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.
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, because the steel will cool and expand, cracking the furnaces. They have to keep going.
It would be a huge blow to national security to not have the ability to produce virgin steel.
The government took it over in spring/summer time, and since then it’s had a £500m contract to produce rail infrastructure.
I know things seem gloomy, but the government is doing some things right. Unfortunately it’s mostly things that we won’t feel the benefits from until years later.
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.
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:
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/when-will-my-local-train-operator-be-nationalised/
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, because the steel will cool and expand, cracking the furnaces. They have to keep going.
It would be a huge blow to national security to not have the ability to produce virgin steel.
The government took it over in spring/summer time, and since then it’s had a £500m contract to produce rail infrastructure.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y66y40kgpo
I know things seem gloomy, but the government is doing some things right. Unfortunately it’s mostly things that we won’t feel the benefits from until years later.
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.
British steel hasn’t been nationalised, the Government just took over its operations, the Chinese parent company still owns it.