GB Rail Report
17th March 2020 | Evidence
The GB Rail Report – researched and written by our friends at Transport for Quality of Life and published as a Labour opposition whitepaper on 17 March 2020 – offers the most detailed plan we have seen so far for re-unifying our railways under public ownership.
The report defines a new governance structure for our national rail network, which is able to achieve both a central ‘guiding mind’ and long-term strategy (40 years), as well as devolved planning, delivery and control for all devolved regions and nations of Great Britain.
It manages to overcome many of the flaws of the old British Rail – its over-centralisation and lack of passenger representation at a strategic level (not to mention its chronic underfunding!) – and maps out how we can transition from our current privatised structure to a new wholly publicly-owned railway, which can be run in the interests of the British people in the most cost effective way. Well worth a read!
Why we need publicly-owned railways to address the climate emergency
3rd December 2019 | Evidence
Below is an extract from A Radical Transport Response to the Climate Emergency – the excellent new report by our friends at Transport for Quality of Life, which explains why taking our railways back into public ownership is an urgent climate issue.
Extract
It is worth explaining why we believe that changing the structure of the railway so that it is a single entity operating under public control is necessary in the context of a climate emergency, as the very live debate about the structure of the railways has not been framed in the context of action on climate change. There are four reasons why we believe that the current poor governance of the railway is a climate issue.
First, under the present system, Network Rail receives bids for train paths from train operators and has to try its best to fit them together. This is rather like trying to form a coherent picture from random pieces of different jigsaw puzzles. Network Rail has no power to design the most operationally-efficient timetable, or to create the most attractive offer to travellers. Were it to try to do this, it might receive legal challenges about access rights from the train operating companies or the Office of Rail and Road. Exacerbating this, the specification for each franchise is made in isolation and with little or no consultation with Network Rail, precluding a system-wide approach to timetabling. This means that it is next-to-impossible under the current structure of the railways to create a Swiss-style integrated clock-face timetable, which is essential as part of a universal, comprehensive public transport network.
Second, under the current structure of the railways, ticket purchase for anything but a straightforward journey with a single train operating company is excessively complex, and this, together with the high cost of rail travel, deters many people from travelling by train.
Third, fragmentation of the railway between multiple competing train operating companies means that when things go wrong, the passenger is often stuck in the middle: trains are not held to meet delayed services run by other operators (even if the delay is of a few minutes), and a ticket for one operator’s trains may not be accepted by another. Again, this means that people feel that they cannot trust public transport, and so they travel by car.
Finally, there is no objective for the railway to be run in a way that reduces carbon emissions – and nor can there be, because ‘the railway’, as a single entity, does not exist. These problems are structural, and it is only by changing the structure of the railway so that it is a single entity operating under public control, in the public interest, and with an objective to act in such a way as to reduce carbon emissions from transport to the greatest extent possible, that they can be resolved.
Transport for Quality of Life has carried out research in this area and is of the view that public ownership is necessary to achieve this. Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace have not carried out research in this area so do not have a position on public ownership, but do believe that the structure of the railway needs to change to be managed as a single entity and under public control.
Extract from A Radical Transport Response to the Climate Emergency (p.14) by Lynn Sloman and Lisa Hopkinson, Transport for Quality of Life
People’s Public Transport Policy
5th June 2019 | Evidence
This great new report on the Public Ownership of Public Transport by our friends at We Own It is the first chapter in a six part People’s Public Transport Policy being developed by the International Transport Workers’ Federation.
A Public Future for Scotland’s Railways
28th November 2017 | Evidence
As part of the campaign for the Public Ownership of Scotland’s Railway, this report by our friends at Common Weal & TSSA highlights the failures of ScotRail’s private train operator Abellio and the opportunities for passengers for taking it back into public ownership.
A Better Railway for Britain: A Report by Bring Back British Rail
1st October 2016 | Evidence
Bring Back British Rail’s first report A Better Railway for Britain: Re-unifying our railways under public ownership was launched in the Houses of Parliament in London on 13 October 2016.
