Skip to main content

Bring Back British Rail

  • About
  • News
  • Support
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Vimeo
  • Instagram

Your Views

Brilliant. Fight.

Mike Jakeways, Oundle   + Share

Like Tweet Google+

« Older
Newer »

Your Views

  • we need a railway system that serves the people.

    Josephine Smoldon, Bridgwater
  • Britain’s railways are for the people not for profit.

    Greg Taylor, York
  • East Coast mainline provides an excellent service as a publicly owned company. Don’t flog off this franchise to some commercial outfit.

    Christopher Lance, Leeds
  • I hate corporate greed.

    Simon Eason-Brookes, Stockport
  • Railways should be a public service, not a private profit-generating business. They should work for us, not shareholders.

    Alexandra Gillett, Bristol

Latest from Facebook

— bringbackbritishrail

Comments Box SVG iconsUsed for the like, share, comment, and reaction icons

Bring Back British Rail

1 week ago

Bring Back British Rail

Support the original passenger-led campaign for the public ownership of our railways founded in 2009 πŸš† Our #GE2019 Merch Special Offer gets you a Rail Card Wallet, Enamel Badge and Embroidered Patch for just Β£10 including delivery in the UK. Order at πŸ‘‰ bringbackbritishrail.org/merch ...

Shop Now

Support the original passenger-led campaign for the public ownership of our railways founded in 2009 πŸš† Our #GE2019 Merch Special Offer gets you a Rail Card Wallet, Enamel Badge and Embroidered Patch for just Β£10 including delivery in the UK. Order at πŸ‘‰ bringbackbritishrail.org/merch
View on Facebook
·Share

Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Linked InShare by Email

  • Likes: 277
  • Shares: 41
  • Comments: 9

Comment on Facebook

Order online at www.bringbackbritishrail.org/product/bundle/

Stickers - we need Stickers!

Nigel Cross

Paul Simpson

Why is the logo backwards? Am I missing something?

Bring it on labour

Why are the arrows facing the wrong way ????

With no unions to stop them running at any time

link not valid?

View more comments

Bring Back British Rail

2 months ago

Bring Back British Rail

'Northern rail could be renationalised, says transport secretary'. It can't come soon enough! Join our campaign for a publicly-owned railway run for people not profit: bringbackbritishrail.org ...

Link thumbnail

Northern rail could be renationalised, says transport secretary

www.theguardian.com

Grant Shapps says it is not OK for trains to fail to arrive or for Sunday services to be lost
View on Facebook
·Share

Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Linked InShare by Email

  • Likes: 345
  • Shares: 66
  • Comments: 32

Comment on Facebook

Doesn’t matter who has their name on the trains, if the manufacturers can’t deliver there are no new trains. Also won’t accelerate infrastructure problems causing delays such as two new platforms at Piccadilly, Extension of platforms at Leeds, completion of electrification in Manchester suburban and Stanage route or replacement of some pretty grotty I accessible stations.

Didn’t nationalisation lead to beeching axe etc. Would renationalisation avoid that fate again

Not renationalised, a management company like Southern takes over. There is a difference

It was already nationalised, just not British. All the railways now belong to foreign state operators.......

It gets nationalised, the problems get fixed, it starts to produce an income again, then it goes out to tender to the highest bidder. Repeat ad nauseam...

The 150s brought up from GWR are now as old as the stock BR built them to replace!

Arguably has the shittiest rolling stock in the country.

About time

If so, I wouldn't mind travelling on any of their trains if I were visiting the north of England. Maybe the Pacer trains could be scrapped once and for all!

Who are you expecting to believe this nonsense, re-nationalisation will never happen under a conservative government (where have you been for the last 35 years) there is an election coming, ministers will say yes to anything that might win them a vote.

The Tories renationalising a part of the rail network. I thought private enterprise was so much better at running things than the public sector. Well well.

