Another very interesting expert appointment via the Lords (this time someone already in there): Peter Hendy, former head of TFL, to the Department of Transport. Makes sense as TFL an excellent model for how to run a nationalised* railway.
*Let's not open the 'is TFL nationalised or not?' debate.
Yeah - one of the many examples of Sunak being rubbish is that Grant Shapps basically did want to do this (it's what Great British Railways was) and then he moved him and instead we've had...no transport policy for two years AFAICT.
I really just hope that Starmer sees sense and decides to do something about the ROSCOs situation. ‘Nationalising’ the Railways doesn’t matter if there’s a rentier class of Train Landlords.
But if you own the rolling stock, then you end up like the London Underground, where there are still 40 year old trains in service! How are we going to pointlessly fritter away money and carbon on shiny new toys for transport ministers to pose in front of without ROSCOs, huh? Even think about that?
(But seriously: one way I feel the Hendy appointment is indicative is that I'd guess they will want something like TFL from top to toe, in part because they will surely want to extend what TFL runs and it makes it easier if you don't suddenly change whether rolling stock is a cost or not.)
Given the shocking state of every line that isn’t “London to X”, we might as well just admit we only care about transport into and out of London and put TFL in charge of the entire rail system.
HS2/Euston *is* a fix for trains outside London - the existing arrangement is what buggers up most travel through the Midlands that *isn't* London to Birmingham.
