And, coming up in 2026….

Saturday 3rd January 2026

There are already many known developments upcoming in the next few months. Here’s a summary of the main ones I’m aware of and I’m sure readers will add others.

Ownership changes for sure include more Train Operating Companies moving across to DfT Operator Ltd (DFTO) in 2026 including West Midlands Railway in February and Govia Thameslink Railway in May followed almost certainly by Chiltern in the summer, GWR in the autumn and EMR towards the end of the year.

This will remove operations from Transport UK (WMR and EMR, leaving it with just 50% of Merseyrail); Go-Ahead (GTR, leaving it with 65% of the Elizabeth line contract); Arriva (Chiltern, leaving it with Cross Country and Grand Central and the London Overground contract with TfL until losing that to First in May) and First (GWR, leaving it with 70% of Avanti West Coast, Hull Trains and Lumo and the new London Overground contract from May).

Meanwhile the Railways Bill will continue its passage through Parliament with an expected Royal Assent in the summer followed by a further 12 months before Great British Railways (GBR) becomes operational bringing together the amassed train operations in the public sector under DFTO together with Network Rail to form the new organisation. We’ll almost certainly be told who the new Chair and Chief Executive will be by the summer too.

In the meantime there are bound to be more PR stunts organised by DfT such as we saw with the draft new livery last month so as to keep the GBR bandwagon rolling in the public’s eyes and no doubt this will include announcements about more “simplification” of fares along the LNER style model even though that means less convenience and likely higher fares for many.

The already announced rail fares freeze means regulated fares won’t increase in March, but watch out for unregulated fares increasing as fares in London will too, although Mayor Kahn has announced the £1.75 bus fare will remain, for now.

Also in London expect to see more of the Mayor’s favoured Superloop branded routes take to the road following a shoal of public consultations last year. First up is likely to be the SL11 between North Greenwich, Woolwich, Thamesmead and Abbey Wood which will subsume the busy route 472 along the same route albeit because the SL11 will be limited stop it will mean some passengers having to use two buses instead of one which may not go down too well.

Next up is the SL12 between Gants Hill, Romford, Elm Park and Rainham and the SL13 between Ealing Broadway via the North Circular Road to Brent Cross and Hendon, the latter mimicking the 112 for most of the route.

Two more routes in the pipeline which may also appear in 2026 are the SL14 between Chingford Hatch, Walthamstow, Leyton and Stratford and the SL15 which follows the tortuously slow South Circular Road for much of its route between Clapham Junction, Tulse Hill, West Dulwich, Forest Hill, Catford and Eltham.

Aside from the 472 disappearing completely, the new Superloop additions will inevitably see frequency reductions on parallel routes (not least the aforementioned 112) but will still mean a significant increase in vehicle and staff resources for TfL to fund which will be interesting with the bus fare frozen and overall passenger numbers continuing to decline.

One other TfL route change will see the withdrawal of route number 533 consequent upon changes to routes 209/378/485.

Outside of London we can expect to soon hear which bus company has successfully gained the first franchised network for St Helens and Wirral in the Liverpool City Region which is due to begin later in the year while over in West Yorkshire, franchising round 1 sees bids required for Dewsbury, Huddersfield and part of Leeds with results expected later in the year ready for a start in 2027. Bid submissions for round 2 (Five Towns, Leeds 2 and Wakefield) will also be submitted and later in the year round 3 (Bradford, Calderdale, Keighley) may also follow. Expect to start seeing Weaver Network branding rolled out on infrastructure and in other places during 2026.

Over in South Yorkshire tranche 1 impacting the Leger Way depot in Doncaster and Olive Grove in Sheffield will see tenders required by the end of the summer with a likely announcement of the winning bids by the end of the year and mobilisation to begin for September 2027 with a similar timescale and activity in the West Midlands for the first three (of nine) areas to be rolled out in 2027, meaning tenders will need to be submitted in 2026.

Continuing the franchising theme, we should soon hear the results of the independent review into former Mayor Johnson’s plans for Peterborough and Cambridgeshire Combined Authority being chaired by Leon Daniels. Johnson’s successor, Mayor Bristow, has said “the review will be part of the development of a clear and deliverable plan for introduction, also highlighting affordability” and not necessarily mean the abandonment of franchising. It will be interesting to see what Leon concludes.

And finally, Transport for Wales will be inviting tenders for its first tranche of the franchised network due to begin in Summer 2027 in the south west.

