What can Greater Anglia passengers expect from nationalisation?

A composite image of three train passengers, each sitting in rail carriages and looking down the camera. From left to right is Natalie Barron, Arvind Kannan and Tala Yunis.
Natalie on the left is smiling slightly and is sitting next to a window. She has short hair cut into a bob and is wearing a thick, white jacket. Trees and blue sky can be seen out the window next to her.
Arvind is smiling with his teeth showing. He is wearing an open-necked white shirt with narrow yellow and red vertical stripes, and a black jacket. He has a short beard and shortly cropped hair. 
Tala is also smiling, though her teeth are not visible. She has long brown straight hair that is falling over her shoulders. She is wearing a grey-green coat over a red top, as well as two necklaces. She is sitting on a train, next to a window. Image source, Ben Schofield/BBC
Image caption,

Passengers on already-nationalised Southeastern tell us their experience of the railway

  • Published

Greater Anglia will be nationalised on Sunday, 12 October. But how has public ownership of train companies worked out elsewhere and what can its passengers expect?

The side of a Greater Anglia train, pulled up at a platform, under a dark sky. In the foreground is a the Greater Anglia logo, with 'greater' in red next to 'anglia' in grey, with no capital letters or a space between the words, all against a white background. Further along the side of the carriage is a window and a set of doors after that. Several carriages can be seen tailing off into the distance. There are no people on the platform or in the image.Image source, Andrew Sinclair/BBC
Image caption,

Greater Anglia runs trains across the east of England

Greater Anglia, which runs rail services in Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Essex and Hertfordshire, will be the latest company to enter public ownership.

But Southeastern, in Kent and East Sussex, is further along the nationalisation track than most, having been publicly run since 2021.

In June, it joined up with Network Rail in its patch, putting tracks, signals and trains under one leadership team.

Natalie Barron looking directly down the camera. She is smiling slightly and is sitting next to a window inside a train carriage. She has short hair cut into a bob and is wearing a thick, white jacket. Part of a train line, trees and blue sky can be seen out the window next to her.Image source, Ben Schofield/BBC
Image caption,

Natalie Barron was not convinced she had seen much difference since Southeastern was nationalised

On a Southeastern train heading out of London, lawyer Natalie Barron was returning home after a meeting.

Should the railways be in public ownership?

"Tough question," she replied, laughing. The service, she added, was "pretty good".

How did she feel, four years on from the company being nationalised?

"I'm not sure I've seen much difference," she said.

The Department for Transport (DfT) took over Southeastern from Govia, after the operator failed to declare £25m of historical taxpayer funding.

The government now plans to take over all passenger train operators with DfT contracts by October 2027, regardless of how they are performing.

Arvind Kannan, smiling and looking down the camera. He is seated in a train carriage, though the seat next to him is empty. He is wearing an open-necked white shirt with narrow yellow and red vertical stripes, and a black jacket. He has a short beard and shortly cropped hair. Image source, Ben Schofield/BBC
Image caption,

Arvind Kannan wanted tickets to be cheaper and trains to run with "more predictability"

A YouGov survey, external published last month suggested more than 60% of people supported bringing train operators into public ownership.

Sitting a few carriages away, passenger Arvind Kannan felt the service could "do with a lot of improvement".

There was a "big difference" between train services in the UK and those in Europe or parts of Asia, he added.

For him, nationalisation was a good idea.

"If that's what it's going to take to fix things, then that's probably a good thing," he said.

He wanted to see improvements in punctuality and cost.

"I don't know if it can be made cheaper – that's one thing."

Tala Yunis looking directly down the camera. She is smiling, though her teeth are not visible. She has long brown straight hair that is falling over her shoulders. She is wearing a grey-green coat over a red top, as well as two necklaces. She is sitting on a train, next to a window. The seat back behind her is  purple and patterned. Through the window, a blue train can be seen travelling in the other direction; it is blurred, giving the impression of movement. Image source, Ben Schofield/BBC
Image caption,

Tala Yunis said the railways should be run "for the people"

Musician Tala Yunis, 25, liked the idea of train companies being publicly owned.

"I support it. I think it should be for the people and not just, you know, the rich get richer and us just having to pay more," she said.

Southeastern was the first operator to merge its management and Network Rail's local executives into a single leadership team as part of the move towards creating Great British Railways.

That united trains and railway infrastructure, which, supporters have argued, could boost co-operation and efficiency.

A purple and blue train running along tracks outside. The tracks are next to almost vertical cliff faces, which are white chalk, partially covered with some vegetation. The cliffs loom over the left of the image and stretch into the distance. On the right of the image is some rail infrastructure, what appears to be some hardcore and signalling equipment. It is a bright day and there is a small amount of blue sky visible in the top right hand corner of the image.Image source, PA Media
Image caption,

Southeastern also runs the high-speed Javelin trains from London St Pancras

Alongside Southeastern, Greater Anglia will join east coast mainline operator London North Eastern Railway (LNER) and c2c, which runs trains between east London and south Essex, in being publicly run.

Northern, TransPennine Express and South Western Railway have also been nationalised.

The transport secretary announced, external Govia Thameslink would be brought into public ownership on 31 May 2026.