Northern Rail operated by Arriva, aka Deutsche Bahn (the German State owned railway) can’t be screwing enough out of our sharing, caring Tory Government. Shame, my heart bleeds for them.

And hopefully ditch those 142’s

What has happened or where has the 1billion pounds Northern were given to improve services etc three years ago ?

Seems to of got worse since Serco lost it and that says something, as Serco are not the greatest firm on earth.

Well, if the Tories can renationalise one or two, Labour will have no trouble renationalising the lot.

What about the rail network that links the South west to London? Re nationalise THE WHOLE NETWORK and not just the north.

Interesting read it says that half their trains are always late how do the government think they're going to improve on that when they gave Manchester half the railway they promised but still sent twice the traffic.

Will be acid test for whichever government is in power. Make a success of nationalisation of this franchise and carry on. Fail and the call for further change will disappear very quickly. With cost of improvements the public will demand it will mean that money needed for HS 2 will be diverted and that project will open up in about 2040

No no a tory suggesting nationalising the railways!!! What next a tory buffoon as PM!

And then the rest

Hope it’s renationalised and all other rail companies follow itπŸ‡»πŸ‡³πŸ‡»πŸ‡³πŸ‡»πŸ‡³

Operator of last resort??? Should be operator of first resort!

Yes please. And for goodness sake get rid of the godawful units pictured. Seasick after 10 miles...

Renationalising it will solve what? Network Rail can't deliver projects on time ,CAF can't deliver rolling stock on time, the DfT vice like grip on everything will still be there, still at the mercy of th he idiotic local.transport executives like tfgm who couldn't run a bath.

View more comments

Bring Back British Rail shared a photo.

2 months ago

Bring Back British Rail

Check out this display from the Museum of Neoliberalism, showing all our country's rail franchises now run by different foreign governments. Time to Bring Back British Rail! Join our campaign at: bringbackbritishrail.orgPrivatised UK train operators owned - in full or in part- by foreign governments. A display from the Museum of Neoliberalism, which we're crowdfunding on Indiegogo in order to open it in London next month. 11 days left and we're at 34% of our goal 😬. Still a way to go! There's a bunch of rewards for backers so please check it out: www.indiegogo.com/projects/museum-of-neoliberalism#/

Neoliberal theory presumes that the state should not intervene in or direct the free operation of markets. Yet in reality when new β€˜free’ markets are created, they find themselves at key points subsidised, maintained, propped up or bailed out by national states. The display above shows which foreign states own significant amounts of British rail services since they were privatised.

In effect, since privatisation, our expensive but underinvested rail networks subsidise more efficient and cheaper public train services around Europe.

www.museumofneoliberalism.com

#museumofneoliberalism #neoliberalism #classicalliberalism #hayek #thatcherism #reaganomics #privatisation #nationalisation #privatization #privatisedtrains #privatisedrail #networkrail #britishrail #nationalised #bringbackbritishrail #virgintrains #arriva #crosscountrytrains #UKrail
...

Check out this display from the Museum of Neoliberalism, showing all our countrys rail franchises now run by different foreign governments. Time to Bring Back British Rail! Join our campaign at: bringbackbritishrail.org
View on Facebook
·Share

Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Linked InShare by Email

  • Likes: 403
  • Shares: 421
  • Comments: 73

Comment on Facebook

Forgot to say, a lot of this was done before the last Labour government came into power and they just sat on their arses.

Whilst Keolis is majority owned by SNCF (French State) the other partner in Transport for Wales is Amey which is owned by Ferrovial S A who are a Spanish infrastructure and transport company. Still a sell out mind...

An absolute national disgrace thanks to the greed and irresponsibility of the Tories. WE should own it😑

Absolutely ridiculous that the taxpayer subsidises rail travel for other countries state-owned railways to make a profit. Complete madness! If there is room for profit, then it should be used to lower ticket prices and improve quality of service

This is totally unacceptable that we cannot have a state ran railway but other EEC countries do and take massive UK tax handouts to run their own state railways. This is another EU tax on the UK.

