railography photo galleries : Collections : New Photos : 25-D-2180 : (172 of 300)

South Western Swansong

This was my last picture of a train operated by the private South Western Railway before its return to public ownership two days later. 444016 and 444030 passed Bramshot, between Fleet and Farnborough, with 1B26, the late running 08:04 from Poole to Waterloo, on 23 May 2025.

After almost 30 years, SWR would be the first franchise in England to be nationalised for reasons other than force majeure, hammering another nail into the coffin of the failed privatisation project. Failure was hardly surprising as the authorities seemed to go out of their way to prevent meaningful competition between private operators on most routes, instead creating private monopolies with little incentive to innovate, the worst of both worlds.

Will things change under the new national operator? Undoubtedly. Will they get any better? Probably not, swapping penny-pinching, profit-driven private companies for a penny-pinching cash-strapped government department won't turn Britain's ailing railways into the effective, Swiss-style transport system that the country needs. That requires somebody with vision to be given the resources and left to get on with it and that ain't going to happen anytime soon.