GBR Doesn’t Need to Be One Organisation

Lessons from Switzerland and the Danger of Giganticism

(Advance warning: I’m going to be banging on about Switzerland again)

Everyone assumes Great British Railways must be one organisation.

But what if that’s the wrong assumption?

A few weeks ago, I argued that we should stop trying to draw the org chart. Structure should follow function, not the other way around.

But there’s a deeper assumption lurking underneath all of this: that if we want an integrated railway, it needs to be a single organisation.

It’s a seductive idea. One railway, one plan, one accountable leader: neat, tidy and very easy to draw on a PowerPoint slide. But here’s the thing: some of the world’s best railways don’t work like that at all.

Which brings me to Switzerland.

*Gratuitous image of a Rhätische Bahn (RhB) train in spectacular Alpine scenery*

Integrated, But Not Centralised

If you’ve ever taken a train in Switzerland (or, indeed, a tram, a bus or a boat) you’ll know it is highly integrated. I’ve written about that before here.

But it’s not run by one organisation. In fact, the system is deliberately fragmented.

The Swiss national operator, SBB, runs a lot of the network, but not all of it. Around 40% of the Swiss railway is operated by other companies. Some of these are big regional players, like BLS in Bern or the Rhätische Bahn (RhB) in Graubünden. Others are tiny local lines winding through mountain valleys. Almost all of them are vertically integrated - they own the infrastructure and the trains - and many are part-owned by local cantons or municipalities.

This isn’t an accident. It’s a deliberate policy to ensure that even though SBB is the national operator, they’re not allowed to run everything.

As part of its licence, the Swiss government requires SBB to subcontract some inter-regional services to other railways. Not because SBB is bad (it isn’t - it’s superb!) but because even in a nationalised, integrated system, Switzerland doesn’t trust monopolies. They want comparison. They want pressure to improve. And they know that having more than one player helps keep everyone sharp.

That’s not something you’ll find in many org charts.

So what might we learn from this? And could a similar approach help us build a better, more resilient GBR - one that’s truly focused on passengers?

The Case for Pluralism

So why might you want multiple railways?

At first glance, it sounds inefficient. Wouldn’t it be cheaper and simpler to have one operator, one structure, one set of management overheads?

Maybe. But Switzerland isn’t doing this by accident, and the benefits are real - especially in a public service.

First, multiple operators create natural comparitors. If one line is cleaner, more punctual or more innovative, everyone can see - and others are pressured to catch up. It’s benchmarking, but with passengers.

I remember, when at SBB’s head office, asking the team why they strove so hard to deliver a punctual railway when they were a monopoly public service. “Pride” was the answer.

But I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the train service to SBB’s head office is provided by BLS, one of their main comparators. You can be a monopoly on paper and still feel pressure when someone else is running trains to your front door.

Second, it encourages experimentation. Small organisations try things that big ones can’t or won’t. They’re closer to their communities. They’re less constrained by risk-aversion or groupthink. And if something doesn’t work, the impact is limited.

Third, it builds in resilience. A failure at one operator doesn’t infect the whole system. Leadership failures, industrial disputes, even IT disasters can be contained. Monopolies, even well-run ones, are fragile. Diversity makes systems stronger.

And finally, it reduces the risk of the entire railway being defined by the style or blind spots of a single management culture. We’ve all seen what happens when one leadership team - or one Treasury-sponsored idea of “efficiency” - dominates too much. The Swiss model allows multiple answers to the same question to co-exist. That’s healthy.

It’s also very un-British. But maybe that’s my point.

The Giganticism Trap

In Britain, we’re always trying to solve problems by creating something bigger. Bigger departments. Bigger franchises. Bigger org charts.

But in trying to make things more efficient, we often make them slower, clumsier and more internally obsessed.

I wrote about this last month: about what happened when National Express tried to merge its rail, bus and coach divisions into a single UK-wide organisation. The logic was classic: cut duplication, align strategy, gain scale. The reality? Decision-making slowed down, P&L responsibility got pushed upwards and costs went up. The people who were actually responsible for making things work couldn’t get anything done. And the business suffered.

It wasn’t the only place I’ve seen this.

The BBC once tried to fix inefficiency by creating internal markets and centralising access to talent. My mum, who ran BBC Books, used to commission books by calling Michael Palin’s agent and getting things done. Under the new system, she spent more time navigating the internal system than publishing books. She eventually left to set up her own business.