Oh dear oh dear no train operator/franchisee owns the their part of the rail, they have a licence to run the trains for the area... trains are leased by ROSCOs/finance companies and the DfT has the ultimate say what can be done or not.

Our railways, whoever runs them, are still better than those in the US. My American friends told me that but I didn't believe them till I tried them for myself. As for 'dinner in the diner, nothing could be finer than to have your ham and eggs, etc' oh no...terrible food on AMTRAK...we had an inedible chicken burger on our way to Chicago, and we joke about British rail sandwiches! Our local station provides free bottled water during the summer months and we have book exchange shelves.

We have literally sold ourselves off. This is just one aspect and it has happened in many other industries.

Very odd - I thought the Tories were patriots and didn’t like Europe? Oh yes of course, they’re hypocrites...silly me! They’d rather another country ran our railways instead of this country running them as public services. The organisations mentioned are all publicly-owned in their countries of origin. How does that work? They must consider us a laughing stock. πŸ€

Tory privatisation in the 1980s was accompanied by the statement that to compete in the world we had to follow EU rules by privatising assets, as apparently the EU wouldn’t let State owned organisations compete abroad. Hence selling our assets off. Which proved a) they lied about the EU, and b) we got well screwed by the Tories. Again, and again, and again......

At least they are state-owned, unlike e.g. VTWC.

Yet people think Brexit will "bring back control". The EU was never the problem, privitisation is!

Well, that's one way of sort-of staying nationalized and in the EU...

Let's make Britain British again, and take Britain's transport into public ownership and all the rest that have been privatised!!

This is so so wrong if when we get out EÚ the government need to take back our railways , as we paying for other countries get cheap train travel ..

No need to list LNR and WMT as two different franchises, it’s one franchise with two different “brands”. WMT being the franchise with LNR & WMR as the brands. Oh and Stansted Express doesn’t need to be listed either as it’s part of the GA franchise.

My dad worked for BR back in the day. Im so glad he is not here to see this, it would have killed him. Just mortifying. Time to renationalise once and for all.

Pan-European public rail now!

Who owns Great Western? They're not on the list

Are we the only country with privatised rail?

Nationalisation is fine with everyone else!

WE want our country back. lest own our own railways again

Did no one want Southeastern?

Put it back to BR, Build loco again, create jobs, get rid of all the money grubbing franchisees.

I blame the EU they made our government sell off the railways. L o l

View more comments

Bring Back British Rail

3 months ago

Bring Back British Rail

Keith Williams' Rail Review is due to be published this autumn. Will it recommend we Bring Back British Rail? ...

Link thumbnail

UK rail industry reaches key political junction

www.ibtimes.com

Overcrowded trains, especially when strikes add to disruption, are a common complaint by those who must use British railroads
View on Facebook
·Share

Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Linked InShare by Email

  • Likes: 80
  • Shares: 15
  • Comments: 24

Comment on Facebook

We already know it's not going to recommend renationalisation. It's just another Beeching report.

NO it won't BUT we wish it would!!!!

The way we are going it will probably recommend bringing back rationing.

I wonder what the average age of UK trains are

One finding will be the urgent need to replace ageing rolling stock with new kit we just don't have

Not a chance. They wouldn’t have commissioned it if there was even a chance of it.

And...Electric/Gas/Post Office/Pilot training for the RAF/Water/buses...in fact everything that has gone to private companies. However...we need proper and knowledgeable managers to run them...NOT POLITICIANS!

i hope so.

Should do privatisation has failed well done Mr major even Maggie wouldn't touch it

Don't think it will bring British Rail back. Look more likely more money and more maintenance for many years. As long as the Tories stay in power, privatsation likely to continue.

No unfortunately ☹️

Sadly not.

Well we live in hope, I despair at the state of our railways since privatisation..........

