UK takes West Midlands Trains into public ownership as fourth operator

The services are run by the state-owned DfT Operator Limited and keep their names until they are absorbed into Great British Railways. With Greater Anglia (12 October 2025), almost half of British passenger rail traffic was already publicly run; according to the report, Govia Thameslink (31 May 2026) and Great Western Railway (second half of 2026) were next in line.

The return of Britain's passenger train operators to public ownership is continuing as planned under the law passed at the end of 2024: after South Western Railway (May 2025), c2c (July 2025) and Greater Anglia (12 October 2025), London Northwestern Railway and West Midlands Railway, the two parts of West Midlands Trains, passed to the state-owned DfT Operator Limited on 1 February 2026. Each handover takes place only when the existing operating contracts can first be ended, so that taxpayers face no extra costs for early termination. According to the report, Govia Thameslink (31 May 2026) and Great Western Railway (second half of 2026) were next in line; all former contracted operators are due to follow by the end of 2027 and be absorbed into Great British Railways, which is still being set up, and by mid-2026 eight in ten passenger trains could be run publicly (LOK Report, 3 Feb 2026; earlier reports of 2 and 13 Oct 2025).