On the eve of transport secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan’s speech at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, the Railway Industry Association (RIA) called for greater certainty on rail restructuring, enhancements, major projects and long-term funding plans.

The RIA said that this certainty would ensure that UK rail has the funding it needs and could help to boost confidence amongst private investors. In particular, it wants the government to confirm the timing for the restructuring of Great British Railways (GBR).

Originally announced in a government white paper in May 2021, itself the outcome of the 'Williams–Shapps Rail Review', the GBR is a new public sector body that will absorb Network Rail and take control of Britain’s railways and infrastructure whilst contracting private operators to run the trains.

In its 'Rail Network Enhancement Pipeline' (RNEP) from 2018, the government committed to publishing a pipeline of work on rail every...