Nationalising rail operator a 'significant milestone'

Bringing a rail operator back into public ownership after 30 years will save money and provide a better service, a minister has said.

Chiltern Railways will become the 10th rail company to be nationalised on Sunday under Great British Railways (GBR), the government's programme of public ownership.

Rail minister Lord Peter Hendy met staff at Marylebone Station on Thursday alongside the first Chiltern train to get the new GBR livery.

He said: "We're doing this because firstly it saves money and secondly we can offer a better service to passengers right across the nation."

Chiltern Railways operates from London to Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Warwickshire, as well as destinations in the West Midlands.

It said the transfer into public ownership would tackle overcrowding by introducing 25 additional daily services from December.

The company, which was privatised in 1996, said this would provide 10,000 extra seats each week day.

Lord Hendy said: "The most difficult thing on Chiltern is that it's shorter capacity and those extra trains and those extra seats will make a real difference to people travelling on this line up here from Marylebone every day."

The rollout of the new trains would also increase capacity while improving accessibility and providing better Wi-Fi on board, the rail operator said.

It also said, from Sunday, passengers whose train had been cancelled would be able to use another operator's service two hours either side of their train to get to their destination at no extra cost.

Chiltern said the transfer marked "another milestone" on the journey to GBR operating all passenger services by the end of 2027.

The firm had been appointed to run East West Rail (EWR), a new £6bn rail line being built to link Oxford and Cambridge.

However, passenger trains on the first section of the route are yet to begin.

When asked how the nationalisation of Chiltern Railways would impact EWR, Lord Hendy said public ownership of the rail operator "gives us the opportunity to give that a further move forward".

Interim managing director Tony Baxter said: "Sunday is a significant milestone for Chiltern Railways and we look forward to working together with the wider rail industry to deliver a better railway for everyone in Great Britain.

"Public ownership will further strengthen that progress through closer collaboration across the industry, helping us share best practice, drive innovation and focus on what matters most to customers, businesses and communities across our network."