Good morning, ladies, gentlemen. Welcome to Ombudsick 14 to Sheperton, the first South Western Railway Service from London Waterloo under public ownership.

Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Corder. It's Monday the 26th of May.

Well, actually, I'm on a train on Sunday, the 25th of May, the 614 from London Waterloo to Sheperton.

And the reason I've climbed aboard is because it is the first publicly owned train from southwestern railways that is running, at least from London Waterloo,

and that is because it's been brought back into public ownership.

The old lot first group and MTR of Hong Kong have been told.

Thanks very much, but we're now going to save the money that we've been paying you in fees,

and we're also going to bring

track and train together. But what of course everybody wants to know is what is going to change

and I've been hearing about that from Heidi Alexander who is the transport secretary. People are having to pay a fair whack for train travel,

so they need to know that what they're paying results in trains that arrive on time,

lower levels of cancellation and a better passenger experience.

And it's part of the reason why today we are saying that as trains transfer into public ownership and as we move towards the establishment of Great British Railways, that the regional operators won't be allowed to use the Great British Railways badge until such time as that they have met really high standards on punctuality level of cancellations and passenger

experience. This is not British Rail Mark 2. This is going to be a 21st century organisation

that is commercial, that is lean, that is agile. And it really is important that we nurture the talent

and dedication that exists amongst the workforce

that we do need to make sure that workforce feels supported by its management. We need top

quality management in the reformed railways and I'm really excited about the opportunities

to work with the leaders of the railway,

to get some pride back into the railways because I think it's been sorely lacking.

And we inherited a broken system after two years of rolling national rail strikes.

Most people, of course, don't care who's running the trains. They just

...