Hello everybody and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Calder.

Today I'm talking about Great British Railways, not the concept of Great British Railways or Railways in Great Britain,

but the actual organisation Great British Railways,

which is soon going to be a thing that effectively reinvents, I would say, British Rail.

Now, for younger listeners, British Rail used to be the organisation that ran, coordinated all of the rail network,

including the infrastructure and every single train.

And it was divided into various different regions and very often reorganised as well.

Then in the mid-1990s came privatisation. This meant that effectively the whole country was carved up,

different franchises were sold off the West Coast mainline, the cross-country franchise,

Thames, suburban services, all manner of development. the West Coast Mainline, the cross-country franchise,

Thames, suburban services,

all manner of different franchises were sold off in order to have competition and better value

for the travelling public.

That was the idea.

Now, in the 25 years or so between privatisation and COVID,

things were going in the right direction. The extent to which it would have happened anyway,

because of increased economic activity, because of, for example, the fact that roads were

not exactly great. And the fact, even things such as, the fact that roads were not exactly great and the fact I even things such as

the fact that people can work and use their phones and so on on trains which they can't when they're

driving all sorts of things meant that passenger numbers effectively doubled now what happened

next was COVID it was already recognised in the Williams

review. This is Keith Williams, former British Airways Chief Executive, who was called in to say,

...