Great British Railways Debate
20th May 2021 | Media Coverage / News
On the day Transport Secretary Grant Shapps launched the long-awaited Williams Rail Review, Bring Back British Rail’s Ellie Harrison was invited on BBC 2’s Jeremy Vine programme to debate the pros and cons of the ‘Great British Railways‘ proposal with Pete Waterman.
ScotRail Re-nationalised!
17th March 2021 | News / Petition
Today Scottish Transport Secretary Michael Matheson finally announced that the ScotRail franchise will be brought back into public ownership from 1 April 2022, when Abellio’s contract ends.
Thanks to everyone who signed our Make ScotRail Public petition, first launched the day after the Independence Referendum in September 2014. It has been a long fight, but we did it! Please share the good news on Facebook and Twitter.
Scrap the fare hikes – we need public ownership now
1st March 2021 | News
Today the UK Government hikes rail fares in England and Wales by 2.6% – the first above inflation increase for seven years.
Meanwhile, they are busy trying to negotiate new ‘National Rail Contracts’ with a host of failed private train operating companies, which could lock us into this broken privatised system for decades to come.
Bringing all rail franchises back into public ownership would be simple, with the publicly-owned ‘Operator of Last Resort’ – which already runs LNER and Northern – ready to go. This could immediately enable fare cuts of 5%, and would ensure that our railways can be run in the interests of passengers and the environment to help get our country moving again as we emerge from the pandemic.
Please take action today by writing to Transport Secretary Grant Shapps.
Scrap the fare hikes
End the contract chaos
We need public ownership now
Transport for Wales Rail re-nationalised!
7th February 2021 | News
Today we celebrate the Wales & Borders franchise being brought back into public ownership by the Welsh Government, following 25 years of failed privatisation. Announcing the move on 22 October 2020, the Welsh Minister for Transport Ken Skates MS said this would provide the “most stable financial base to manage rail services as we emerge from the pandemic”.
The Welsh Government must have been listening to our #TakeBackOurTrains campaign. We have been saying since the start of this crisis, that returning rail to public ownership is the only sensible response – to prioritise safety, save public money and help improve services in the long-term. As Ken Skates went on to say: “a new publicly owned model… will allow [Transport for Wales] to continue to put customers and communities at the heart of everything they do, with safety as their first priority”.
Now the Scottish Government and the UK’s Department for Transport must stop bailing out the failing private rail companies running Britain’s other rail franchises and follow Wales’ lead.
Take Back Our Trains interview
25th June 2020 | Media Coverage / News
As a result of our #TakeBackOurTrains campaign, Bring Back British Rail’s Ellie Harrison was invited onto talkRADIO to discuss with Ian Collins how we can use the coronavirus crisis as an opportunity to build back a better railway that is run in passengers’ interests.
Time to Take Back Our Trains
16th June 2020 | News
We have been campaigning for radical reform of our broken privatised railway system for more than a decade, amassing more than 150,000 supporters on our way. As passengers and employees it was clear that privatisation has left us with a more expensive, confusing and less reliable service, that costs taxpayers double to run (in real terms) than it ever did as publicly-owned British Rail.
The coronavirus crisis has thrown everything up in the air. With passengers being instructed to make essential journeys only. Suddenly the real absurdity of running our railway via multiple for-profit businesses was laid bare. On 23 March 2020, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps had to step in with Emergency Measures Agreements – further bailouts to the private Train Operating Companies – just to keep essential services running for our keyworkers.
These EMAs are up for renewal this September. We cannot afford to throw more and more public money away into broken privatised rail. The crisis provides the opportunity we have been waiting for to #TakeBackOurTrains. This will enable us to prioritise safety without needing to put profit-making ahead of social distancing. This will save public money, with the cost of extending EMAs likely to be far more than running services in-house under the ‘Operator of Last Resort’, which currently runs LNER and Northern after those franchises failed. And it will enable us to improve services in the long-term.
With all our Train Operating Companies finally back in public ownership, we can begin the long-overdue project of re-unifying our railways under one public company. This will allow us to provide the affordable, coherent and reliable service that our country needs to recover from this coronavirus crisis: rebuilding our economy and society, addressing the climate emergency and ensuring carbon emissions and air pollution never return to the toxic pre-lockdown levels.
Make ScotRail Public
1st April 2020 | News / Petition
Five years ago today, Abellio – the company owned by the Dutch government – took over running Scotland’s Railway. After years of poor service, on 18 December 2019, the Scottish Minister for Transport Michael Matheson MSP, finally announced that he would break Abellio’s contract three years’ early (on 31 March 2022).