Rob Mansfield looking directly down the camera. He is wearing a dark coloured knitted jumper over a blue, collared t-shirt. He has rectangular framed glasses on and is smiling a little, though not showing his teeth. He is bald on the top of his head and has dark hair on the sides. He is standing outside and in front of a car park. A low-rise, white building is on the left of the picture and there is a bike rack and some bikes on the right of frame. Further back are some mature trees. It is a sunny day and there is just one small cloud in an otherwise blue sky.Image source, Ben Schofield/BBC
Image caption,

Passengers wanted a train service they can rely on, that doesn't cost the earth, said Rob Mansfield

"Nothing spectacular has changed," said Rob Mansfield, chairman of the Tonbridge Line Commuters' group, which campaigns for better rail services in west Kent.

However, he added there was "plenty of potential for it to become something more meaningful".

The service was "desperately in need of new rolling stock", with some trains "pretty unbearable" because they lacked air-conditioning.

Was he concerned the railways would have to compete with other public sector budgets like health and education to secure investment?

He said despite a "perception that nationalisation is a silver bullet that can fix everything", the DfT and Treasury "have had a lot of influence in the railway, regardless of the system".

But he accepted "whether they'll stump up the cash is a concern".

"People just want a train service they can rely on that doesn't cost the earth.

"As an organisation we're indifferent as to whether that's through a private company or through the state."

Steve White looking directly down the camera. He is standing with his shoulders turned slightly away from the camera, but his head is turned towards it. He is wearing rectangular glasses, a light blue opened-necked shirt and a dark coloured blazer. He has a short, greying beard and short hair. He is standing inside a train station. There are information boards with orange writing on them suspended high up in the background. Beneath them is a row of turnstiles, many of which have red Xs over them; two have green ticks above them. There are a handful of passengers behind Mark, but otherwise, the station is reasonably quiet.Image source, Ben Schofield/BBC
Image caption,

Southeastern managing director Steve White said Greater Anglia would be able to "find another gear" through nationalisation

According to regulator the Office of Rail and Road (ORR), in 2024-25, Southeastern planned to run 561,230 trains, tens of thousands fewer than the 633,760 it planned to run in 2019-20, before the pandemic.

Five years ago, 69.1% of its trains ran on time, which the ORR defines as arriving either early or less than one minute after the scheduled arrival time. In 2024-25, 66.0% were on time.

Managing director Steve White said it was adding more services, that its 87% customer satisfaction level was higher than it was before the pandemic, and that about 86% of services arrived within three minutes of their scheduled time.

The company also had one of the lowest cancellation rates.

Nationalisation, he said, "makes us obliged to deliver the best service for our customers at the lowest cost to the taxpayer".

Having responsibility for infrastructure – as well as trains – meant passengers saw "clear accountability".

"Whether your train is delayed by a trespasser or a signal fault or a broken-down train, that accountability now resides with a single managing director and a single leadership team."

It is understood Greater Anglia will begin working more closely with Network Rail ahead of formally integrating their leadership teams.

That, Mr White continued, "will give them a chance to find another gear to make further improvements for customers in a way that they can't do under the current framework".

Len Shackleton looking directly down the camera. He is wearing a blue and white striped shirt, with a white t-shirt underneath, and a dark blue jacket on top. He is also wearing rectangular-framed glasses. He has dark hair, showing some grey, which is parted in the middle and falls over his ears. He is standing outside. In the background are tall, white railings, a black tarmac path, and some plants and trees. The front of a car is just visible on the left of frame.Image source, Ben Schofield/BBC
Image caption,

The faults of privatisation were "greatly exaggerated", according to Prof Len Shackleton

Rail Partners, which represents private sector train operators, has agreed that "change is needed" on the railways.

But responding to Labour's plan before the 2024 election, it said nationalisation was a "political rather than a practical solution which will increase costs over time".

Prof Len Shackleton, an economist at the University of Buckingham and a research fellow at the free-market think tank the Institute of Economic Affairs, believed "the virtues of nationalisation are greatly exaggerated and the faults of privatisation are greatly exaggerated".

Privatisation in the 1990s "led initially to considerable improvements" and "the numbers of people using the railways shot up", he argued.

Private investment also saw new trains replace rolling stock that was "many years out of date".

Prof Shackleton said he did not believe passengers were "going to notice much in the short run", though better coordination with Network Rail could bring "improvements in timekeeping".

Would tickets be cheaper?

"Fares may be too high, but I don't think they're going to come down," he said.

Running railways is "extremely expensive" with "200-year-old technology, which needs constant maintenance".

Four grey, yellow and red Greater Anglia trains sitting on parallel platforms inside a train station. The train nearest to the camera has 'Norwich' written in a display panel above its front windscreen. Image source, Owen Ward/BBC
Image caption,

Greater Anglia hoped passengers would not see immediate differences

In 2023, Greater Anglia finished upgrading, external its entire fleet of trains with newer stock.

The company claimed it had been the most punctual train operator "for over two years", external.

Head of corporate affairs Jonathan Denby hoped passengers would not immediately see a difference.

"It should be exactly the same, and clearly one of the big objectives for us is to make sure that it stays exactly the same."

A DfT spokesperson said: "We are undertaking generational reform of our railways, bringing services back into public ownership and putting passengers, not shareholders, at the heart of our railways."

They added Greater Anglia would "continue to deliver high-performing services" and will be "sharing its expertise across the network".

Get in touch

Do you have a story suggestion for the East of England?