Print copies are available to order in advance for just £5 (including free delivery in the UK), with all proceeds supporting campaign materials and activities.
The Four Big Myths of Rail Privatisation
1st June 2015 | Evidence / News
Read this report from our friends at Action for Rail! It’s all the evidence you need that rail privatisation has failed to deliver what they promised it would in the ’90s:
• reduction in government subsidies (we now subsidise rail by nearly three times more than we did as British Rail)
• cheaper tickets (rail fares have risen by 24% in real terms since privatisation)
• innovation and investment (90% of the investment in the railways has come from public money)
Rail Privatisation: A Timeline of Failures
1st April 2015 | Evidence / News
A special edited and updated version of Rail Privatisation: A Timeline of Failures (below) – based on the design of British Rail’s 1979 ‘Go Direct by Inter-City‘ poster – features in A Better Railway for Britain: Bring Back British Rail’s first report, launched in October 2016.
Today marks 21 years since the enactment of the Railways Act (1993), on 1 April 1994, which unleashed rail privatisation on the poor unfortunate public. Since then, Britain’s privatised railways have been beset by a series of failures, scandals and fatal crashes, each at great expense to taxpayers.
19 September 1997 – A collision between two trains at Southall kills seven people and injures 139. A passenger train running at high speed with defective Automatic Warning System equipment, a fundamentally important safety system, passed a signal at ‘danger’ and collided with a freight train crossing its path. Great Western Trains was fined £1.5 million for violations of health and safety law relating to this accident.
1 December 1998 – A report by the National Audit Office into the flotation of the national railway infrastructure company, Railtrack, found that taxpayers lost £1.5 billion because of the government’s decision to ignore the Public Accounts Committee’s recommendation to sell its shares in stages, opting instead to sell them all at once.
5 October 1999 – A near head-on collision between two passenger trains at Ladbroke Grove, outside London Paddington station, kills 31 people and injures more than 52. A signal with a bad safety record was passed at ‘danger’. A poor standard of driver training by Thames Trains was cited as a major contributory factor.
17 October 2000 – A train running at high speed derails at Hatfield when a rail affected by rolling contact fatigue fractures under its wheels. Four passengers were killed and 70 were injured. The crash exposed the major stewardship shortcomings of the privatised Railtrack plc and the failings of the regulatory oversight of the company (principally, failure to ensure that it had a good knowledge of the condition of its assets) which ultimately triggered its partial renationalisation. Following the crash, Railtrack imposed more than 1,200 emergency speed restrictions across its network, since it did not have the knowledge to predict where rolling contact fatigue might hit next.
24 October 2000 – Connex loses its South Central franchise after a decision by the Strategic Rail Authority to re-let the franchise following criticism of Connex’s poor customer service and poor financial management.
7 October 2001 – In the face of severe financial difficulties, Railtrack plc is placed into railway administration by the Labour government’s Transport Secretary, Stephen Byers. This leads to an explosion of costs and a severe drop in performance. Railtrack was subsequently replaced by Network Rail.
10 May 2002 – A train derails at Potters Bar, killing seven people and injuring 76. A poorly maintained set of points was to blame, the maintenance of which was the responsibility of the private sector railway maintenance contractor Jarvis (who had tried to blame the accident on ‘sabotage’). Eight years later, Jarvis and Network Rail (having taken on Railtrack’s liabilities) were both charged under the Health and Safety at Work Act. Network Rail subsequently took track maintenance back in-house.
27 June 2003 – The Connex South Eastern franchise is terminated by the Strategic Rail Authority, citing the company’s poor performance and financial management.
15 December 2006 – GNER is stripped of its East Coast franchise by the Department for Transport, having fallen into financial difficulties and unable to meet the terms of its franchise.
13 November 2009 – National Express gives up the East Coast franchise (which it had taken over from GNER) owing to financial difficulties, having accumulated more than £1 billion of debt. The failure of this franchise deprived the Department for Transport of between £330 million and £380 million of revenue.
