Mike Jakeways, Oundle + ShareBrilliant. Fight.
Your Views
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Paul George, BrightonLet’s get our railways as good as the French.
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Elspeth Gray, EdinburghOther countries run superb, state-run rail services. Why can’t we?
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Sue Kelly, EdinburghI have mourned the death of the public service that was British Rail since it happened. It made no sense to break up the railways.
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Angus G Bennison, SnodlandThe service is Dickensian and all about profit, not about the quality of service. We the general public are held to ransom by giving Southern Rail another renewed franchise
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Ian Love, SouthseaRe-nationalise the whole of the railways (and the buses for that matter). Give the power to the people instead of profits for the rich.
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Bring Back British Rail
7 days ago
No more bailouts to failing private transport companies 💰💸 The Welsh Government are set to re-nationalise their railways 🚉 The Scottish Government must stop bailing out Dutch company Abellio and #MakeScotrailPublic now. Take action 👉 you.38degrees.org.uk/p/publicrailwayscotland ...
Transport for Wales rail services to be nationalised
www.bbc.co.uk
Ministers step in to "stabilise the network and keep it running" as income plummets due to Covid.Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Linked InShare by Email
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Next in line like Northern Ireland Railways or East Coast Main line may we hope....?
They brought back LNER back into national ownership it ran at profit for years. It was so successful the tories fell over themselves to privatise it again.....and it failed again.
This is great news 👏
DfT is already making it clear that as it gets control it's coming after staff wages and Ts & Cs... Then it wants to increase (yes INCREASE) fares to lower the cost of rail to taxpayers. It has said that the current measures already end the ability of train companies to run special offers with reduced fares etc. This is what is coming - congratulations BBBR - it's what you've been calling for.
One day this scabrous bunch shits will realise that railways cannot be run at a profit and without considerable investment. What it does is vastly improve air quality, save a fortune on roads and greatly reduce the carbon footprint. The cost to the NHS, Police and Emergency services will be hugely reduced. Funny how to them money spent on roads is called investment and on a nationalised rail system it's called subsidy.
Great news for Welsh passengers and another sign of a progressive government in Wales.
I was going to say I'd be happy with the RENFE or SNCF model here but I see they've just flogged off SNCF and in Spain Sanchez of all people is going ahead with the PP scheme to do the same in spite of warnings citing Major. It seems they don't learn .
My office is next to the main GWR line to London, almost every train that comes past is virtually empty, it is unfair to expect the tax payer many of whom never use a train to fund this. There will be huge cuts and huge fare rises.
I experienced it and your memory is playing you tricks if you think that what we have now is better, it wasn't perfect but at least the carriages were clean and the toilets functioned!
Everything should be re nationalised with no payouts to shareholders !
Paying shareholders profits for passengers but owning the tracks and infrastructure is one of the biggest con jobs in modern history. Foriegn national rail operations owning the franchises and using the income to subsidise their own passengers is the second. If the British Media wasn't owned by Conservative Party donors, perhaps this would be newsworthy?
Yeah, because BR under public ownership was so great, what could go wrong? #RoseTintedSpectacles
Good for our Welsh Assembly
This reminds me of a comment made by an old British Rail employee who I asked if they still did specials to Blackpool for the lights. His reply was; no, they were too popular, so they stopped them!
Wales leading the way. 👍
Bring back british rail and run the railways for the people not share holders
I remember British Rail with the dirty carriages and disgusting toilets!
That what we want 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧💙💙
Make sure cant be sold off again
Finally! Some good news!
We are the only European country that treats its transport system as a profit making machine for private companies !
I use it. Lots or promises by Aviva and TFW, unfulfilled especially on new rolling stock. Old rolling stock and old system.
Sounds good
Ste Moran Richard Bagguley
'Ticket sales have plummeted.' but strangely 'Up to 8% of trains [are] overcrowded'.-
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Bring Back British Rail
1 month ago
"Ministers today ended rail franchising after 24 years as the first step in bringing Britain’s fragmented network back together" says the Department for Transport 🚉 A big step for Bring Back British Rail, but we won't rest until we've ended rail privatisation altogether ✊ ...
