Wednesday 3 June 2026
What can Great British Railways learn from British Rail? BR veterans share first-hand knowledge
Senior figures from the days of British Rail have been brought together to share lessons that can help make Great British Railways a success. Their insights were gathered at a roundtable event convened by Campaign for Better Transport and have been published in a new report, Track Record: What Great British Railways can learn from British Rail.
As Great British Railways takes shape, there is much that it can learn from the last incarnation of an integrated, nationalised rail body, British Rail, which operated most rail transport in Britain from 1948 to 1997. To ensure that this invaluable knowledge is captured and shared, Campaign for Better Transport convened two roundtables: one with senior figures who led British Rail through its key transitions, and one with current and emerging rail sector leaders.
Ben Plowden, Chief Executive at Campaign for Better Transport, said:
“Our roundtable participants had decades of experience in British Rail from the frontline to the boardroom and an extraordinary wealth of first-hand knowledge to share. That knowledge can and should be harnessed to maximise the success of Great British Railways. Much has changed since British Rail’s days, but many of the same key challenges remain – from operating with constrained funding, to recruiting staff and fostering their talent, to embracing and scaling up new technologies, all while managing the needs of a plethora of stakeholders and making sure the trains run on time.”
Track Record highlights five observations from the roundtables, which it offers to those responsible for creating, developing and leading Great British Railways:
Create an outward-focused, responsive culture to allow GBR to evolve successfully over time.
Great British Railways (GBR) will evolve over time, just as British Rail (BR) did, in response to changing passenger expectations, technological change and political and financial circumstances. The organisation's leadership should not consider that the first operating model they deploy will be set for the duration, nor should ministers hold GBR to it. BR's experience suggests that getting the internal vision and culture right early should be the priority.
"What the Government really needs to do before GBR hits is to come out and say very clearly – what are the objectives of the industry? ...And from day zero, every decision has to be aligned with those objectives" - Roundtable participant.
2. Get the right balance between central and local decision making so that GBR delivers for customers at the same time as securing network benefits.
Operational decisions should be made by people close to the passenger and freight experience, and empowered local teams will be crucial. The right balance needs to be struck between these local decisions and those made at GBR HQ, who will have oversight of the interconnected nature of the railway.
“National framework, local application. That is the formula. The hard part is drawing the line in the right place for each different type of decision" - Roundtable participant.
3. Ensure clarity of vision from government and transparency over difficult trade-offs
Tensions between different levels of decision making and different objectives will be inevitable, given the multiplicity of customers and stakeholders, and not everyone will be content with every outcome. A transparent and coherent strategy for responding to tensions between objectives is required.
"GBR should not pretend that internal tensions do not exist. Making everybody 100% happy is not practical. The question is whether you have a transparent, mature process for explaining the trade-offs you have made – and why" - Roundtable participant.
4. Invest in the talent pipeline and support diversity
Many of the BR veterans who took part in the roundtable started in frontline operational roles before being offered rigorous training. Individuals moved around, gaining insight into the whole sector, a career pipeline which no longer operates at the same scale due to the recent fragmentation of the industry.
With women making up just 19% of the rail sector, GBR needs to attract a more diverse workforce and foster their talent.
"As an industry we haven't taken advantage of the ability to project ourselves as a career for people. Look at the careers all of these people around the table have had... We have an opportunity to promote an industry that's so diverse – not just in its people, I'm talking about diversity in its career paths and its skillsets" - Roundtable participan
5. Scale innovation to build and enhance the capacity and capability of GBR and the wider sector.
When it comes to innovation, a shift of mindset is needed from invention to scale. Most of the technologies and practices that will be most influential for the railways over the next decade already exist. Innovations need to be joined up and embedded across the network to successfully leverage transformational change.
“The rail sector is not short of innovation. It is short of the organisational muscle to take successful pilots and deploy them across the network at speed" - Roundtable participant.
Read Track Record: What Great British Railways can learn from British Rail.
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