The same thing happened at TfL. A once-decentralised set of operating businesses gradually evolved into a unified structure with shared functions. More efficient on paper, certainly. But slower, less agile and more frustrating for anyone trying to make something happen. I eventually left to set up my own business. Like mother, like son…

In each case, the pursuit of “efficiency” added friction. And friction is the enemy of delivery.

If GBR Isn’t One Organisation, What Is It?

If integration doesn’t have to mean centralisation, what’s the alternative?

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer - and that’s precisely the point. Different places need different solutions. But if we look at the Swiss model and some of our own successes here in the UK, two broad approaches start to emerge. Both could sit comfortably within a national GBR framework. Both offer coherence without requiring control.

Model A: Local, Vertically Integrated Railways

(Think: the Swiss RhB, BLS… or Cornwallbahn?)

*Part of its own vertically-integrated railway?*

In this model, you create small, place-based railways that are responsible for everything: trains, track, performance, delivery. They’re typically owned or part-owned by local government, closely embedded in the communities they serve, and free to design services that reflect local priorities.

This is how most of the Swiss non-SBB railways work. And it’s not hard to imagine UK equivalents.

What if the Cornish branch lines were no longer a rounding error in a London-based budget, but part of a Cornish railway company, part-owned by Cornwall Council: responsible for running, maintaining and improving services across the county? What if the East Midlands’ complex patchwork of rural routes had a single, locally run operator focused just on that geography, headquartered in the region, accountable to local leaders?

You get pride. You get focus. And crucially, you get visibility: Penryn or Bottesford might be tiny when viewed from London, but they’re pretty important when they’re your responsibility.

Model B: Locally Specified Concessions Within a National System

(Think: London Overground, Merseyrail, or — yes — some bits of SBB)

Not every region needs its own vertically integrated railway. Another option is for combined authorities or devolved governments to specify local rail services, but contract the operation out. The authority controls the vision and the performance standards, and holds the operator to account - much like TfL does with Overground, or Merseytravel does with Merseyrail.

It’s still integrated: fares, ticketing, timetables, and information can all be consistent. But the control sits closer to the communities using the service.

This model works well in cities and metro areas - and we already know it delivers results. London Overground went from being a scruffy, forgotten bit of railway to one of the highest-performing services in the country. Merseyrail consistently scores top marks for punctuality and customer satisfaction. Many of SBB’s regional routes are delivered under contract to the local Canton government.

The Common Thread

Both models take us away from the idea that “one railway” means “one organisation.” They allow for local focus, clearer accountability and faster decision-making. They let services be run by the people who are actually close enough to understand what passengers need. And they create the conditions for learning, comparison and innovation.

They don’t reject integration. They just refuse to confuse it with organisational uniformity. We wouldn’t want one organisation to run every bus in Britain, so why every train?

Why We Shouldn’t Rush the Structure

What I’m saying here might be right or it might be wrong. This is why I argued last month that we need to stop trying to draw the GBR org chart.

These are difficult, messy questions. In some places, a vertically integrated local railway might make sense. In others, a TfL-style concession model might work better. In some regions, existing relationships between operators and Network Rail are already delivering good results. In others, they're not. And that’s exactly why trying to design one big, top-down structure now is such a mistake.

We simply don’t know yet what the right answer is.

But we can find out - if we give the system space to breathe.

I realise that the bill to create GBR is already with Parliamentary Counsel. In the unlikely event one of the officials in charge of this piece of draftsmanship is reading this post, all I ask is that the Bill is written with eough flexibility to allow us to find the right model. Publicly owned? tick. Vertically integrated? tick. Centralised? create flex. Everything locked down at the start? no.

If we align incentives, set clear outcomes and support local leaders to work with the people they trust, we’ll start to see something interesting: natural railways will begin to emerge. Partnerships will form. Collaboration will deepen. And we’ll be able to tell - over time - where greater integration makes sense, and what kind.

It’s much easier to build a structure around what’s already working than to guess at what might work in the abstract.

That’s why we shouldn’t treat this as an administrative puzzle to be solved in Whitehall, or Derby, or wherever the organogram is being drafted. It’s not about finding the perfect arrangement on paper. It’s about building the conditions in which a better railway can take shape - and then shaping GBR around that.

I help organisations move faster by fixing things that slow them down.
That includes untangling decision-making, unblocking innovation, designing better ways of working and turning customer insight into action. Let’s talk.