BRITAIN’s largest passenger operator, Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), returned to the public sector on May 31.

Formerly operated by the Govia joint venture of Go-Ahead and Keolis, GTR is now a subsidiary of DfT Operator (DfTO) which is taking over as operating contracts awarded to the private sector by the Department of Transport (DfT) come to an end.

DfTO will eventually become part of Great British Railways (GBR), the new public-sector body due to come into being next year to reunite passenger operations with infrastructure management, currently the responsibility of Network Rail.

GTR recorded 298 million passenger-journeys and 8.09 billion passenger-km in 2024-25. According to DfT, it is responsible for one in six passenger journeys in Britain, operating Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern commuter services to London as well Gatwick Express between London Victoria and the capital’s second-largest airport.

DfT says that the renationalised GTR will deliver a range of initiatives to improve performance and passenger experience under a 100-day improvement plan. This will include doubling the number of Gatwick Express services from December and more early-morning services on Saturdays and Mondays from this summer. Additional Great Northern services will be introduced in December.

GTR is the fifth operator to enter public ownership under the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Act, following West Midlands Trains (WMT), Greater Anglia, c2c, and South Western Railway (SWR). Northern, TransPennine Express (TPE), Southeastern, and London North Eastern Railway (LNER) were already managed by DfTO prior to the act becoming law in November 2024.

Chiltern Railways will be the next passenger operator to transfer to DfTO on September 20, followed by Great Western Railway (GWR) on December 13. DfT expects the full public ownership programme to be completed by the end of 2027.

“We have spent the past year building the foundations, and bringing even deeper integration into our operations with Network Rail, with a single focus on what's right for our customers and communities,” says GTR chief operating officer, John Whitehurst.