The fourth former franchise to be renationalised will return to public ownership in February. South Western Railway and c2c have already been transferred from the private sector to the DfT, and Greater Anglia will follow in October.

The Office of Rail and Road has approved applications from three existing open access operators to run additional services on the East Coast Main Line and for Grand Central to call at Seaham for the first time, but it has refused First’s application for London-Sheffield and signalled to the Department for Transport that it will not be changing its ‘established approach to assessing the impact on funds available to Secretary of State’.