Britain's biggest train operator's services entered back into public ownership

ON Sunday, 31 May 2026:- Thameslink, Southern, Great Northern and Gatwick Express transferred back into public ownership to deliver more reliable, passenger centred services across the network.

It is hoped that millions of passengers will now benefit from more accountable and reliable journeys, as the UK's largest train operating company's services join the fast growing family of publicly owned operators from:- Sunday, 31 May 2026.

Responsible for:- 1 in 6 passenger rail journeys in Britain, GTR keeps the South East moving, delivering 1 of the UK's most extensive rail networks and carrying hundreds of millions of passengers each year.

A renationalised GTR will deliver a range of initiatives to improve performance and passenger experience under public ownership, such as:- doubling the number of services between:- Gatwick Airport and London Victoria every hour and training 110 new Travel Safe Officers to crack down on anti-social behaviour on the network.

Just before the change, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said:- "From this Sunday, millions of passengers across the South East and East of England will be travelling on rail services back in public hands; run for the public good, not private profit. Bringing Britain's largest train operator into public ownership is a defining moment in our reform of the railway. It gives us an opportunity to tackle the bread and butter issues people want, like driving down cancellations and improving the frequency of services to Gatwick Airport. As we set up Great British Railways, we're putting passengers 1st, fixing what's broken, and delivering a railway people can rely on; 1 that rebuilds trust, regenerates communities and delivers the high standards passengers expect and deserve."

GTR's 100 day plan will now focus on getting the basics right, to create a reliable service that delivers better on board experience. The plan includes measures to:-

Double Gatwick Express services: easier travel for holiday makers with double the number of Gatwick Express trains each hour between Gatwick Airport and London Victoria from December and more early morning services on Saturdays and Mondays from this summer. Additional Great Northern services will also commence in December.

Recruit more Drivers to reduce delays:- GTR's ongoing train crew recruitment will deliver an additional 75 drivers across Thameslink and Great Northern this year as drivers complete their training, with an uplift of 40 drivers at Southern and Gatwick Express this year too. The increase in drivers will help improve train crew availability and reduce cancellations.
Create safer, cleaner toilets:- Thameslink train toilets are being refreshed to crack down on graffiti and provide a better experience for passengers. GTR will resurface toilet interiors on 2 trains every week with over half the fleet completed by the end of the year.110 Travel Safe Officers are also being trained to support revenue protection, improve security and combat anti-social behaviour.
Upgrade signalling to reduce cancellations:- Secondary signalling system between Farringdon and Blackfriars to reduce delays and boost resilience. Improvements expected to prevent over 1,000 cancellations a year.
Establish better customer communication:- passengers will be able to get support when there is disruption from staff directly via a customer support WhatsApp channel. GTR is also adding more online payment options for customers.

The transfer follows the unveiling of the 1st Great British Railways (GBR) branded train at Brighton station last week and represents a landmark moment in the journey to public ownership. From Sunday, around:- 8 in 10 passenger rail journeys that GBR will ultimately be responsible for will take place on publicly owned services. It's the latest step to creating a reliable, accountable and integrated rail network.

Thameslink, Great Northern, Southern and Gatwick Express services bring a strong track record, contributing �3.2 billion to the UK economy and supporting:- 40,000 jobs, in 2025. With the UK Government support, Thameslink and Great Northern services will also support the delivery of thousands of new homes, as well as schools and employment space, as they begin stopping at the new Cambridge South Station, from:- Sunday, 28 June 2026.

John Whitehurst, Chief Operating Officer for GTR before the swap over added:- "This is a railway that carries millions of people to work, to school, and to see friends and family every single day. From this Sunday every 1 of them will be on a publicly owned service, which is a responsibility we take seriously and 1 we have been preparing for. We have spent the past year building the foundations, and bringing even deeper integration into our operations with Network Rail, with a single focus on what's right for our customers and communities. That work means customers are already getting a railway that's been transforming, and public ownership gives us the chance to go further to deliver the railway that millions of people across the South East deserve."

Ana Christie, CEO of Sussex Chamber of Commerce also commented:- "I was delighted to attend the launch of:- Great British Railways, at Brighton Station and to have a discussion with Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander. This marks the launch of a greater joined up railway, working in collaboration with business and other key stakeholders, to ensure challenges are addressed and progress is made to deliver a service fit for the future. I look forward to further conversations, ensuring business concerns are captured in fundamentally reforming the railway."

As the Government steams ahead with its bold rail reforms, passengers across Britain are already experiencing a better railway, with publicly owned DFTO train operators performing better on punctuality and cancellations on average than those yet to come under DFTO ownership, as well as frozen rail fares for the 1st time in 3 decades. Other benefits of public ownership include:-

More services for passengers:- 76,000 seats per week in the December timetable uplift, with 60,000 coming on LNER services on the East Coast main line, and over a million passenger journeys on Northern's new Northumberland line.

Strong performance: Publicly owned c2c and Greater Anglia continue to be the top 2 performing operators for punctuality and reliability, with over 90% of trains arriving within 3 minutes of their scheduled time and under 2% cancellations.

Better onboard experience: Since entering public ownership, SWR has more than quadrupled the number of Arterio trains in service. The new trains are quicker and have more space on board.

Greater flexibility: Passengers can travel with greater confidence knowing that if their train is cancelled, they can use another publicly owned service 2 hours either side of their train to get to their destination at no extra cost.

GTR is the fifth operator to enter public ownership under the Government's Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Act, marking another step towards a simpler, more unified railway under GBR.

