The future of railway ownership and organisational structure

Railways in Great Britain were largely privatised in the 1990s but are now undergoing a form of nationalisation. The regulatory (and ownership) cycle seems to have moved full circle. This begs a number of questions of which three will be dealt with in this short paper: Why the change? What are the challenges? Will the rest of the world follow suit? It is clear that the rest of the world, and particularly Europe, will watch the evolution of railway organisation in Great Britain with interest, and the search for what works in terms of railway structure and ownership will continue, albeit assisted by an ever-expanding evidence-base, with Britain continuing to provide naturalistic experiments.