We all want British Rail
18th January 2019 | Media Coverage / News
Coverage in the Daily Mirror of our Care2 petition hand-in with more than 120,000 signatures, at the Department for Transport on 18 January 2019. We’re demanding that the public ownership of our railways is properly considered in the Williams Rail Review.
Add your name here: care2.com/renationaliserailways
Rail Revolution: Day of Action
11th December 2018 | Demonstration / Media Coverage / News
Sick of rising rail fares and chaotic commuting?
Tired of the endless tinkering with our broken privatised railway system?
It’s time for a #RailRevolution.
On Wednesday 2 January 2019, as our rail fares rise again by 3.1%, we’re joining forces with our friends at We Own It, the Association of British Commuters and NOR4NOR to organise a national day of action calling for radical reform.
Coinciding with the public consultation for the government’s new ‘root and branch’ review of rail: the Williams Rail Review, we’re calling on passengers all over the country to respond in favour of a re-unified national rail network run for people not profit.
On Wednesday 2 January 2019, protests will take place at stations across the country (see full list here), with a central one at London King’s Cross from 7:30-9:00am (photo call at 8:00am). See the Facebook event page for details, print a Bring Back British Rail placard and come join us!
Sign the Petition
Then on Friday 18 January 2019, to mark the deadline of the Williams Rail Review public consultation, we’ll be delivering our Care2 Petition to Re-nationalise our Railways signed by 118,039 people to the Department for Transport to demonstrate the sheer weight of public support for public ownership.
Make sure you add your name before then: bringbackbritishrail.org/care2
Media Coverage from 2 January 2019
• Furious passengers protest price hikes, Daily Mail
• Anger at ‘disgraceful’ rail fare rises as stations hit by protests, Sky News
• Chris Grayling blames unions for rail fare hike, BBC News
• Rail passengers stage ‘national day of action’ in protest at fare increases, Evening Standard
• Rail users to mount ‘national day of action’ over 3.1% fare rise, The Guardian
• Rail season tickets to jump by £100 for many commuters, Metro
• Train price hike: Jeremy Corbyn calls for public ownership of railways, Independent
• Rail fares rise 3.2% TODAY despite trains chaos, Mirror
• Protest in Birmingham over rising rail fares, Birmingham Live
• Protests at Sheffield railway station as rail fares rise by an average of 3.1 per cent, The Star
• York protest over national rail fare hike, The Press
Jeremy Vine on bringing back British Rail
20th September 2018 | Media Coverage / News
Following the Office of Rail and Road finding that ‘systemic failings’ have been the cause of the huge problems with new timetables on the Northern and Govia Thameslink Railway franchises, Ellie Harrison was invited to address the question ‘should we bring back British Rail?’ on BBC Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine show.
‘Privatised rail just doesn’t work’ – Ellie Harrison
20th September 2018 | Media Coverage / News
Bring Back British Rail campaign founder Ellie Harrison was interviewed by Johanna Ross for Sputnik News, following Chris Grayling’s acknowledgement that ‘systemic failings’ are the cause of the many problems on our privatised rail network. Isn’t that what we’ve been saying for the last nine years?
BBC Radio Essex
15th June 2018 | Media Coverage
Following weeks of disruption in on South East England’s railways, Bring Back British Rail’s Ellie Harrison was invited to discuss re-nationalisation on Breakfast with Ben and Sonia on BBC Radio Essex.
Success! Or is it?
1st June 2018 | Fundraising / Media Coverage / News
On 16 May 2018, one month after we launched our Crowd Justice campaign to take Transport Secretary Chris Grayling to court over his handling of the Virgin Trains East Coast franchise fiasco, it was announced in the media that the route would be ‘re-nationalised’, as LNER (London North Eastern Railway) from 24 June 2018.
Success! Or is it? It later emerged that the new LNER franchise (unlike ‘East Coast’, which ran the line from 2009-15 and was wholly publicly-owned by the Department for Transport), would be run by a consortium of private companies: Arup, Ernst & Young and SNC-Lavalin.
Our legal action continues. Our lawyers have now written to Government for a forth time: to request further information about the new LNER arrangement, as well as the ongoing review of the suitability of Stagecoach and Virgin to retain their franchise ‘Passports’, given the dramatic failure of their Virgin Trains East Coast operation after just three years.
Thanks to all 907 people who have so far pledged support on Crowd Justice. Together we have already had a huge impact on events. Please continue to join this historic action.
