Rail for the 21st Century

I've written before about the delays to the Williams Review, the long awaited paper looking at how our rail network is managed [insert your own joke here about train delays, leaves on the line, British Rail sandwiches etc etc], but it would now seem that we won't have to wait too much longer, indeed we will be gifted not only with the Williams Review but also a shiny new White Paper. What is not clear is whether the White Paper will effectively set out the Williams Review findings as a proposed way forward, a way to modernise our railway.

Time will tell on that front but what is perhaps interesting for those of us who have been around...for a while...is that the key suggestion seems to be the "creation of a new body tasked with overseeing the running of the entire network"...so we've had the Shadow Strategic Rail Authority, then the Strategic Rail Authority...any thoughts on what the daughter of the SRA will be called? and will it be any different to that whilst we've seen before? Will we see a significant change in processes, order placement, franchise running and consistency in approach across regions and routes? 

What we do know is that May could look very interesting indeed for anyone who was sat eagerly awaiting the Williams Review publication in December 2019...and we can even get together to discuss it, in small groups of course, in a beer garden!