The railways were effectively nationalised in 2020. They’re just handing the contracts back at this point.
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J92@lemmy.world 1 day agoWait. The rail and steel are being nationalised? I’ve heard nothing of this.
ohulancutash@feddit.uk 1 day ago
J92@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I work away for long periods at a time. I did hear about the steel but not its resolution.
LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
How? Yes they are being nationalized.
TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Yup. It’s not happening all at once, because different train operators have contracts that expire at different times – the government is simply letting the contracts expire then taking over, so that they don’t have to pay the operators anything to take over.
By 2027, this will be complete, but many rail operators already are publicly owned - the LNER service I regularly use, for example, is.
The plan is to unite them under the umbrella of GBR (Great British Railways), which will oversee the usual rail operator stuff, as well as rail infrastructure. I’m pretty excited about it.
The government has some more info here:
…parliament.uk/when-will-my-local-train-operator-…
I should be clear, it’s not all steel. I’m referring to the company British Steel, which has the last UK plant able to make virgin steel, which is used in construction, mainly buildings and rail.
It was owned by China, but China was going to deliberately shut the plant down. To be clear: that would be disastrous. Shutting down a steel plant causes irreversible damage to the equipment. You literally cannot start it up again, you’d have to rebuild all the furnaces.
The government took it over in spring/summer time.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y66y40kgpo
J92@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I remember all the hubbub about the steel but I had heard nothing about rail. Thats excellent news. All i hear is the bad news going on in the UK, for some reason.
nialv7@lemmy.world 1 day ago
British steel hasn’t been nationalised, the Government just took over its operations, the Chinese parent company still owns it.