GBR will be now be accountable to passengers and will drive a relentless focus on responding to their needs. Responsible for coordinating the whole network: from track and train, to cost and revenue; GBR will deliver lasting change and build a railway fit for Britain's future, owned by the public, for the public.

GTR joins:- West Midlands Trains, Greater Anglia, c2c, South Western, Northern, TransPennine Express, Southeastern and LNER which are currently managed by DfT Operator Limited (DFTO).

Chiltern Railways' services will be next to transfer on:- 20 September 2026, followed by Great Western Railways on:- 13 December 2026, marking another significant step in the Government's plans to bring services into public ownership. We expect the full public ownership programme to be completed by the end of 2027.

Is the Labour Government backing the Media Billionaires who are destroying British democracy?

DONNACHADH McCarthy from:- MediaSovereignty.Org has called on the UK Government to fund local news companies via a new Social Media Levy on technology media billionaires, and stop backing:- "The media billionaires who are destroying British democracy!" In response the Labour Government has issued its reply to the:- 16,569 signature petition calling for a:- 'Media Sovereignty Act' like the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA).

The Media Sovereignty Act's 5 measures would be:-

Ban foreign media ownership.
Ban the concentration of UK national media ownership by 1 person or corporation.
Fund independent and local media with a Social Media Levy.
Require national media to be under the remit of the statutory regulator.
Require "dark money funded think tanks" that are covered by the media to declare donations in real time.

The Media Sovereignty Act Campaign Director, Donnachadh McCarthy, said:- "The UK Government has rejected all 5 measures in the proposed Act. It rejected any restrictions on foreign billionaires buying up all of the UK's media. It refused to back reform of the current massive concentration of UK media ownership in a tiny group of largely offshore based media billionaires. It refused to back a Social Media Levy, as they have in Australia. This would recoup some of the �10s of billions being siphoned abroad from UK news producers' former advertising revenues by the 3 US social media tech corporations and use the proceeds to fund UK local and independent media. It backed the current ludicrous system whereby these foreign media billionaires to:- "self regulate" their UK media corporations, rather than requiring them to join the post Levinson press regulator Impress. It rejected the proposal to ban foreign oil corporations and billionaires from secretly funding dark-money-funded UK think tanks that corrupt the UK Government's policy making process."

Donnachadh McCarthy, in a press statement added:- "It has been 1 of Britain's worst kept secrets that the Labour and Tory Parties place the wishes of the UK's media billionaires over the wishes of the people. But it is hugely important that our petition has finally forced the Labour Government to admit as much."

Co-Director Caspar Hughes said:- "You cannot have a free and fair democracy if almost all our media is dominated by the tiny 0.01%. The social media billionaires have sucked �millions out of local UK news advertising revenues. We need a free and fair press in the UK, free from billionaire capture. For that, we need to restore the funding that our local news companies have lost. Without their scrutiny of local Government, real local democracy perishes. This extraordinary admission by the Labour Government that they are on the side of the media billionaires trashing our democracy spurs us to move forward with the campaign. We will press on to get the:- 100,000 signatures that will finally trigger a parliamentary debate on the biggest political issue of our time. We will now take the campaign out to the country, asking local newspapers, local radio stations, trade unions, NGO's, student unions, branches of political parties, etc, to endorse this crucial campaign to rescue our broken local democracy from the media billionaires destroying it."

The full draft of the Media Sovereignty Act can be seen at:- MediaSovereignty.Org.

The full Government response can be found underneath the:- 'Petition Progress' section of the Parliament petition webpage can be found online at:- Petition.Parliament.UK, and it closes on:- 18 September 2026.

Did you know that:-

Combined, Reach Media, Murdoch, and Harmsworth hold a 40% share of the top 50 online UK newsbrands.
GB News is principally controlled by Sir Paul Marshall and the Legatum Group (which operates via the Dubai / Cyprus based Legatum / Prosperity framework). Marshall is a key investor in both.
Industry figures from AA/WARC analyzed by Press Gazette show that out of a record UK ad spend of ~�46.7 billion, Google, Meta, and Amazon captured roughly �31 billion combined." This migration of advertising revenue away from traditional publishers has directly caused widespread newsroom layoffs across national and Regional UK press.
The MRC report confirms that DMG Media, News UK, and Reach plc collectively command over 40% of the total audience reach of the UK's top 50 online newsbrands.
3 companies (Google, Meta, and Amazon) that capture roughly 66% of the total UK advertising market. Google and Meta alone capture around 80% of online advertising, but not total ad spend.
The MRC data states that 10 of the top 15 online platforms used to access news (intermediaries like search engines and social feeds, rather than news brands themselves) are owned by just 3 US giants:- Meta (Mark Zuckerberg), Alphabet/Google (Larry Page/Sergey Brin), and X Corp (Elon Musk).
Global Radio and Bauer Media Group collectively control roughly:- 65% to 70% of the UK's local commercial analogue radio stations and a massive share of the national DAB market. Only Global is UK owned, while Bauer Media Group is foreign owned.
The Sun, Times, Sunday Times, Talk Radio and Times Radio are owned by News UK, a subsidiary of News Corp. While Rupert Murdoch stepped down as chairman in favor of his son Lachlan, the family still controls the empire. Murdoch is a naturalized US citizen.
Politico is owned by the German media conglomerate Axel Springer SE (where Friede Springer was a major shareholder, though power has largely shifted to CEO Mathias D�pfner and private equity firm KKR).

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Britain's biggest train operator's services entered back into public ownership

Is the Labour Government backing the Media Billionaires who are destroying British democracy?