Keith William's was a appointed stooge, with the whole point of the review being done for the prime purpose of stopping calls for re-nationalisation and thus 'Bring back British Rail' calls. It could not have been anything else whilst it was commissioned under the Tory's and during Greyling's watch. It will not be worth the paper that it is written on, leave alone the cost of producing a piece of rubbish!

Just because an industry is nationalised does not mean that it has to be run by politicians.

I WISH .....

Fares rising by as much as 2.8% while our railways suffer further in the hands of politics since John Major's White Paper was imposed.

It will if it's not 'stymied' by political interference!

Even if it did why on earth do you think they would listen. Post an example of where the right wing Conservative party have listened!

No. It will say what the Tory government told him to say.

Of course not. Williams is another ten-a-penny private business idiot consultant whose primary interest is financial... "how can I squeeze every drop of blood from this stone?".

No

No.

No

View more comments

Bring Back British Rail

3 months ago

Bring Back British Rail

Two thirds of people in Scotland want ScotRail nationalised says a new YouGov poll. The Scottish Government were awarded powers for public ownership in the Scotland Act 2016. Why are they not using them? ...

Link thumbnail

Two thirds want state to take over ‘shambolic’ ScotRail

www.thetimes.co.uk

A significant majority of people in Scotland want to nationalise ScotRail, with persistent complaints of delays, cancellations and overcrowding, a poll for The Times has suggested. The YouGov...
View on Facebook
·Share

Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Linked InShare by Email

  • Likes: 191
  • Shares: 25
  • Comments: 20

Comment on Facebook

You need to think on a very high Political level here. Scotland wants independence and to remain in the EU. If Abellio are shafted by the Scottish Government, it is not only an attack on Dutch State Railway but also on the Dutch Government. If the Dutch Government get upset, they are in a powerful position to veto any attempt by Scotland to remain in the EU. The Scottish Government need to act carefully and with caution.

Here is a bridge in Brum, an absolute disgrace - I remember in the days of BR these were superbly maintained. Ok it supposed to be back in 'our hands' being Network rail, but clearly not as good a set up as the BR days.

Isn't it already owned by the Dutch government??

Shambolic has been used quite a bit in various subjects these days. But using it in the same sentence as "ScotRail" is no surprise.

We should re nationalise all utilities!

Re nationalise without compensation!

Just think of the cost of the Forth Bridge maintenance alone !! , or do they want to do it half measures only and still have Network Rail look after the infrastructure?

Give the SNP a break they are very busy at the moment taking advantage of the brexit situation for independence to worry about such mundane things as Scotrail.

Is that independent Scotland ,or do they want England to pay for it ?

If it is...That will upset the Scottish witch Sturgeon and independence drive! 🀣

It has to pass The SNP policy test. Will it promote independence? Will it have a knock on effect to any other policy that promotes independence? Unless the answers are Yes then No then it won’t happen

That could be the problem

Independence Rail ! Run by Nicola Crankie and the rest of her cabinet....

Aye cause it worked out perfectly fine when it was public owned before

Only 2/3rds?

Why? Twice as many trains running now.

Sam Hayward

Craig Hildersley

The SNP are fake Socialists Like Blair their promise to renationalise public services was a lie If it wasn't, like the poster said, why haven't they done it?

Same in Wales. But ''Welsh'' Labour are Thatcherites.

View more comments

Load more

Latest from Twitter

— @bringbackBR

Join the conversation using:
#bringbackbritishrail #bbbr #bringbackBR #BringBackOurRailways #railfail #farefail #publicrail #railripoff #RailRevolution #failrail

Latest from Flickr

— bringbackbritishrail

    Petition

    We are the collective voice of disgruntled rail passengers and disheartened train employees, demanding a re-unified national rail network run for people not profit.

    Sign the petition now and join 53708 other supporters.

