisation (...) has not worked and still does not work," said Mick Whelan, general secretary of the train drivers' union Aslef, in statements released Thursday.

Bringing these companies back into public ownership "will ensure that services are run in the interests of passengers, not shareholders," but resolving "the structural problems that are hampering the rail network (...) will take time," warned Minister Heidi Alexander.

The government announced in December that the first company affected would be South Western Railway. This would be followed by c2c on July 20th and Greater Anglia on October 12th. Starting Sunday, South Western Railway's operations will be managed by a new public operator, which will be integrated into Great British Railways once the company is created.