On 1 April 2020, we re-launched the Make ScotRail Public campaign in collaboration with our friends at Get Glasgow Moving, TSSA and We Own It, to demand that a public sector operator is ready to take over running ScotRail services by 2022.
‘Britain’s trains have effectively been nationalised’
23rd March 2020 | News
Today, as a result of the Coronavirus Outbreak, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps utilised Section 118 of the Railways Act 1993 to suspend all current franchise agreements with private Train Operating Companies and replace them with temporary Emergency Measures Agreements.
This led The Guardian newspaper to report that ‘Britain’s trains have effectively been nationalised‘, despite this actually looking more like a massive bailout for failing private companies whose share prices then surged as a result.
These Emergency Measures Agreements also only apply to franchises currently let by the Department for Transport and, of course, exclude LNER and Northern, which are already in public ownership – a fact we were celebrating at the start of the month:
So, the new Emergency Measures Agreements do not apply to:
• the ScotRail or the Caledonian Sleeper franchises let by the Scottish Government which has its own Emergency Measures Agreements in place,
• the Transport for Wales Rail franchise let by the Welsh Government,
• the TfL Rail or London Overground contracts let by Transport for London, or
• the Merseyrail contract let by Merseytravel
Please explore the ‘Franchises‘ pages of our website (first launched in 2015 and now updated regularly) to find out who runs the railways in your area, and how you can help campaign for public ownership:
Keep Northern Public
24th February 2020 | Demonstration / News
This March, after years of failure under the control of private companies, Northern rail will be officially re-nationalised!
To mark this momentous moment, we’re working with our friends at RMT, We Own It, the Association of British Commuters and Northern Resist, to organise a Day of Action across the North of England demanding that Transport Secretary Grant Shapps keeps Northern in public ownership from now on.
Please join us at one of the stations listed below.
Monday 2 March 2020:
06:30-08:45 Carlisle Station
07:00-09:00 Manchester Victoria Station
07:00-09:00 Wigan Station
07:00-09:00 York Station
07:00-10:00 Leeds Station
07:30-09:00 Newcastle Central Station (Main Entrances on Neville Street)
07:30-09:00 Wakefield Westgate Station
16:00-18:00 Sheffield Station
Passengers Rise Up! National Day of Action
20th December 2019 | Demonstration / Media Coverage / News
On Thursday 2 January 2020, rail fares go up again by another 2.8%.
The rail franchising system is broken and it’s passengers that are paying the price.
We’re joining forces with our friends at the Association of British Commuters and other passenger groups across the country to organise a National Day of Passenger Action demanding an end to the farce of franchising and fair fares now!
They’ll be a central demonstration at London King’s Cross Station at 8am. Details of other actions will be listed on the Facebook event page and below.
Thursday 2 January 2020:
07:00-09:00 King’s Lynn Station
08:00-09:30 London King’s Cross Station
09:30-10:30 Chelmsford Station
10:00-12:00 Norwich Station (organised by NOR4NOR)
11:30-12:30 London Liverpool Street Station
16:00-17:30 Burton-on-Trent Station
16:30-19:30 Bolton Station (organised by Northern Resist)
Please get in touch if you’d like to organise an action at your local station and we can help promote it: info@bringbackbritishrail.org
Media Coverage from 2 January 2020
• Transport Secretary Grant Shapps vows to strip Northern Rail of its franchise as furious commuters say they are ‘being priced off the railway’ after fares rise 2.7 per cent across UK, Daily Mail
• Train fare increase 2020: protesters gather at London’s Kings Cross warning of ‘decade of misery’ for rail commuters, I News
• Rail fares rise by 2.7%, hitting millions of commuters, BBC News
• Commuters in mass protests as 2.7% rail fare hike hits, Inside Croydon
• Railway stations to be hit by more strikes against fee hikes, Morning Star
• Northern to be stripped of rail franchise – Shapps, Wimbledon Times
• Commuters gather at Bolton station in protest over increased rail fares, The Guardian
• ‘Enough is enough!’ Furious commuter rages at railway ‘carnage’ amid fresh fare hikes, Daily Express
Bring Back British Rail
2 days ago
The ‘Great British Rip-Off’ – why new ‘flexi-tickets’ are an insult to passengers ...
The ‘Great British Rip-Off’ – why new ‘flexi-tickets’ are an insult to passengers
abcommuters.com
The Department for Transport’s new ‘flexible season tickets’ are an absolute insult to passengers. Neither cheap nor flexible, they are just another pricing trap for a captive com…Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Linked InShare by Email
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Meanwhile Grant Shapps gets to claim all his train fares back as expenses..