Out in the commercial deregulated world the Slough, Windsor and Maidenhead areas are set to see more changes introduced from tomorrow with Carousel flexing its muscles following Thames Valley doing the same in November but the most immediate impact will be felt by First Bus which sees its route 3 between Uxbridge and Slough challenged by Carousel’s new route 458. More on this in Tuesday’s blog.

Another newly contested corridor between Tonbridge and Sevenoaks sees Go-Bus begin a new route 4 to complement its route 5 from Monday challenging Arriva’s route 402.

The First Bus exit from Cornwall takes place in February with Go Cornwall introducing replacement routes although not like for like, so expect some rationalisation. The duplication of routes on four corridors introduced by Go Cornwall last autumn will certainly end.

A rationalisation has also been promised by Central Connect across its operations following its takeover of former Go-Ahead owned operations in East Anglia with a strategic exit from some routes in the East Midlands already announced which will see Nottingham City Transport expand its geographic area in February launching Pathfinder branding for the former Central Connect route 90 and taking the company as far east as Newark.

Another new brand set to launch is from Blands which will give its route R1 between Melton Mowbray and Corby a new Rutlander name.

We can also expect to see more Bus Service Improvement Plan initiatives in England especially once the new financial year begins in April, following the award of £2.26 billion worth of funding (over the next three years) to local authorities (Local Authority Bus Grant) announced at the end of last year.

It will be interesting to see if local authorities use this funding to keep their ailing DRTs on life support or whether more will follow Tees Valley and pull the plug which sees five years of Teesflex haemorrhaging public money finally replaced by two fixed routes.

Trials of autonomous vehicles will continue with the promised expansion of the current ‘Connector’ trial in Cambridge likely later this month while in London trials of taxis with no driver behind the wheel are set to begin. Google owned Waymo will be launching its Jaguar I-Pace in several Boroughs alongside plans from Uber and Lyft with the Chinese firm Baidu. Both are subject to regulatory approval and testing.

Infrastructure developments include a number of new railway stations opening with the already delayed Cambridge South and Bedlington and Northumberland Park on the Northumberland line definitely operational by the summer. The West Midlands will see Moseley Village, Kings Heath and Pineapple Road open on the Camp Hill line in Birmingham with passenger services returning presumably from the May timetable.

Two other stations at Darlaston and Willenhall (between Walsall and Wolverhampton) are also due to open in 2026 but I’m not predicting those as a certainty.

Passenger train services on East West Rail between Oxford and Bletchley/Milton Keynes and serving the new station at Winslow must surely get going in 2026 having already been available and waiting since January 2025 and, I know it’s a rash prediction, but maybe even the long paused new White Rose station in Leeds (and the associated closure of nearby Cottingley) will be completed and opened/closed.

Also delayed from 2025 so a good bet for 2026 is Midland Metro trams running to Birmingham Eastside on the newly laid tracks.

Perhaps we might also see the promised new, and now late, trains enter service on the Piccadilly line, the return into service and roll out of the new B23 trains on the DLR and the completion of the roll out of classes 701, 730 and 810 with SWR, LNWR and EMR respectively and it’ll be nice to see TfW start running its Class 398 tram-trains in the Cardiff Valleys and Chiltern start running its Class 68s and Mark 5As.

Let’s hope many of the electric bus fleets waiting infrastructure can finally hit the road too and, of course, Botley Road, Oxford finally reopen in August as promised following what will be a nine day closure of the railway line through Oxford in February so the new bridge can be installed.

And on the same theme and more immediately, the West Coast Mainline is closed for the next couple of weeks to allow for a new bridge over the M6 to be put in place with Avanti West Coast running a two-hourly shuttle service with Class 805 trains between Preston and Carlisle using the line via Settle.

Back in Greater Manchester Mayor Burnham has committed to extending Bee Line control to some of the region’s key rail routes with lines to Glossop and Stalybridge due to transfer to Mayoral control by the end of the year with tap-in/tap-out ticketing.

There’s no doubt 2026 will be another eventful year for the bus and train sectors and I’m sure we’ll see the trend for smaller bus and coach companies to be gobbled up continue, especially by Go-Ahead and First Bus. We’ll also certainly see some changes at Arriva with new managing director for the bus division, Martijn Gilbert, now established in his new role and over at Mobico (aka National Express) it will be interesting to see how the continued expansion of Flixbus and the introduction of bus franchising in the West Midlands impacts the future of the business in the UK.

As, they say, there’s lots to look forward to.

Happy New Year.

Roger French

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