Andrew Martin, writer
9th July 2013 | Our Supporters
Like most people in Britain, I think that a railway is a natural function of the state, and so ought to be run by the state – for the sake of coherence, transparency, continuity, accountability and national pride.
We're delighted to see news today of the first 3 private train operators to be re-nationalised under new legislation 👏
- May 2025 - bye bye South Western Railway
- July 2025 - see ya c2c Rail
- Autumn 2025 - cheerio Greater Anglia
Roll-on our re-unified publicly-owned #GreatBritishRailways 🚆
@top fans We Own It ... See MoreSee Less
First train services to return to public ownership revealed
www.gov.uk
Services across England will return to public control, transforming our railways into a more reliable, affordable and accessible system.24 CommentsComment on Facebook
Next up, the rolling stock.Even still, prices can't go down until we have more lines and enough capacity. So let's have HS2 all the way up to Scotland, and HS3, 4 and 5 ready to go.
And what happens to the train leasing companies? Rarely mentioned but take a big slice of the pie
Be careful for what you wish for. In order for the railways to be profitable and the profits to be reinvested in the railway to make it more reliable, more comfortable and more useable for the public big changes need to be made and those changes mean the money gets diverted from the pockets of the big people at the top……. Can’t see that happening to be honest, we will end up getting told it’s going to cost so many £££££billions and it will come out of the tax payers pocket
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Congratulations to Heidi Alexander for Swindon South on becoming Transport Secretary 👏 We look forward to seeing plans for #GreatBritishRailways develop over the next few years 🚆 Britain needs a re-unified national rail network run for people not profit 🧑🤝🧑🚉 @top fans ... See MoreSee Less
17 CommentsComment on Facebook
Don't hold your breath, Starmer's tory lite party will never deliver this.
I'll agree bri g back BR because when it went private nothing changed in the running of the railways just more profit left this country...
We need profit to reinvest back into a nationalised Industry, just not excessive... In favour of renationalising any industry essential to life and human well being...
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It's been a huge week for the Bring Back British Rail campaign 🥳 The 'Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill' passed the UK House of Lords on Weds 🚆 When the Bill becomes law later this year, public ownership will be the default for rail services rather than the 'last resort' 👏 @top fans We Own It ... See MoreSee Less
Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill - Parliamentary Bills - UK Parliament
bills.parliament.uk
Current version of Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill with latest news, sponsors, and progress through Houses8 CommentsComment on Facebook
Rebuilding public trust in the railways is going to take a long time. Undoing the utter mess of 30 years of privatisation is going to be a monumental task.
Bring Back British Rail We are sleep-walking into having to pay more for rail travel in Britain because the general public at large, many members of public-transport campaign organisations and many politicians alike have been seduced by the word 'simplification'.All that the Department of Transport, Rail Delivery Group, H.M. Government, a devolved administration or any Train Operating Company needs to do is bandy around the world 'simplification' and they can get away with all manner of detrimental implementations, because those who would normally point these things out, and protest against and lobby against them have been seduced by the word 'simplification'.One can expect the general public at large to not appreciate all of the implications of changes to fares-and-ticketing structures because no one person can know everything about everything, but one would hope that public-transport campaign organisations would interrogate the finer details of the exact specifics of the minutiae of proposals, to find the the-Devil-is-in-the-detail implications.Ordinarily, when a Train Operating Company or the authorities proposes something concerning rail travel, public-transport campaign organisations will forensically scour the finer details, and when detrimental the-Devil-is-in-the-detail aspects emerge, they will be like a dog with a bone, and persistently be on the case of the authorities or Train Operating Company until notice is taken, but, alas, this is not happening with the changes in 2023 and 2024.All of the changes this year and last year, very particularly so c2c and LNER, which purport to reduce fares have actually increased travelling costs. I very deliberately say 'travelling costs', not 'fares', because that is how people should view things.Loss of all iterations of Day fares. Loss of Super Off-Peak. Loss of the ability to avail oneself of to-boundary-zone discounts for the returning-leg part of a round-trip if using a ticket machine. Loss of railcard discounts because the minimum-fare threshold for the railcard's discount to apply is met or exceeded by a Return fare, whereas a Single is below the threshold. Then also the loss of the convenience of Return fares.Take the reforms to and simplification of fares and ticketing on LNER; these reforms and simplifications can lead to a triple-whammy of travelling-cost increases to a journey. A double-whammy is bad enough, but a triple-whammy is shameful, and should be fought against.Whereas I would have previously, if making a round-trip from Station A to Station B and back, purchased a Super Off-Peak Day Return from Boundary Zone [XYZ] to Station B, the simplification which purports to be there to make my travel cheaper means that (if using a ticket machine) I know have to purchase an Off-Peak Single from Boundary Zone [XYZ] to Station B, and I have to buy a an Off-Peak Single from Station B to Station A.The LNER policy which abolished Return fares, and halved the price of Single fares quietly included the abolition of all iterations of Day fares. Two halved-in-price Singles are more expensive than one Day Return. Fare decreases and travelling-cost decreases are not necessarily the same. Think in terms of travelling costs, not in terms of fares.First Whammy: The travelling cost of my round-trip has gone up because I have been forced to purchase two Singles, rather than a Day Return, which is what I would have previously bought.Second Whammy: The LNER Simpler Fares pilot had abolished Super-Off Peak; the travelling cost of my round-trip has gone up because I have been forced to pay for Off-Peak, rather than the cheaper-option Super Off-Peak, which is what I would have previously used.Third Whammy: Many ticket machines sell from-boundary-zone