{"id":428760,"date":"2026-05-15T18:36:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T08:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/?p=71178"},"modified":"2026-05-15T18:36:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T08:36:12","slug":"develop-uk-railways-proclaims-the-king","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=428760","title":{"rendered":"Develop UK railways proclaims the King"},"content":{"rendered":"

The King\u2019s Speech. Great movie, but was the real thing more of a stutter for rail development? There were encouraging words in Parliament on Wednesday, but will those words translate into a less than hesitant programme for the future of Britain\u2019s railways? RailFreight.com UK Editor Simon Walton issues a summons to attend with him in the Other Place immediately.<\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

The arcane language and all the corresponding pomp and circumstance was on display this week at the State Opening of Parliament. Anyone not blessed with a proper British education must be utterly bemused by the ceremonial shenanigans of a man in tights hammering on the door of the House of Commons to demand the passage of another man in an ermine dress. All this, though, has profound implications for the future of Britain\u2019s railways.<\/p>\n

Like a freight train on fire<\/h2>\n

Another man, this time one dressed as Prime Minister but actually draped in an appalling muddle, writes a proclamation for the King, Charles III. Then, in the outwardly absurd nature of the constitutional monarchy, the King \u201ccommands\u201d his government to enact a series of bills (\u201claws\u201d to you and me) that will shape the UK for the next session of Parliament.<\/p>\n

The ruling Labour Party has been repeatedly accused of moving too slowly with its policy of change for Britain. This session, they propose to go like a lightly-loaded intermodal running ten minutes late on the West Coast Main Line while being hauled by a pair of class 99s, one of them on fire, and with an Avanti Pendolino in sight behind. A typical parliamentary year will see about twenty bills brought forward. This year it\u2019s thirty-five. Many of them have indirect relevance for the railways. A couple are even aimed squarely down the lines.<\/p>\n

Ambition, humility, sympathy – all smouldering<\/h2>\n

King Charles repeated grand gestures about Northern Powerhouse Rail – as though that was actually a chattel of the Crown. His Majesty, with an uncharacteristic vocal stumble (we wonder why), lauded the coming of Great British Railways – a democratising of the national network into an overarching and all-powerful body, with all the ambition, all the humility and all the sympathy of Oliver Cromwell.<\/p>\n

\"aerial
Everyone’s favourite – even Cromwell. An aerial shot of the railway junction at Ely in Cambridgeshire, Image: \u00a9 Network Rail<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Is it only coincidence that the Lord Protector once owned much of the land that happens to be in that most contentious of railway locations: Ely? The irony is that the arch republican should be at the heart of the reigning monarch\u2019s most republican of speeches. Of all the posturing towards \u201cThe North\u201d (a vague area between Watford and Wick, where Labour was brutally routed in last week\u2019s local and devolved elections), there was a firm commitment to a substantial investment of 45 billion pounds (about 53 billion euros) to cover stated rail improvements for passengers and something called \u201cfreight\u201d. All this, like Rotherham\u2019s Gateway station, will see spades in the ground by 2030.<\/p>\n

Ah, isn\u2019t that just one year after the next General Election?<\/p>\n

A fragmented railway<\/h2>\n

Our modern-day Man for All Seasons, Darren Caplan, chief executive at the Rail Industries Association, which represents the supply chain, put it succinctly. \u201cIt is encouraging that the Government recognises public investment can provide the certainty needed for markets to grow,\u201d he said. “Rail suppliers acknowledge Ministers\u2019 aspiration to create a \u2018fair deal\u2019 for the north through the development of Northern Powerhouse Rail. We welcome the plan to continue to legislate to establish Great British Railways and deliver rail reform, and look forward to working with the Government to turn these ambitions into long-term certainty and investment for the rail supply.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"An
An impression of the Rotherham Gateway station, in the home of the UK’s largest scrapyard, but all of the Yorkshire town looks this good these days. Honestly. Image: \u00a9 Rotherham Council<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Great White Hope for the future, also known as Great British Railways<\/a>, was signalled as not the end of uncertainty, not even the beginning of the end, but as perhaps the end of the beginning of a calamitous diversity of rolling stock and working practices, which has seen the railways as fragmented as they have been since the age of the Mania.<\/p>\n

Although quite how we will find a Train for All Seasons to marry up a network that might have been designed with all the loyalty of a Tudor groom, remains to be seen. Rail freight interests may be excused for scoffing at that remark, and point out that the homogenisation of operations already comes with a number, and that number is the not quite devilish \u201966 (turn that on its head to see the future).<\/p>\n

Executive Summary: not much<\/h2>\n

The picture of the future is potentially rosy – but only if the blooms actually flower. Otherwise, it\u2019s just more thorns for the industry to grasp. The summary of this year\u2019s King\u2019s Speech<\/a>, and its relevance to the railways, could be put into a couple of words: Not much. That, though, underplays the significance of those few words devoted to the subject – and means all those Monarchs, Lords and Commoners got dressed up in their tights and frock coats for nothing. Surely not.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t worry if you missed any of this. The State Opening of Parliament is as regular as a Parliamentary Train on the Greenford branch. There will be another one along in a year, when the King will likely still be King, but the likelihood of the same Prime Minister being the one who writes the King\u2019s Speech is about as likely as work having begun on Project Cromwell – my new name for the Ely Area Enhancement Programme<\/a>. Well, we\u2019re all republicans now, aren\u2019t we?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The King\u2019s Speech. Great movie, but was the real thing more of a stutter for rail development? There were encouraging words in Parliament on Wednesday,\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20260,15319,18116,11313,20261,20262,78,47,17548,85],"tags":[12634],"class_list":["post-428760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-charles-iii","category-ely-area-capacity-enhancement","category-friday-forum","category-in-depth","category-kings-speech","category-oliver-cromwell","category-rail-freight","category-rail-news","category-simon-walton","category-uk","tag-railfreight"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=428760"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":428761,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428760\/revisions\/428761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=428760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=428760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=428760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}