15 August 2012 – The Department for Transport announces FirstGroup plc as the winner of the InterCity West Coast franchise, prompting the incumbent franchise holder, Virgin, to seek a judicial review of the franchise decision.
3 October 2012 – The government announces the cancellation of the InterCity West Coast franchise competition after finding significant technical flaws in the bidding process, rescinding its decision to award the franchise to FirstGroup. The Public Accounts Committee found that civil servants had made “fundamental errors” in the way that the risks for each bid had been calculated, leading to the default surety required of bidders being too low. The government reimbursed the four bidders for all costs incurred; this amounted to £39.7 million, with a further £4.9 million paid to FirstGroup as reimbursement of their mobilisation costs. In the ensuing shambles, numerous incumbent franchise holders were directly awarded extensions to their franchises instead of opening them up to tender. So much for competition!
17 December 2014 – A report from the Public Accounts Committee is severely critical of the Department for Transport’s inept handling of the procurement of new trains for the Intercity Express Programme and Thameslink. The DfT had chosen to break away from previous procurement arrangements and carry out the procurement by itself, despite having no previous experience in this area.
3 April 2015 – The private train operator West Coast Railways has its operator’s licence suspended by Network Rail amid concerns over the company’s ability to perform its safety obligations. This action followed an incident on 7 March 2015, when a steam-hauled train operated by West Coast Railways passed a signal at ‘danger’ after the driver had switched off vital train protection systems, narrowly avoiding a collision with a passenger train running at 100 mph.
Is it anyone wonder we’re all shouting Bring Back British Rail?
Spread the word! Link to this post using www.bringbackbritishrail.org/timeline and read more compelling evidence for Public Ownership here: www.bringbackbritishrail.org/evidence
Towards Public Ownership
31st March 2015 | Evidence / News
This TUC Report summarises research by Transport for Quality of Life, to show the high costs of running rail franchise “competitions” – estimated at £45million for every single one!
Given that there are 11 of these unnecessary “competitions” scheduled to take place before the next parliament ends in 2020, the Report shows how much we could save by then if we chose to run these franchises under a single publicly-owned railway company instead. It’s more than £600million!
The Arguments for Public Ownership are Overwhelming
1st January 2015 | Evidence / News
There are so many reasons why privatised rail is failing us and the environment. Check out this brilliant leaflet, supported by Bring Back British Rail, which will be handed out at the nationwide Protests for Public Ownership on Monday 5 January 2015.
All on Board
30th May 2014 | Evidence / News
Our friends at Compass have today launched their All on Board report detailing a vision for a publicly owned railway that is efficient, affordable and good for the planet.
Echoing what Bring Back British Rail has being saying for the last five years, the All on Board report demands a publicly owned railway “that constantly improves, innovates and responds to passenger needs, because it is accountable to all of us.”
Bring Back British Rail
2 days ago
Private train companies have received £billions in bailouts 💷💸💰 Public body Transport for London needs fair funding too! We're supporting National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) demands for fair funding for London's public transport network 🚍🚇🚆Coalition of Londoners calls for an end to ‘appalling attack’ on the Capital’s transport
A coalition of organisations have today joined together in a letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, calling on him to end his government’s attack on the capital’s transport system, 48 hours before negotiations between the government and TfL over a new funding deal are due to end.
The letter, signed by 13 organisations representing London’s transport workers, passenger groups, children, young people, students, pensioners, disabled people and anti-poverty campaigners, condemns the government for imposing what is in effect ‘a new round of austerity cuts that will throw more families into poverty and increase hardship for ordinary working people and small businesses across the capital.’
The signatories condemn the government’s ‘offer’ – reported to be £1 billion over 6 months, conditional on TfL imposing driverless trains, attacks on pensions in retirement, fare and tax rises and cuts to concessions for children, young people and pensioners - saying:
“This package of cuts is punitive, cruel and unnecessary. It’s an open attack on the livelihoods of 9 million Londoners who are being punished because, unlike other major cities our capital’s transport system has been forced to become overly dependent on fare revenue, leaving it exposed to the shocks of the pandemic”.
