Is Great British Railways a new dawn for passengers?

A renationalised rail service that ends current dysfunction is appealing, but Simon Calder sees problems down the track

- By Simon Calder

This week has so far proved dreadful for rail passengers caught up in the Huntingdon knife attack, scary for travellers aboard Monday's derailed 4.28am from Glasgow to London, and disruptive for hundreds of thousands of people hoping to use the East and West Coast Main Lines in the wake of those incidents.

The past few days have also revealed the heroism and skill of railway staff. An LNER crew member defended passengers against the rampage on Saturday, while Network Rail and Avanti West Coast employees swiftly dealt with the derailed express train to enable services to run normally within 48 hours.

The reopening of the West Coast Main Line coincides with the publication of the Railways Bill. This sets out the plan for Great British Railways (GBR) - broadly, a return to the nationalised British Rail, which ran the nation’s trains and infrastructure before privatisation in the 1990s.

The Department for Transport (DfT) has explained the aims with an 8,500-word “executive summary”, which I have read so you don’t have to. The aim: to tackle “delay, dysfunction and decline” as well as “spiralling taxpayer subsidy”. Like Ms Cadbury, I fervently want the railways to succeed in delivering great service and luring people out of cars, onto trains. I hope that a standalone organisation devoted to the task will succeed.

But I can see a number of problems down the track.

This is my assessment of each promise made about Great British Railways, together with a score out of five on how much I think it will benefit passengers and/or taxpayers.

'Improve reliability by bringing the management of track and train together to improve performance'