Chiltern Railways services will move into public ownership on Sunday 20 September.<\/p>\n
Connecting London Marylebone with communities across Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, and the West Midlands, Chiltern Railways will become the sixth operator\u2019s services to transfer into public ownership.<\/p>\n
The transfer will pave the way for a package of improvements for Chiltern passengers, including more services and seats, new trains, upgraded stations. and better facilities on board. Public ownership also provides a fresh opportunity to deliver East West Rail and its benefits to passengers.<\/p>\n
For many who use Chiltern services, overcrowding has become a daily frustration especially in peak hours. To tackle this, 25 additional daily services will be introduced from December, providing 10,000 extra seats each weekday. The rollout of new state-of-the-art trains will increase capacity while improving accessibility and providing better Wi-Fi on board.<\/p>\n
The transfer marks another milestone on the journey to Great British Railways (GBR) and making life\u2019s essentials affordable again. Bringing operators services into public ownership ahead of its creation is already delivering benefits for people, with fares frozen for the first time in 30 years, 76,000 extra seats a week introduced across the network, and a fleet of new GBR trains set to be built in Britain to serve major cities across the north whilst supporting thousands of jobs.<\/p>\n
From this Sunday, passengers whose train is cancelled will also be able to use another operator\u2019s service at no extra cost.<\/p>\n
Rail Minister Lord Hendy said: “From this Sunday, Chiltern Railways passengers will be travelling on rail services back in public hands.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery transfer into public ownership gives us the chance to tackle the bread-and-butter issues people care about \u2013 more frequent, comfortable trains that turn up on time.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we set up Great British Railways, we’re putting passengers first. It will not happen overnight, but we will build a railway the country can trust and rely on and that will create growth, jobs and homes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tony Baxter, interim managing director of Chiltern Railways, commented: \u201cSunday is a significant milestone for Chiltern Railways and we look forward to working together with the wider rail industry to deliver a better railway for everyone in Great Britain.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the next 12 months, our customers in London, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire and the West Midlands will benefit from more new trains, more services, thousands of additional seats, improvements to stations and on-board facilities and the ability to use their ticket on other operators when faced with disruption \u2013 customer improvements made possible thanks to years of planning, dedication and hard work by Chiltern colleagues.<\/p>\n
\u201cPublic ownership will further strengthen that progress through closer collaboration across the industry, helping us share best practice, drive innovation and focus on what matters most to customers, businesses and communities across our network.\u201d<\/p>\n
The next operator\u2019s services to transfer in public ownership will be Great Western Railway on 13 December 2026 ahead of completion of the full public ownership programme by the end of 2027.<\/p>\n
Image credit: Department for Transport<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chiltern Railways services will move into public ownership on Sunday 20 September. Connecting London Marylebone with communities across Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, and the West Midlands, Chiltern Railways will become the sixth operator\u2019s services to transfer into public ownership. The transfer will pave the way for a package of improvements for Chiltern passengers, including more services [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1633,16017,47,16016,85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-543891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-industry-news","category-rail-news","category-train-operating-companies","category-uk"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t