Pledge and share our case page today: crowdjustice.com/case/eastcoast
Our Lawyers’ Letters
• 5 March 2018: Leigh Day to Department for Transport
• 16 April 2018: Leigh Day to Department for Transport (Pre-Action Protocol)
• 15 May 2018: Leigh Day to Government Legal Department
• 1 June 2018: Leigh Day to Government Legal Department
• 17 July 2018: Leigh Day to Government Legal Department
• 21 May 2019: Leigh Day to Government Legal Department
Our Case in the News
• 18 April 2018: The Canary (Interview with Ellie Harrison of Bring Back British Rail)
• 19 April 2018: BBC News
• 19 April 2018: ITV News
• 19 April 2018: City AM
• 16 May 2018: Financial Times
BBC Radio Scotland
21st November 2016 | Media Coverage / News
The day after Scotland’s Transport Minister Humza Yousef announces plans to set up a public sector operator for ScotRail, Bring Back British Rail’s Ellie Harrison debates rail re-nationalisation on The Kaye Adams Programme on BBC Radio Scotland.
The Today Programme debate
27th August 2016 | Media Coverage / News
Bring Back British Rail’s Ellie Harrison debates rail re-nationalisation with Pete Waterman on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Interview with Oliver Lewis
24th August 2016 | Media Coverage / News
Oliver Lewis from Bring Back British Rail discusses the state of Britain’s railways on ShareRadio.
RT News Interview about rail fares
17th August 2016 | Media Coverage / News
Bring Back British Rail shared a post.
6 days ago
First Bus are selling their UK businesses. Our friends at Get Glasgow Moving have launched a campaign to get Glasgow City Council to bring First Glasgow back into public ownership. New powers in the Scottish Transport Bill make public ownership possible. Please sign and share 🚌🚏 you.38degrees.org.uk/p/takebackourbusesTime to take back our buses! 🚍 First Glasgow are selling up. Today we're launching a new campaign to ask Susan Aitken, Leader of Glasgow City Council to bring Glasgow's buses back into public ownership. Please sign and share our 38 Degrees petition https://you.38degrees.org.uk/p/takebackourbuses ...
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https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/may/30/firstgroup-to-sell-greyhound-as-it-bows-to-activist-investors
Foreign ownership doesn't work hence why DB are selling Arriva and First Bus are selling up
Great idea - and the railways too.
Great idea - and the railways too.
How ironic - I read somewhere that DB are looking to offload Arriva.
Just sold its ,Manchester garage / services to Go Ahead group. Ageing feet of vehicles , so getting out.
Its more likely that First will be sold in entirety to Arrival (solely owned by the Federal Republic of Germany) or to a Chinese bidder.
Can we not do this in Southampton after first destroyed it
First sold their London bus operations to Tower Transit several years ago. This particular bus started life with First London - hence the London plate beginning LK. Similar double deckers have been cascaded down to operations elsewhere in vast numbers as TfL is rapidly moving towards 100% hybrids (or in the case of single deckers, usually pure electric).
I agree, we should take back our buses. Look at the damage a single bus did just by putting £350 million a week for the NHS on the side of it. Without that silly bus we would be looking at enjoying our membership of the EU ad Infinitum. Take them back, they ruin countries by persuading the gullible to believe their lies.
Take them back. No unjust enrichment.
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Bring Back British Rail
2 weeks ago
Our friends at Guardians of the Arches are fighting against the privatisation of our railway arches which are currently publicly-owned by Network Rail. This would have a devastating impact on all the local businesses, clubs and organisations who use them if new private landlords chose to hike up rents. Say no to privatisation by supporting their Crowdfunder campaign at crowdfunder.co.uk/guardiansRailway property tenants are joining forces to build a powerful democratic organisation to hold landlords and the government to account! ...
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What's next? Privatising the air above the rails?
How the hell you can sell parts of a viaduct is beyond me.
Shame takes a revenue stream away from Network Rail, guess higher taxes will sort the shortfall
This is all a bit late ne sale was completed February this year
British rail was crap, I remember it well, oh when they actually run and weren’t on strike !!
Grayling is an absolute catastrophe of a man
I thought they had already been sold.
