Take a gander at Mark Hopwood's slides from the GWR Stakeholder conference and you can see that work is already underway within GWR/NR Western too, even before GWR is 'nationalised'.

Daryn McCombe has got the initial joint GWR/NR position.

 

The GBR process has already started, the first is South Eastern Railway (note the gap between the words South and Eastern) this a joint board of London & South Eastern Railway Limited (which operates as Southeastern TOC) and the Network Rail Kent Route.

Both NR Kent Route and the TOC employees are still employed by their respective companies with on change to T&Cs it is at Exc level where the MD of  South Eastern Railway is the MD of the Southeastern TOC and the Chief Operating Officer is the NR Kent Route Director, he has all the NR Ops, NR and TOC maintenance, directors also include are the merged major stations and SE TOC managed stations director.

Currently day to day the boots on the ground have not notice much change, however as the links at senior level are cascaded down the interaction between NR and TOC will meld together the theory being a unified railway

 

Probably needed fumigating before its next journey!

 

When the delay is attributed to Network Rail ie Schedule 8 payment that money comes out of NR's revenue, so it hits what NR earns from the track access charge, worse case it hits the renewal budge which means less older infrastructure replaced; it can also hit the maintenance budget.

The real cost is higher than the figure quoted for the compensation payment the TOC has loss of profit which is one thing that goes away under public ownership also there are TOC and NR overhead costs which will be greatly reduced under public ownership.

 
This video is 2 months old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCXp9FPUm5Q&t=1010s

They must be doing something to them.

 
The 10:20 from Penzance to London Paddington called at Castle Cary just after 14:00.   It was booked to dwell for one minute but was stopped for four.

Not surprising

Before



After

 
The nationalisation process in 1947/8 was a takeover by compulsory purchase of shares. Its immediate result was the same as any takeover: the acquiring company via their board (or in this case the BTC) becomes the owners of each company as a subsidiary, and can install a board of directors and set about rearranging things. Initially the railways were run by the Railways Executive, mainly staffed from the senior management of the railways - who were all quite used to being directed by the government by then.

Those companies were complete railways - owning track, station, railways (and a lot more in most cases). TOCs, by design, own almost nothing - they are managerial entities with operating contracts. As such they are not being nationalised, but will be wound up following the loss of their contracts. Train operation was never really privatised, it was contracted out - unlike the trains and (unsuccessfully) the fixed infrastructure.

I'd agree with ET that reorganising is a much longer process, either way. In theory joining bits together is easier than deciding what bits to divide into. However, the new unitary GBR will have internal structure, so those decisions are still there. And the way things are done now is nothing like in the 1940s. Then, a few blokes got round a table and drew up something obvious and then did it. Now, it takes years just to decide how the new organisation should be designed, and then there's got to be consultations, and ...

 

Sadly, yes, Transwilts ... again ... that's the train that runs via Swindon

 
17:50 Gloucester - Salisbury "cancelled because of more trains than usual needing repairs at the same time"

(Sorry - does this count as TransWilts?)

 

Later:

 
In addition to the above, the 12:52 London Paddington to Worcester Foregate Street service was terminated at Oxford so no down services on to the north Cotswolds line for over three and a half hours.

 
16:16 : Disruption expected until 18:00.

 
From the BBC:

 

 
The not so visible cost is deterring those who see how unreliable a service is and don't travel by that means.

Did (momentarily) think of going to Weymouth. But it is not a cheap day out from Reading, and the added bonus of not knowing where I might be stuck has put me off the idea.

 

Todays railway is more complex in its ownership, in 1947 there were only 4 companies buying out all the shares was easy as most were indebt to the Government, also the former big 4 companies pretty much continued as they did before the 1st Jan 1948, in fact BR's Regions right up to the 1980 more or less continued as separate boards

If you reflect on how long it took to privatise BR I feel this is a better measure of the time it will take to "re-nationalise" the railways and then to reshape the railways into its new operating model

 
Presumably quicker to privatise, as the "money" is flowing in the other direction?

 
According to Modern Railways-
https://x.com/modern_railways/status/1939627842465149298?s=61&t=VlafMC5gF9tidw36b1Y8JQ

 
I notice to-day’s 1012 Castle Cary to Padd special - a 9 coach IET - left CC 20 late.  The ECS for this service arrived on time at 1011.  So notwithstanding the fact that this train would arrive to a platform full of people and rucksacks etc, the train planners allowed just 1 minute to load this train.

Why?

 

That was the service I always used to get home, ironically got to BTM about the same time I would normally arrive when commuting to work from WSM
It was amusing passing the usual commuters at BTM in smart attire and me looking like death usually caked in mud

 
Not sure what this is about: hope it doesn't mean that a non-passenger-service train has sat down in Castle Cary platform 3.

Mark

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:U54327/2025-06-30/detailed

 
delays expected until 13:00pm.

GWR
@GWRHelp
⚠ Travel Update - 30/06 ⚠

Due to a road vehicle colliding with a bridge at Freshford, the line is blocked.

Train services between Bristol Temple Meads and Westbury via Bath Spa may be cancelled, delayed or revised.

Disruption is expected until 13:00.

 
Monday June 30


Though the 07:25 operates via Stroud and not via Evesham.

 
The 002/007/009/114 are at Laira for training. There are 3 or 4 at Wolverton for refurbishment that will include livery. All the rest are at Ely until there is room at Wolverton.

 
It was standing room only when I boarded the 6:46 Trowbridge-Bristol service this morning due to early risers exiting the music festival (then going back to sleep on the train). Quite a few got off at Bath though and there were a few seats after that.

It didn't help that there were only 2 carriages; sometimes there are 3. I asked the train manager about this and he said he was somewhat surprised when he saw he'd only got a short formation today. He never knows what he's going to get. Perhaps they were saving the longer trains for when it gets even busier later?

 
I always remember 1st January 1948 as the day the railways were nationalised and found myself musng yesterday over how long ahead of time this was planned and how long it took.

The National Archives Catalogue tells me

The Transport Bill was printed in November 1946, mirrored at https://www.firstgreatwestern.info/mirror/HMG_Bill1946.pdf with the act passed ane receiving royal assent 6th August 1947 and mirrored at https://www.firstgreatwestern.info/mirror/HMG_Act1947.pdf

 

The time it would take to arrange the helo and getting the supplies of water to it the trains would have been evacuated and even the service restored.

The internal question I'm sure that will be asked was a too larger an area of traction current switched off, were there enough MOMs (mobile operations managers) available, at what stage did the incident move from Bronze Incident Command  Silver

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrrIRr9arkM

 

 

At Loughborough Junction - third rail - yes.  More tricky with overhead electrification?

 
Water could presumably delivered by drones ? Even a single 500ml bottle per drone trip would help, remembering that each drone should be able to make at least 20 trips an hour from say a nearby car park, and multiple drones could be used.

Enough water for train full of passengers could be delivered by helicopter. Place the bottles of water in a net slung under the machine, and lower this to the victims without landing.