Nearly one in four (24%) passenger journeys on Britain’s railways will be on nationalised services once TransPennine Express comes under Government control.
The analysis by the PA news agency comes as Labour reiterated its pledge to nationalise all services.
The UK Government’s Operator of Last Resort already controls London North Eastern Railway, Northern and Southeastern services.
The next Labour government will end this sticking plaster politics— Louise Haigh, shadow transport secretary
It will take over TransPennine Express on May 28.
Meanwhile, ScotRail and Transport for Wales are run by the Scottish and Welsh governments respectively.
PA’s analysis is based on passenger figures for the 12 months to December 2022, which are the latest available.
Labour’s shadow transport secretary, Louise Haigh, said: “This endless cycle of shambolic private operators failing passengers shows the Conservatives’ rail system is fundamentally broken.
“The next Labour government will end this sticking plaster politics by bringing our railways back into public ownership as contracts expire, ending the Tories’ failing system, and putting passengers back at the heart of our rail network.”
Passengers are fed up with missing meetings and taking hours to get home from work, or missing out on weekend trips they used to enjoy— Johnbosco Nwogbo, lead campaigner at We Own It
Johnbosco Nwogbo, lead campaigner at We Own It, a group campaigning against privatisation of public services, said people have “had enough of private companies ripping them off and leaving them stranded at the station”.
He went on: “Unreliable transport affects our work, our leisure, our lives.
“Passengers are fed up with missing meetings and taking hours to get home from work, or missing out on weekend trips they used to enjoy.
“We can’t trust trains to get us from A to B despite paying some of the highest fares in Europe: at that point, it’s time to rethink how we run our railways.”
Transport Salaried Staffs Association organiser for TransPennine Express, Alan Valentine, said “fragmented private railways are an abject failure”.
He continued: “If this Tory government really wants to build a British economy for the coming decades, the first thing it should do is listen to passengers, business and our union, all of whom want safe, reliable rail services.
“The only way to do that is to run a rail network for the people, by the people.”
The Department for Transport said its decision on TransPennine Express is “temporary and it is the Government’s full intention that it will return to the private sector”.
In February, Transport Secretary Mark Harper pledged to enhance the role of the private sector in Britain’s railways.
A new body named Great British Railways will issue passenger service contracts to private companies to run trains.