These are priced deliberately to convince many that going into work 2 or 3 days/week isn't much of a saving in travel costs compared to traditional 5 day a week. Government probably scared that businesses might downsize office space and property market suffers. I'm sure the Tory party have a few funders with owning some of these prestige buildings that have gone up in many cities over the last few decades. Actually what might happen now is more might just continue to work from home full time.
Shapps.Another one????????
Great article
Sadly, I feel Grant Shapps is a Government gimmick rolled out to jazz up wet Mondays and bad news days to act as if Government is doing something relevant to ordinary people e.g. Renationalisation - we have the name, but what of the finer details? Reversing Beeching, really... where's the flow/beef in it, just a trickle currently and 2030 is the cut off date for irreversible climate change. Likewise Chris Heaton Harris, MP for Daventry - one large town without any rail access/safe Tory seat cracks jokes on Twitter as if no tomorrow, but how much is he working towards delivering an affordable, integrated and growing railway apart from #HS2? £27 billion for new roads which only panders to road dependency cultures, heaps up congestion and electric vehicles do not deal with tyres on hard surfaces and the particles we all breathe. I think rail should not be facing any cuts, rather top slice that £27 billion and let's have parity between road and rail at least.
People voted for a privatised railway and they got what they voted for.
no discount for senior or regional pass holders
Sadly British Rail is not really British Rail, its a joke, you just have to look at the extortionate prices thats charged for even the smallest journey, it would be much more sensible to cut fares and have more customers take a leaf out of other countries some charge as little as a fiver for a 50mile trip.
Utter waste of time. It would save me 12% over daily tickets, but is still 22% dearer than buying weekly tickets, and despite the name, they're *less* flexible. On several occasions, pre-Covid, I've bought a weekly ticket to Manchester, only to find out that the event I'm running has been reallocated or cancelled, so I can work from home the rest of the week. So I've then gone to the ticket office and they've cancelled the weekly ticket and refunded me, minus the cost of one daily ticket, with *no admin fees*. This "flexible" ticket would let me buy eight journeys to be used over four weeks. But if it gets to the last week and I've not used four of them, I can get the unused journeys refunded, but they'll charge me £10 admin fee to do so, which would wipe out most of the refund. The only change they need to make is to remove the admin fee, or remove the 28 day limit on using the journeys. If I could buy eight journeys and use them over say three months, then that would be worth doing. As it is, I shan't bother. Might just get on my bike more and get to work for free.
If they are a privatised industry why do the taxpayer subsidise them is it to fill the pockets of the shareholders oh wait are the tory backers just a thought
They seem to be only available for smart cards and one cannot buy paper tickets. Flexi rover tickets (which work in the same way) have been around as paper tickets since time immemorial.
what did you expect from this government????????
No matter what party you vote for they are all as bad each . labour where in under Tony Blair did they renationalised the railway and have the Torys renationalised no to both it is all about looking after the private company that run the railways.Also they get government grants to run the railway s which comes out of our taxes so in effect we are paying twice for the public transport .. Public transport should be made cheaper. If they want to get more people of the roads to use . Prime example of the over inflated prices is ebbsfleet to London I believe it £8 pound one way
It is getting ready for "Home Rule" in Wales and Scotland,soon to be Great English Railways (GER)
But, but, they're doing their best. Dunno what their worst would be.
Bandits
As this scheme is being lead by the treasury and they won't introduce anything that reduces income
They are "another option". That's all. Depending on when, where and how often you travel, flexis may or may not be the answer. They may not be what people were expecting, however it may just be that people's expectations were wrong.
Perversely it is £5 cheaper per journey if I buy an annual season ticket and travel 5 days per week to the office. There is no real incentive for me to do 2-3 days week in the office.
Money grabbing Bastards !
Just as expected, another way to fleece the commuter by the stealth of privatised railways !!!!
When are people going to wake up, the tories are only it to make money not to give rail users a fair deal, you want a fair deal stop voting for them...
Rip off? In Britain?
Season tickets Sheffield-Derby (Adult, Standard Class) Flexi Season £9,998.00 Seven Day £80.30 12 months £3,212.00 (Source: BR Fares)
Who's this Michael Green?
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Bring Back British Rail
2 weeks ago
Back by popular demand! Bring Back British Rail enamel badges are finally back in stock. All proceeds go towards funding campaign materials and activities. Why not treat yourself 😊 ...
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Thats for travelling in the other direction Les
Link to buy doesn't work? 😕
Bring back the CEGB as well. Let's have reliable and AFFORDABLE electric power
Any chance we actually WILL bring back British Rail? I’ve been so hopeless lately, with the government using their supermajority in Parliament to steamroll their agenda on us! Don’t get me started on how they’re destroying the NHS!
