UK introduces Railways Bill to create Great British Railways

The UK government will introduce the Railways Bill to create Great British Railways (GBR), a new publicly owned company responsible for coordinating passenger services and rail infrastructure.

• Main announcement: The Railways Bill will be laid in Parliament on 5 November 2025 to establish Great British Railways (GBR), headquartered in Derby, as a publicly owned company that centralises management of track, train, cost and revenue; it will create a strengthened passenger watchdog, mandate a duty to grow rail freight, and enable a one-stop-shop app and website to replace 14 operator ticketing platforms.
• Additional details and implementation: The government will publish an accessibility roadmap (also on 5 November 2025) with commitments to expand Disabled Persons Railcard eligibility, roll out more Welcome Points, deliver more consistent staff training, improve lifts/escalators, give devolved governments and England’s mayors a bigger statutory role, and introduce a new capacity allocation and timetabling process to provide longer-term certainty for freight operators; examples cited include Southeastern and LNER among top operators for low cancellations and South Western Railway tripling new trains since entering public ownership.