More serious comment:

The national railways have the same problem as TfL. It's just taken longer to hit this point as they have a slower cash-burn rate/larger passenger spread.

They've almost run out of money, and when that happens operators will stop running trains. https://twitter.com/stefatrail/status/1277525349287391233

The key bit, if you're not up on railway structure or finances, is the bit quoted below.

And the issue is that contrary to the stuff Nationalistas spout, railway operators don't actually make a lot of money. The margins are pretty thin.

This is made worse by the fact that the DfT has traditionally awarded Franchises based on who promises to make the most cash, with the least subsidy, which has encouraged a somewhat optimistic approach to passenger forecasting on both sides.

Operators then expect to be skimming profits off the top of those numbers, which were - in most cases - ambitious at the best of times (this is why so many franchises get handed back). Right NOW, those numbers are pure fiction, and all future projects are similarly nonsense.

The DfT chucked some emergency funding quietly to the operators round about the same time it did it for TfL. It just made far less noise about doing so, because it would have damaged the shitty, duplicitous narrative they were trying to build about TfL/the Mayor being to blame.

And because they were doing it on the quiet, and in something of the traditional DfT rail last minute panic-mode, they largely had to bounce the Treasury into financing it.

Which did not go down well with the Spreadsheet Masters.

And all that did was buy the DfT time to come up with a longer term solution. Time that those at the top seem to have largely spent re-announcing investment packages, which is the rail equivalent of doing press ups in your office when you should be managing a pandemic.

And of course now all those operators are turning round and asking: "what next?!", and the DfT be all:

So, yeaaaaaah. Fun times at the DfT.

Good luck trying to bounce the Treasury into another relief package without actually showing some working out this time.

Announcing plans to upgrade 'victorian' infrastructure is all fun and games until no one is left to run trains on it.

This is all why the LNER Franchise got 'extended' btw (i.e. remains nationalised until 2025 at least). Ain't no one going to bid on it. Hard enough trying to forecast pax numbers at the best of times. Pure lottery at the moment. https://www.theparliamentaryreview.co.uk/news/nationalisation-of-east-coast-mainline-extended-until-2025

Guess it's time to start watching for 'Operator of Last Resort' name changes at Companies House and new domain registrations again. Always fun!