Labour announces its plan to bring passenger rail franchises under public control as they expire, meaning most of them will effectively be nationalised within the first term of a Labour government if it wins the election.
They don’t plan to forcibly purchase freight companies or rolling stock leasing companies (these were sold outright and don’t have franchises) and of course Network Rail (the walking calamity formerly known as Railtrack) was somewhat controversially brought back under public control relatively early on in the Blair years.
They will also not ban Open Access operators from running routes (in practice there are very few of these) and they will not prematurely terminate long duration franchises (East Midlands runs until 2030). So where does this leave us? On the road to rail heaven or rail hell? Or some weird purgatory in between?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68889345