Rail franchising reaches the terminus as a new railway takes shape
www.gov.uk
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I wonder if new train investments under privatisation have now proved to be a costly disaster with fall in passenger numbers in the wake of COVID 19 . If this is it, it might be a similar case with the Modernisation Plan, Beechingisation and National Traction Plan. A recent case could mean large number of under-utilised IEPs being stored after only around three years service.
i wonder just how much this totally unsuccessful privatisation has cost taxpayers over the years........
the infrastructure company is already dividing itself under the guise of putting passengers first splitting itself into what resembles the original BR regions - of course the chairman of said infrastructure company comes from a non railway background and will be doing the bidding of his masters at westminster - nobody from a truly railway background doesnt put passengers first no matter what company they work for.
What I am hoping for, at the very least, is something akin to ITA powers. That are right across, the nation. Here in Essex, all the towns. That are at end of branch lines, have more or less doubled in size. Therefore, the services need to be doubled in frequency.
Bailing out their chums with public money. Again.
Let’s have a truly joined up system with all parts of the system under one organisation unless it’s Serco
Let's have that lovely blue back. Seriously though, the privatised rail network and that dreadful Railtrack were an absolute failure.
The redundancies have already started . Anybody who thinks this is good news or some kind of victory is sadly deluded . The decsion take today is not a reaction to a failed venture it's purely down to the pandemic. As predicated they tried to bury It into todays news but unfortunately it will be all to obvious in a few weeks when the hatchet falls on many many jobs around the country there will little the unions can do to stop it as there will be a severe lack of public support and of course ot as much disruption can be caused with the new way of working and travel not recommended. So you got what you wanted but the outcome wont be what we needed . RIP the railway of 2020.
A single unified system even if there was private sector delivery is a compromise I would settle for if we have to keep privatisation.
It's been an unnecessarily complex mess from the start.
Why should public money fund their failure any more than it has!
And now get rid off South Western Failure and Abellio.
I cautiously welcome this news, let's see what they come up with. Bring Back BR!
Hopefully no compensation for shareholders
I'll be buying 'Private Eye' to find out the whole story. I don't trust the media to give us what is really happening, and in fact I don't really think we get the whole story for the railway press.
Keep fighting Ellie, because we're not really there yet.
Unfortunately, I don’t quite believe it. I’m pretty sure they will carry on giving huge sums of taxpayers money to private firms. Which I wouldn’t mind, except they never get a value for money, and they just license the firms to rip off me, the passenger . However I’m now getting my revenge as I work from home. And I have no intention of paying those people any of my hard earned money directly ever again.
Money spaffed on the line.
Good! XX
Bringing back a monolith like BR is not realistic. But placing infrastructure; operations and rolling stock under one roof is vital. Incentives to renew and replace rolling stock in a 15 year rolling time frame, starting with the not-fit-for-purpose stock -Pacers etc. - keep open access services, to provide some competition and give the Train Companies incentives to reopen closed branches where possible.
Can't help but feel this is an exercise in bullshit. The tories and the Blairites are both obsessed with privatisations and will just change the name not the policy.
Without taking action against the spiv hedge fund and bank owned ROSCOS it will have little meaning.
Soon as they’ve used public money to patch it up they’ll be flogging it off to their city mates - who will then have free rein to run it into the ground while lining their pockets for another 10-20 yrs before it needs “rescuing” by taxpayers again. We ARE the magic money tree for the 1%
The word is concession contracts in which HMG take all the risk or profit and the operator runs the service. It jerks the cost of capital (rolling stock) off the government’s books as that remains the property of the train leasing companies. This is as near a nationalisation as you’re going to get as Network Rail remains state owned.
Not a chance I'm afraid just imagine the big boys missing out of their big fat bonuses and the dividends
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Bring Back British Rail
2 months ago
"Ministers are ready to seize control of the railways after more than a quarter of a century of private ownership" reports today's The Telegraph. Look out for Grant Shapps' announcement this week. It's time to stop the bailouts and #TakeBackOurTrains 🚉 weownit.org.uk/take-back-our-trains ...
Franchises to be scrapped as lockdown rail costs rise
www.telegraph.co.uk
Grant Shapps is expected to make an announcement in days on a long-term solution to a troubled industryShare on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Linked InShare by Email
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somehow I am thinking this is too good tobe true. Usually the Tories only adopt the wording of Labour policies not the intent! e.g. community care sounds good so close all the special schools, etc. etc. but then don't fund the actual care in the community! So watch this space!
I hope ministers don’t actually try to run the railways - with this bunch of incompetents that would lead to chaos.
