His Majesty the King is expected to give contracted private passenger train operators their notice today, as he presents the government’s legislative programme in the House of Lords following the Labour landslide in the general election on 4 July.

It has been reported that the King’s Speech will include 35 bills, one of which will create the new ‘directing mind’, Great British Railways. GBR will have the power to take control of the present National Rail Contracts when they expire, reach a break point or are terminated early for breach of contract.

The end of the line for the remaining private sector contracts will be formally announced more than 28 years since the first franchises were awarded in December 1995, as part of railway privatisation under John Major’s Conservative government.

Since then a total of 96 passenger contracts have been launched, suspended, terminated early or been allowed to run to their full term. Nearly all were controlled by the private sector.

The first franchises to take over from British Rail were First Great Western and South West Trains, which both started on 4 February 1996. The last franchise to be launched was Avanti West Coast, on 8 December 2019, when it replaced Virgin Trains West Coast.

The Covid pandemic meant that the government had to step in, because the franchises would not have been able to survive when passenger figures fell dramatically as one result of the ‘stay at home’ rule imposed in March 2020.

In September of that year transport secretary Grant Shapps announced that the traditional franchises would not be revived. Since then, just over half of the operators have been given a form of management contract. The government collects the revenue and pays the costs, giving each operator a management fee.

However, seven operators have already been renationalised, starting with LNER on 24 June 2018. This followed the collapse of the Virgin Trains East Coast franchise, 90 per cent of which had been owned by Stagecoach. The contract had lasted for just over three years.

Other English contracts renationalised since then have been Northern, Southeastern and TransPennine Express, while the devolved governments in Scotland and Wales have also taken back control of Caledonian Sleeper, ScotRail and Wales & Borders, which is now Transport for Wales.

Under present plans, the private sector will be allowed to continue running open access services and charter trains.

The August edition of Railnews will include a major feature comparing today’s proposed renationalisation of the passenger railway with the original creation of the British Transport Commission in 1948, and also a chart to allow readers to track the progress of nationalisation.