Rail reform boosts passengers but leaves freight exposed, industry warns

While substantial detailed work is still needed on how Great British Railways (GBR) will be structured to deliver its objectives, we believe that for most passenger services the Bill provides a foundation for a more integrated, coherent railway.

Reintegration of track and train should bring meaningful benefits - provided that leadership and accountability are clearly defined. Government must set transparent targets and objectives and then hold professionals to account for delivering them.

A critical concern is that GBR will oversee only around 70% of services.

The remaining 30% - including all freight operations and passenger services run by devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales, and major city regions such as London - will sit outside its direct control.

GBR must serve these operators fairly, yet the Bill, as drafted, does not guarantee this.

The Bill grants GBR broad authority over who can access the network and what they will pay. In effect, GBR becomes both judge and jury, as the powers of the Office of Rail and Road - currently able to direct Network Rail to grant access at fair prices - are significantly reduced.

One might argue that devolved administrations remain part of the wider public sector and that Government can ensure their interests are protected.

However, this does not extend to freight, which is and should remain a private-sector activity. While the Bill gives GBR a general duty to support freight growth, this sits alongside other priorities and is effectively overridden by the Capacity Duty and Charging Scheme, both of which allow GBR to prioritise its own services and set charges based solely on what it deems customers can afford.

In practice, freight growth depends on private investors willing to commit hundreds of millions of pounds to new locomotives, wagons and terminals.

These investors are ready to support expansion but require long-term certainty that their assets can be used efficiently over 20–30 years. As it stands, the Bill does not provide this reassurance.

This is especially disappointing given that the Bill’s supporting documentation is strongly positive about freight. Governments and ministers inevitably change, and a future administration could interpret the legislation very differently - potentially undermining substantial private investment.

The amendments needed to provide long-term certainty are modest and would not compromise the core aims of rail reform, yet without them the Government’s intention to grow rail freight and reduce reliance on heavy road haulage will not be realised.

In summary, the Bill represents a promising step towards a better passenger railway but, in its current form, is not adequate to support the essential freight operations on which Britain’s rail network depends.

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Julian Worth, Chair of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport in the UK (CILT(UK)) Rail Freight Forum and a leading expert in the sector.

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