Northern Rail is set to be the next UK railway franchise to be renationalised this week in another failure for privatisation.
Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, is expected to announce on Thursday that current Northern operator Arriva will be stripped of its franchise and the contract passed to the government-owned ‘operator of last resort’, which previously took over the running of the East Coast Main Line from Virgin in 2018.
The move will also follow the release on Tuesday of the results of a national rail passenger survey, which is expected to show high levels of customer dissatisfaction on Britain’s railways.
Northern, which has been operated by Deutsche Bahn-owned Arriva since 2016, has been singled out for criticism on numerous occasions by frustrated commuters, particularly following the catastrophic introduction of a new timetable in May 2018 which resulted in widespread delays and cancellations, something the franchise has yet to recover from.
Stalled infrastructure investment and disputes with rail worker’s unions have also added to its woes.
The government is also expected to announce the planned re-opening of several northern routes that were closed as part of the so-called ‘Beeching cuts’ in the early 1960s, which aimed to reduce losses on the then state-owned railways.
Re-opening the rail routes is also likely to be part of Boris Johnson’s pledges to improve spending in England’s northern regions in a bid to shore up support in traditionally Labour-held seat which flipped to the Conservative’s in last month’s general election.