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Bring Back British Rail
2 weeks ago
Yet more evidence rail franchising is broken. Virgin Trains lost the East Coast franchise in 2018 and are about to lose the West Coast for "repeatedly ignoring established rules", yet they're now trying to get their hands on another route! Join our campaign for a re-unified national railway run for people not profit: bringbackbritishrail.org ...
Hmm... Virgin Trains Has Come Up With A Clever Way Of Keeping Its Franchise
londonist.com
London to Liverpool service may continue after 2020.Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Google PlusShare on Linked InShare by Email
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I thought they lost the west coast because of stagecoach not meeting pension rules Open track is available to anyone,and let’s hope he has dumped Souter
Applying for 'open access '. After the attitude they showed towards 'Wrexham and Shropshire '. Hypocrisy comes to mind.
The tender for the franchise submitted by Stagecoach who are the majority shareholder has been disqualified as a consequence of it being non-compliant re pensions arrangements. This is not necessarily a comment on Virgin’s performance which I have found to be consistently good to excellent. But what do I know ? After all I only commuted daily from Birmingham to London with them for four years 😂
If the WCML is so crammed at the moment that we can’t add additional capacity, then how the hell are they going to manage a whole new franchise on it? Or, are the capacity problems at them moment a load of bollocks, like I suspect.
i live in cumbria and go to see partick thistle every other week. great service on prompt and virtually empty trains - £13 return. brilliant
Be interesting to see what happens if the Open Access gets denied by the DfT....beardy takes the DfT to the high Court???
Though to be fair they offer the best service by far
Can we not just have a non bureaucratic and joined up railway, where fares are affordable (Regardless Of when booked), trains have adequate capacity, luggage space and comfortable seats.
What next? They failed to keep the Cross Country and East Coast franchise .
To be fair virgin trains are the best brilliant service above the others
Virgin Trains should be keeping the West Coast Mainline. No company comes to them for being on time, hardly any delays and comfort on the trains. When I’ve used them, I’ve never had an issue.
I very much doubt this open access will be granted. If it was possible Renaissance Trains would of put a bid for open access on that route before now.
When will they understand
As much as I would like to see the return of a nationalised systems, it will never happen. Not even under a labour government, government and stakeholders make far too much money out of the industry including you and I got it to return back to the days of British Rail......
Virgin trains leave other train lines in the dust as far as comfort, cleanliness and food are concerned.
Hope Virgin gets treated the same way it treated open access operators like Wrexham and Shropshire.
Bearded pillock don’t want to lose his snout from the trough
For once I agree.
Virgin are definitely the fastest service. But as I'm often Ill I cannot per book a seat in advance and trying to find an available non reserved seat is often difficult or impossible!
Its not a franchise its open access the same as grand central, it applies to NR and ORR with what it want to do with a safety case and if theres track space and it can run that service. Anyone can apply for.open access if it has the resources and all the paperwork. If it wasn't for franchising open access wouldn't exist, open access was put there to bring in competition !!
Be interesting to know were they will get their rolling stock from. There be plenty of Mk3s soon from Greater Anglia
Bring back the class 87
Yes bring back BRS
Stagecoach was the problem in both cases, not virgin....
Non of its Virgin's fail the main problem was with Stagecoach
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Bring Back British Rail
4 weeks ago
LAST CHANCE to sign and share our petition calling for Keith Williams to recommend public ownership in his UK government Rail Review
📝DEADLINE: Friday 31 May 2019 ...
Bring our railway into public ownership - tell Keith now
weownit.org.uk
Stop rail industry plans for *even more* privatisation!Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Google PlusShare on Linked InShare by Email
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Bring Back British Rail
4 weeks ago
Don't miss your chance to #TellKeith Williams to he must recommend public ownership in his Rail Review. We passengers know only a re-unified national rail network run for people not profit, will sort out the mess we're in 🚆 ...
Keith Williams - listen to passengers, not profit
weownit.org.uk
72 hours 28 May 2019 That's how much time we've got left to make sure rail review chief, Keith Williams, listens to passengers instead of private profits. This is crunch time. Keith has a really important decision to make - will he side with private companies who want to protect their profits by con...Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Google PlusShare on Linked InShare by Email
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I totally agree. Why do we need to cross the busy road to get a ticket from a different company. Risking your life to travel
I wouldn't hold your breathe on the "Williams" review, he's on record pointing out that he's an independent chairman of a government review, not a chairman of an independent review, whatever is decided will be agreed with Grayling prior to any publication.
Bring back British Rail ?so why show 2 foreign railways
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