If a Tory is doing it, you can be sure it will be to further one of their principles: they're making hay out of it one way or other at public expense.
jesus. When are people going to learn? The Tories NEVER govern in the national interest. A quick look at who funds the party should tell you everything. I'd stake the house that when the final details are published this move will prove to be nothing more than a revised way of loading their mates' pockets.
Seeing this government makes a big thing of patriotism, how about a suitably patriotic name for the new setup, such as...er.... British Railways?
They have control. It's just funded differently and allows them to start to make the cutbacks. Read it and weep.
Privatisation of BR has been a costly failure. I remember when Stagecoach was awarded the franchise for South West Trains and what a laugh, they choose to make surplus to requirements of 70 train drivers, it caused so many cancellations of services and other problems.
More likely franchisees are queuing up to hand back their franchises. And with no franchise agreements there are no performance targets to hit, so why even try and get the things functional? Commuting, in election terms, is somewhere near the bottom of the list and we can tell this because the discussion is always about whether it will be an "above inflation fare increase" or a "below inflation fare increase". Quality and value really don't feature.
The ultimate Tory U-Turn! 41 years of social lies. economic lies, lies about socialism and lies about the lies, they really are a shower of shit, but I fear the damage elsewhere is already done!
who will they get to run it all? The "government" have sacked or redeployed to brexit roles all the civil servants that knew how to run a railway......
The story about the whole network in England being nationalized in all but name isn’t new - RAIL were talking about it in their 12-AUG-2020 edition. The DfT are getting fed up with carrying trains full of air, rather than people. Problem comes in that there will be loads of services and routes cut to make the whole thing pay, enough to making Beeching “look like an aperitif “. Be careful what you wish for in these crazy days.
Only so they can sell them off again to get an injection of cash once this is over.
just another selservative con job, bailed out by the taxpayer, and sold off later to their mates.
Notice BBBR just linked to the report . No usful comment as is the normal . I suspect they see this as some kind of victory but this couldnt be further from their vision of a BR of 1985
If so, does this not prove once and for all, that dogmatic privatisation and resultant fragmentation of what are "natural monopolies", will always ultimately fail.
Just wait till they start cutting duplicated services on routes where more than one operator compete against each other. I can see huge redundancies
That's the way to do it, when the money runs out, nationalise the railways. !947 revisited.
I wonder whether that will include Manchester Metrolink, the pilot scheme for railway privatisation
Where’s the money coming from? Watch it be fare increases leading to lower demand, service cuts, less staff and more unemployment. Far better to scrap HS2 and admit demand isn’t there as the way things are going we won’t be travelling in vast numbers for a long while yet. Tories all about ruining the UK whilst watching their bank balance grow!
should never hav been privatised , nor the us industry
Make British Rail Great Again?🤔
Fabulous news, let’s get back to running an integrated network that is ran for passengers not profit.
Pay wall. Imagine having to pay for the privilege of knowing how the Tories are going to wreck us....again..... Apparently, only people with money are to be educated. #GTTO of all ilks
It still won't be proper public ownership the services will still be operated by private companies but hey it is a step in the right direction
A quick Google of the phrase "rail franchises to be scrapped" shows headlines saying almost exactly the same thing about an announcement "in days" in Feb 2020, Dec 2019, October 2019, April 2019, May 2018...
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Bring Back British Rail
2 months ago
Shocking to see FirstGroup awarded this massive bailout to run Great Western Railway. Why should we subsidise their profits until at least 26 June 2021? 💰💸 Grant Shapps & Rishi Sunak must #TakeBackOurTrains to save money and improve services in the long-term 👉 bringbackbritishrail.org/takebackourtrains ...
GWR Emergency Measures Agreement extended
www.railwaygazette.com
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I think the DoT have more pressing matters to deal with than taking over GWR. Must be considering nationalising BA, Easyjet and BAA at least.
Tory owned, tory bastards!
My bum, she is sore. No more please, Tories, no more ...
I do not agree with Nationalisation as a whole BUT national infrastructure, obviously including the railways, should not have been privatised. The railways should be bought into public ownership especially given the amount of taxpayers money given to them.
Similar situation on the - unnecessarily - new South Western Railways, and absolutely no policing of masks!
More bailouts for the ailing privatised rail structures ? It now reminds me of the 1970s when the car industry's British Leyland and Chrysler Europe was being bailed out too.
It what i call the Tories looking after their own.
There useless, when other TOC's have been brought back in to government control, why should they be made a special case
expropriate. No compensation. Why buy what you already own......
