How do people feel about monopolies by the private train companies? Being out of the loop as an expat, I only found out yesterday that Arriva took over the north England franchise from Northern Rail in early April. Unimaginatively, Arriva are using the name Northern for their new franchise, maybe to keep continuity.
Arriva already run the Welsh franchise (Arriva Trains Wales), the London-Birmingham franchise (Chiltern Railways), the intercity (CrossCountry) franchise, the Tyne & Wear metro and operate on the east coast mainline under the Grand Central operator. So along with their new northern franchise they control routes from London-Birmingham, Cardiff-Holyhead, Cardiff-Nottingham, Llandudno-Manchester, Manchester-Bristol, Liverpool-Manchester and Aberdeen-Penzance. That's an awful lot for one company.
It's also worth noting that Arriva itself is a 100% subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn, a state funded joint-venture railway company, and that Serco-Abellio, who did run the northern franchise and still operate other franchises like Merseyrail, Scotland and East Anglia, is a subsidiary of Nederlandse Spoorwegen, a subsidised state railway company. I've always found it interesting how privatising the operating arm of British Rail simply meant opening the door to other countries' nationalised train companies. Even 'British Rail' came back in a sense when the Department Of Transport had to step in and manage the ECML when National Express walked out of their commitment.