    Bring Back British Rail

    Read or edit the petition

    **your signature**

     
    53,708 signatures

    Share this with your friends:

       

    Our Supporters

    • East Coast shows us that publicly owned rail works better for passengers and taxpayers. We need a railway fit for the future – it’s got to be in public hands.

      Cat Hobbs, We Own It
    • Transport is an essential public service and ought to be publicly owned and publicly controlled. We need an enormous expansion in the investment in our railways and that is the best way of achieving it.

      Tony Benn, politician
    • If the private companies that took over the national railways are cutting back and eroding services at a time when the climate crisis demands expanded low-carbon transportation alternatives to keep more of us out of planes, then these services too must be reclaimed.

      Naomi Klein, writer
    • Let’s make the case for democratic social ownership, fit for the 21st century, ensuring our railways are run in the interests of passengers, not profiteers.

      Owen Jones, writer
    • Taking our railways back from private profiteers will mean better services, fairer rail fares and more than Β£1 billion a year in savings for the public purse.

      Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP
    • The UK public wants a publicly owned railway, and so do we. Lush calls for an end to the failed experiment of privatising essential services.

      Tamsin Omond, Lush Campaigns
    • Only a publicly owned railway can deliver affordable fares, good services, high customer satisfaction, properly staffed stations and a profitable return to the public purse.

      Charles Secrett, The ACT! Alliance
    • Research into privatisation… boils down to one key finding: the only way Branson and the vast majority of train barons make their profits is through handouts from the taxpayer.

      Aditya Chakrabortty, The Guardian
    • Privatisation of the railways has failed. Its time to make a virtue of public ownership, and the public service provided by state employees.

      Charles Secrett, The ACT! Alliance
    • Now is the moment to re-nationalise the railways and it has never been cheaper or more possible.

      Andrew Gilligan, journalist
    • 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.

      Andrew Martin, writer
    • In 1948 Labour nationalised rail to rebuild Britain after a world war. Today bankers and speculators use privatised trains for tax scams. Time to bring back British Rail.

      Alex Gordon, former RMT President
    • Privatisation is only progress, if you mean progressing towards an apocalypse of injustice. Bring back British Rail!

      Josie Long, comedian
    • To be able to reduce C02 emissions, by persuading people to leave cars at home, we need a fast, efficient subsidised railway system that’s run for people not profit!

      Ellie Harrison, campaign founder
    • Something as important and necessary (and enjoyable) as train travel should be in the hands of the people, be affordable and safe, not making money for shareholders.

      Nina Power, writer
    • At its heart privatisation in Britain was never about selling public networks but about selling the rights to tax those who are obliged to use them.

      James Meek, writer
    • Privatisation has delivered… a system in which train operators and energy firms compete not on service – but on how many tariffs they can bamboozle customers with.

      Aditya Chakrabortty, The Guardian
    • There is no good excuse left for rail privatisation beyond enriching wealthy elites. Public ownership delivers for social and environmental needs over private profit.

      Professor Andrew Cumbers, University of Glasgow
    • The privatisation of the railways was a scandal that created an unworkable and expensive structure which should be replaced with a national unified network.

      Christian Wolmar, transport commentator
    • A good public transport system should be the foundation of a fair, just, happy, low-carbon world.

      Ellie Harrison, campaign founder

    Products

    • Merchandise Collection £10.00
    • Enamel Badge £5.00
    • Embroidered Patch £4.00

    Bring Back British Rail is coordinated from Glasgow by Ellie Harrison, with the help of a small network of volunteers around the UK.
    The campaign operates as a ‘non-charitable campaigning body’ and so is free to carry out political activity and act as a pressure group.
    It aims to be a completely autonomous and transparent passenger-led organisation, which has no direct affiliation with any political parties.
    Accounts | Privacy Policy | Press & Media Enquiries: info@bringbackbritishrail.org

    Bring Back British Rail logo / identity designed by Fraser Muggeridge. Website by Neil Scott.