The Department for Transport’s programme of renationalisation is continuing, with the next former franchise, Govia Thameslink Railway, set to be taken over by DfT Operator on 31 May.

The DfT has already said that this transaction will mark the half-way mark in the ending of contracted privatised train operators, and that the next two, later this year, will be Chiltern Railways and Great Western Railway, with the rest, such as Avanti West Coast and CrossCountry, remaining to be mopped up in 2027.

Chiltern will be the last of the former British Rail Network SouthEast sub sectors to be renationalised, having been carved out of NSE as one of 25 Train Operating Units (‘Chiltern Lines’) on 1 April 1994 and then privatised on 21 July 1996.

Chiltern, which is now owned by Arriva, was named a year ago as the operator of the latest section of East West Rail, and so it will be running trains between Oxford and Milton Keynes Central.

At the moment, that is still the official position, but the statement has stayed stubbornly in the future tense, apparently because the RMT is opposing a plan to operate the EWR trains without conductors.

The National Rail website recognises the existence of the new EWR station at Winslow, but it has stopped short of promising any trains in the foreseeable future, even after the May timetable change.

Now this pudding has just become a little richer, because Chiltern will be renationalised on 20 September, which may complicate matters.

Unless there is a settlement in the meantime, it will be the first of the former franchises to be renationalised while it is involved in an industrial dispute, and we don’t know if DfT Operator will inherit the dispute along with the staff and rolling stock leases.

What we do know is that the DfT has been surprisingly modest about Chiltern’s ‘transfer to public ownership’ (it doesn’t seem to care for ‘renationalisation’), because the date became public knowledge on 10 March – if the public knew where to look.

If it did, the public would look on page 4 of the list of ‘latest documents’ on the DfT’s web site, where the date of Chiltern Railways’ transfer is modestly included in something called ‘Great British Railways and the public ownership programme’.

Even then, there seems to be no great urgency. The revelation that Chiltern will leave the private sector on 20 September is kept back until the 14th paragraph.

No news release. No ministerial statement in Parliament. No white smoke over the DfT headquarters in Horseferry Road.

Could it be that the difference of opinion between operator and union has caused the DfT to be exceptionally bashful?

Meanwhile, the good people of Winslow have a shiny new station, but nowhere to go – by train, anyway.

Whether that position will change by 20 September, no one seems to know.

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