Brown envelopes all round?
Corruption.
It's hardly privately run if it needs bailouts. Ridiculous concept.
The tories will do anything to prevent it being re-nationialised, after all they created this mess in the first place back in 1997.
Its not a bail out as such, the government will pay the bills and take the revenue, Worst will get a small fee for managing thectrain services on the governments behalf, its effectively nationalised as are all the other franchises. If the Joris and his chums hadnt have stepped in the trains would have stopped running months ago.
need a unified system that talks to each other
Left wing whining about the Tories again.just like the moaning unions. If only that prick Corbyn would have won eh. We would all be ok then. And Dianne Abbott in charge of national security. The railway would have been shut months ago if the government hadn't stepped in
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Bring Back British Rail
3 months ago
Private rail companies stand to make £500 million from coronavirus bailouts 💰💸 Today we joined our friends at RMT, We Own It & the Association of British Commuters in writing to every MP in the country to demand they act to bring railways back into public ownership now. Read our #TakeBackOurTrains letter 📝👉 bit.ly/3eNgshqResearch reveals that private rail companies stand to make £500 Million from Coronavirus bailouts while passengers and rail unions call for nationalisation.
bit.ly/32HvGSN
Britain’s private rail companies stand to make almost £500 million in profits over the next 12 months according to new research by rail union RMT, amid widespread speculation that the government is about to extend its Emergency Measures Agreements.
Analysis of ministerial answers to questions in Parliament indicate that the government’s Emergency Measures Agreements (EMAs) will see the government hand over around £231 million in operating profits to the train operating companies over a 12 month period. The train operating companies are currently lobbying the government to extend the agreements for a further 18 months. These same agreements also entail the government ‘picking up the tab’ in full for the lease charges that would be paid by the train operating companies to the rolling stock companies, the ‘ROSCOs’. Analysis of the ROSCOs’ accounts shows that in the last year, they made profits of £241 million. If the government renews the EMAs and continues to bail out the train operating companies, we could see around £500 million in desperately needed public funds leaking out of the railways into private profit.
Groups representing passengers and rail workers have written to MPs from across the political spectrum calling on them to demand proper scrutiny of any government decision on the EMAs and urging them to support nationalisation of the network to stop the scandalous profiteering at public expense. The letter, sent on behalf of rail unions and passenger groups, says that Britain needs a safe, affordable and accessible railway to support public transport and decarbonisation and that every penny of public money should be used to invest in a recovery plan that will get badly needed rail services back on track rather than leaking out into private profit.
RMT Senior Assistant General Secretary Mick Lynch said;
“We desperately need a properly funded rail network to play its crucial role in fighting climate change and to keep the lifeblood of our economy flowing. Now more than ever we need every penny of public money invested in building a safe, affordable, accessible railway, not leeched out of the system by a small group of big businesses with a consistent record of failure.”
Ellen Lees, campaigns officer at We Own It said:
“If the government continues to pursue bailouts of the rail industry, they'll once again be ignoring the reality that's staring them straight in the face. No matter how many times they try to prop up a failing system, the private rail companies will always come crawling back cap in hand for more cash.
“It's time we ended this farce. Instead of funnelling millions into the pockets of private companies, we should bring our railways into public hands – so they can work for people and the planet, not for private profit."
Emily Yates, Co-Founder of the Association of British Commuters said;
“Passenger trust is more important than ever, but it has been severely damaged by years of crisis on the railways. Public ownership is now the only way to restore this trust, and start building the integrated, efficient and accountable system we deserve.”
Ellie Harrison, Founder, Bring Back British Rail said;
“Privatised rail has never worked. 'Natural monopolies' like our railways need to be centrally co-ordinated and run for the public good. Now the coronavirus crisis has laid bare this simple truth. Public transport is an essential public service to get our key workers to their jobs. We must stop the bailouts to failing private rail companies, and seize this opportunity to 'take back our trains' for good.” ...
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Making a profit out of illness and death is just plain sick and uncaring greed. As usual, Profit before People, money matters, people don't. Tory mantra.
Parasites. 🤬
They are on their way to be renationalised. But keep the pressure on.
Is this Ellie Harrison the TV :Presenter?. Ask her how much better the Rail Service is from her local station in the Cotswolds to London since de-nationalisation.
RMT are too busy worrying about black lives matter and whining about tories to worry about the railway
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