tickets, but, in the entire United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland there is not even one ticket machine which sells to-boundary-zone tickets. The workaround for this is that the returning-leg part of a from-boundary-zone Return/Day Return becomes a to-boundary-zone ticket by dint of being the outbound-leg part of the ticket in reverse. Because I have to purchase the returning-leg part of my round-trip as a completely separate standalone Single I am unable to avail myself of the travelcard/season ticket/concessionary-pass to-boundary-zone discount which I qualify for. I qualify for the discount but I have no means of applying it because ticket machines do not sell to-boundary-zone fares. I am forced to purchase a more expensive point-to-point ticket, rather than a cheaper-option to-boundary-zone ticket, which is what I would have previously used.In one round-trip, these reforms and simplifications which purport to be there to make things cheaper have caused three cost increases to my travelling. A double-whammy is bad enough, but a triple-whammy is shameful.It could potentially even be a quadruple-whammy of travelling-cost increases if each Single were below the minimum-fare threshold for my railcard discount, whereas a Return would not have been.Not only have I had all of these travelling-cost increases to my journey, but I have also had the inconvenience of having to make two completely separate transactions when previously I only needed to make one transaction.Travelling-cost increases cleverly disguised as travelling-cost decreases, all under the guise of simplification.Perhaps the fare structure is complicated, but It is within the myriad complexity that the nuances which facilitate cheaper options lurk. If you take a sledgehammer to the behemoth, you bring down the cheaper options which are housed within the behemoth.The fares-and-ticketing structure does not need to be reformed. The fares-and-ticketing structure does not need to be simplified. Fares just need to be reduced in price.With the £2.00 bus fare in England: no existing fares were abolished; no existing fare types were abolished; no existing ticket types were abolished; no new fare types were introduced; no new ticket types were introduced. Everything which already exists was retained, they just substantially reduced the price of what already exists.Do not abolish any existing fares, do not abolish any existing tickets, do not introduce any new fares; retain everything which already exists; as a blanket, across-the-board, universal action just reduce the price of all turn-up-and-go fares by 30.0%, and leave it at that.
Bring Back British Rail (The railways). Nationalisation is not a virtue in and of itself; it is only a good thing if it is done well.As the idiom goes: 'Be careful what you wish for, because it might come true'.Some people might fear that reform of the fares-and-ticketing structure on the railways would, inevitably, reform travelling costs upwards, and reform out the cheaper options.Some people might fear that simplification of the fares-and-ticketing structure on the railways would, inevitably, simplify travelling costs upwards, and simplify out the cheaper options. Just take a look at LNER.Be careful what you wish for, because it might come true. (Just take a look at LNER).Reform is not a virtue in and of itself. Reform is a neutral concept—neither a good thing nor a bad thing; what is pertinent and important is the nature of the reform. We don't need reform, we need good reform.I am not opposed to the principle of nationalisation of the railways, and I don't think that they should have ever been privatised in the first place, but there is the very real problem that very many people's support for nationalisation (of everything) is from a place of ideological fundamentalism tantamount to being a secular 'religion', so when nationalisation is achieved, the outpouring of 'religous' ecstasy by the 'faithful' could blind them to the actions of the 'clergy'.As the idiom goes: 'The Devil is in the detail'; there is the concern that in their state of ecstasy and elation of it all, some members of the general public, some trade-unionists, some members of public-transport campaign organisations and some Members of Parliament will neglect to subject plans and proposals to forensic scrutiny to find any potential the-Devil-is-in-the-detail negative implications.If you support nationalisation of the railways, campaign for it, and make it happen, but that isn't where your job ends. It is then necessary to ensure that it is implemented well, and that specific proposals, as opposed to general aims, are sound.It's fun to march down the street waving a banner and chanting; it is boring to read a 73-page official document draughted by a civil servant at the Department for Transport, but scrutiny of that document, to check the Devil in the detail, is potentially the difference between nationalisation done well, and nationalisation done badly.
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🚆 Both West Midlands Railway and Greater Anglia end the core terms of their rail contracts today... That means they can both now be renationalised with 12 weeks’ notice once the Public Ownership Bill becomes law 🥳 Bring it on! 👇 @top fans ... See MoreSee Less
Greater Anglia and West Midlands on course to be first nationalised under Labour
inews.co.uk
Rail bosses say 'rushing' to nationalisation 'is a political decision that offers few practical benefits for passengers'17 CommentsComment on Facebook
Good riddance to these hated private companies along with 'Rail Partners', 'Rail Delivery Group' and all the other associated crap that has plagued the railways of this country for the last 30 years.
At last our railways will soon no longer be subsidising foreign and European railways. That's apart from DB freight
British Rail wasn't perfect but they got things moving better and not many people know this. One privatisation zealot said to me that I was no closer to correcting him that the Big 4 was a success and British Railways was a failure but having read JK Lewis' book about The Western's Hydraulics, it simply tells me that I would have thought they were actually run by the same people. The truth about privatisation is that it was run with too much civil servant bureaucracy. The fact is that they thought they knew best by trying to run a railway that has caused mostly problems.
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When this happens, it's usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it, or it's been deleted.14 CommentsComment on Facebook
Is it just me, or do some of the contributors to Bring Back British Rail not actually want to bring back British Rail?
They know they'll only be in for one session
Get it done, then the Water Company's.
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