The letter says,
“We call on the Prime Minister to abandon this appalling attack on the livelihoods of London’s people and its transport workers and immediately agree a proper funding package that fully supports public transport in our capital during the current crisis and also reinstates government grant to a level that allows for the retention and expansion of safe, sustainable and affordable public transport for the future.”
The signatories to the letter are: ASLEF, RMT, TSSA, Unite the Union, National Union of Students, London, East and South East TUC, London Region National Pensioners Convention, Child Poverty Action Group, Age UK London, Disabled People Against the Cuts, We Own It, the Association of British Commuters and Bring Back British Rail.
The full letter, send to the Prime Minister today, can be read below:
29th October, 2020
Dear Prime Minister,
Listen to London: Stop the austerity attack and properly fund London Transport
As we move into a hard winter and a second wave of Covid-19 infections, Londoners who have done everything asked of them during this crisis, including transport keyworkers who have put their lives on the line to keep the capital moving, are facing a new round of austerity cuts that will throw more families into poverty and increase hardship for ordinary working people and small businesses across the capital.
The cuts being proposed will:
Increase child and pensioner poverty in London by cutting access to free travel concessions; Increase hardship for London’s working families and small businesses through fare rises and council tax supplements; Unfairly target the 55,000 keyworkers who have worked heroically throughout the crisis by attacking their jobs, wages, conditions of employment and their pension provision for old age; Damage passenger safety and confidence in public transport through the loss of jobs that are vital to clean, safe and orderly travel; Lead to a degradation of our transport system which will reduce accessibility for disabled people, prevent us from meeting our decarbonisation goals and improving air quality and public health in the capital drive London’s economy further into recession.
This package of cuts is punitive, cruel and unnecessary. It’s an open attack on the livelihoods of 9 million Londoners who are being punished because, unlike other major cities our capital’s transport system has been forced to become overly dependent on fare revenue, leaving it exposed to the shocks of the pandemic. This is a broken funding model, but instead of working to fix it, your government appears to be using it to inflict yet more austerity on people who have done what they have been asked to do and endured great hardship in the process.
We call on your government to abandon this appalling attack on the livelihoods of London’s people and its transport workers and immediately agree a proper funding package that fully supports public transport in our capital during the current crisis and also reinstates government grant to a level that allows for the retention and expansion of safe, sustainable and affordable public transport for the future.
Yours sincerely,
Mick Cash, General Secretary, RMT
Mick Whelan, General Secretary, ASLEF
Manuel Cortes, General Secretary, TSSA
Len McCluskey, General Secretary, Unite the Union
Larissa Kennedy, President, NUS
Sam Gurney, Regional Secretary, London, East and South East TUC
Cat Hobbs, Director, We Own It
Abigail Wood, Chief Executive, Age UK London
Alison Garnham, Chief Executive, Child Poverty Action Group
Barry Todman, London Region, National Pensioners Convention
Paula Peters, National Steering Group Member, Disabled People Against the Cuts
Emily Yates, Co-Founder, Association of British Commuters
Ellie Harrison, Founder, Bring Back British Rail ...
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But that would defeat the government's entire purpose of forcing the Mayor of London to renege on his election pledge of freezing fares, forcing him to introduce unpopular measures like removing free under-18s travels or extending the congestion charge and potentially forcing a confrontation with the unions, all in the run-up to the next Mayoral election.
Bring back Corbyn first...
Has privatised rail systems worked? Never since Stagecoach was awarded the franchise followed by it's 70 train driver redundancy packages.
Johnson is a criminal who uses public money for fun. The cost of retiring bendy buses for NBfL was so high. Then his bike scheme was a sham compared to Paris. Then his cable cars. Then his Garden Bridge debacle. Remember as mayor he also pumped up bus fares to £1.50 from £1 straight away. But people are so blindsided.
London moaning again....spend a bit more north of the Watford gap.
Then again train drivers on £80000 a year hasn’t helped
Why? We chose not to live there.
Look after your members first
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Bring Back British Rail
1 week 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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