Great British Railways licence put out to consultation ahead of autumn 2027 takeover
A single licence would replace the separate network, station and train licences now held by Network Rail and publicly owned operators, with the Office of Rail and Road enforcing it.
By Daily Oracles News Team2 min read
Great British Railways (GBR) will need a licence before it can legally run trains, stations and track, and the Department for Transport has now published a draft for consultation. Responses are due by 11:59pm on 21 January 2027.
GBR is the new publicly owned body that will bring rail infrastructure and most passenger services under one organisation. The department expects it to take over in autumn 2027, when the licence would be granted. Before then, Network Rail's network and station licences will be revoked, along with the operator licences of the train companies already in public ownership under DfT Operator.
One licence instead of several
Under the Railways Act 1993, an organisation holds a separate licence for each type of railway asset it operates, from networks and stations to passenger trains and light maintenance depots. GBR would hold a single licence covering all of them, including work done by its subsidiaries, which would not need licences of their own. Any enforcement would be taken against GBR itself.
The Secretary of State would issue the licence and the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) would enforce it. The department expects the ORR to start with dialogue and improvement plans and treat formal orders as a last resort. The licence would be reviewed roughly every five years. Open access, freight, devolved, charter and heritage operators keep their own licences, which the ORR will consult on separately.
What GBR would be held to
The draft sets out conditions in four areas: information for the regulator, the passenger experience, stewardship of the network and duties shared across the industry.
On passengers, GBR would have to meet standards set by the new Passenger Watchdog. At first these would be the rules the ORR already applies to delay compensation, complaints handling, travel information and assistance for disabled passengers. GBR would also have to stay a member of the Rail Ombudsman and keep through ticketing working across different operators, taking over systems now run by the Rail Delivery Group. A separate condition would bind it to a retail code of practice, so that it treats rival ticket sellers fairly while running the systems they depend on.
The rules on selling land would also change. Network Rail currently needs ORR consent to dispose of land, mostly given under a general consent. GBR would instead publish its own land disposal policy and be bound by it. Anyone who thought a sale breached that policy could refer it to the ORR, and the sale could not go ahead until the review was finished. Land passed to Platform4, the GBR subsidiary set up to regenerate brownfield railway sites, would fall outside this once transferred.
Other conditions would require GBR to manage its assets for the long term in line with the outcomes set through the funding review and its annual business plans, and to publish clear routes for outside investors, such as councils or developers who want to pay for new stations, car parks or extra capacity.
After the consultation closes, the department will run a formal notification procedure on the licence under the Railways Bill, which it expects to take place in 2027.
