Forty pc of British rail journeys now happen on state-run trains

Of the 9.4bn miles passengers travelled in three months, 4.7bn were on franchises controlled by the Government, new analysis shows

Around 40 per cent of mainline rail travel takes place on trains directly controlled by the Government, data show.
Out of 9.4 billion miles travelled by passenger trains in the three months to March 21, around 3.7 billion were on trains controlled by the Government.
“This can’t possibly be a sustainable way of managing the rail system,” Andrew Haines, chief executive of Network Rail, told the Financial Times.
Four of the UK’s 20 train franchises – LNER, Northern, Southeastern and TransPennine Express – are controlled by the Government’s Operator of Last Resort.
Despite accounting for 40 per cent of passenger miles, these operators only make one in six journeys (17 per cent), according to the Telegraph’s analysis of official data.
On Friday, commuters were hit with rush hour chaos as train strikes left large parts of the country without service.
Members of Aslef at Avanti West Coast, CrossCountry, East Midlands Railway, West Midlands Railway and London Northwestern walked out on Friday, mounting picket lines outside stations, with an Aslef ban on overtime at 16 companies also continuing until Saturday, causing more disruption to services.
Transport Secretary Mark Harper said in January that the state should run trains together with private operators.
“I think there is a role for the state in setting the overall regulatory structure for the rail network,” said Mr Harper. “But you also need to have it working in partnership with the private sector. And I think there’s a role for both.”
TransPennine Express was nationalised last May after months of disruption prompted Mr Harper to criticise “continuous cancellations” of its trains, although he warned that the move was not a “silver bullet” to fix the inter-city train operator’s problems.
Labour has pledged to nationalise the railways if it wins the next general election, by letting existing franchises expire and not re-tendering them, assigning control back to the state.
Shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh has previously said this would take place without compensation for franchisees on the basis that franchise end dates provide a natural cut-off point within existing contracts.
The next three franchises to come to a natural end are South West Railways in May 2025, Avanti East Coast in June next year and c2c, the Southend-London operator, in the following month.
Last year the government provided £12 billion in taxpayer funding to run the railways, of which £4.4 billion went to passenger rail operators.
Revenue from passengers themselves, including ticket sales, amounted to £9.2 billion in 2022-23, the latest full year for which official statistics are available.