Bring back British Rail and the crap wages. I'm up for that.
Logo is round the wrong way.....
Bring back everything that's been privatised.
Bring back British Rail? How do you react to this Nationalised part of the System's attempts to improve passenger services? www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-57510262
British Rail was just not that good! At least the trains have improved. More investment is key.
I remember the “good old days” of British Rail. Overstaffed. Under motivated. Filthy and unreliable trains. Couldn’t give a toss about the paying public, just as long as they remained state funded. Worst of all, run by politicians, with political agendas. The privatisation model isn’t perfect, but it’s a bloody sight better than the alternative.
Yes am with you
Got to the checkout on your shop, but you use PayPal! Paypal supports the apartheid and dehumanising of the Palestinians in Israel/Palestine. So I will not be buying from you!
your being hood winked into loosing more of the service and system. Network Rail becomes British Rail and the sections are still operated by the franchise holders, Privatisation has moved vast amount of freight onto the road and this "New" British Rail will not put it back on the rails. the yards and lines to handle the freight have all gone. also the Inter City sign is the wrong way round.
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Bring Back British Rail
3 weeks ago
We're really pleased to be opening our merch store again! Our popular Rail Card Wallets will be ready to dispatch next week. All proceeds go towards funding Bring Back British Rail materials and activities, so this is a great way to support our volunteer-run campaign 😊 ...
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I might buy one of these! I could keep not just my railcard but also my library card in it!
Waiting for 'The logo is back to front' comments.
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Bring Back British Rail
1 month ago
The government’s ‘Great British Railways’ is privatisation rebranded ...
The government’s ‘Great British Railways’ is privatisation rebranded
www.opendemocracy.net
With the ‘fudged’ outcome of a review of England’s railways, the government has missed an opportunity to put passengers firstShare on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Linked InShare by Email
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The scum do not want people travelling - STAY HOME, SAVE LIVES, PROTECT THE N.H.S. What the scum mean is - we will control you, we will tell you where you can go, we will tell you if you can spend, we will tell you if you can LIVE.
With prices still rising Stick with your cars B.R have ripped you off for years..
....... and a load of shit Japanese trains with structural faults that are barely 3 years old.
Scotrail will be taken into public ownership...properly. 🏴👍
What a surprise, Gor' Blimey, Who'd 'ave thought it?
Are these private people going to compensate the tax payer for years of upgrading of track and stations ect over the years billions have been spent renewing the railways infrastructure ? Remember all those weekends bank holidays Christmas renewing the tracks and singling systems are they going to inherent all that for sod all ??
Beggars belief at how gullible the British Public is1
Nobody expected a hard right wing Tory government to nationalise the railways, did they?
Whoever runs the railways, I wish they'd get rid of the bastard Hitachi 800's And give us back our HST's, from a customer perspective the HST's were much nicer to travel in than GWR's crappy IET's
Abolish rolling stock leasing companies!
Face it the money was in the ROSCOs that is why HSBC, Santander were chosen to exploit the maximum profits out of the industry passing on the losses to through subsidies to the Rail operators eventually onto the public purse. When you write the rules to ignore sharp practice and guarantee no loss contracts that multinationals can wriggle out of when they realise they have overbid. Privatisation has been a corruption on scale never before. Let us not mention the property board that has discharged real estate in prime locations on the cheap to friends of the Tories. Shapps is a shitster, typical IT spiv snake oil salesman.
What a set of shits and the fools still fall for it !!
We already own the bit that costs money (the tracks and infrastructure) nicknamed Network Fail, and this simply means continued subsidies for Train operators such as the French, Dutch, Germans and a Hong Kong based company who all earn from OUR passengers and taxpayers, ironic after Brexit. This only squares with the Tory faithful due to the mantra of privatisation which costs the consumer more every single time, but gives more "choice". Quite how a train operator doesn't have a monopoly simply due to the nature of a railway is clever marketing. This is an absolute con, by the con servatives.
Put a different sticker on the same old faulty goods, we expect no less from an ideologically and morally bankrupt system.
Quite!!
The same government that sold it in the first place,get a grip
I attended conferences with the likes of. Prescot and MacDonnell all said return to nationalisation Blair said it ..We at RMT withdrew union funding from labour party told prescot to leave. union owned London flat the list goes on and on as most on here agree it's a further way to save the privateers of the industry money as it needs massive investment previous privateers have promised and left when failed this way we. as taxpayers pay them through.er...Great British Railways. (name makes you think it's ..British Railways ahhhh) yes you will get same old story Oh HST2 they will not take responsibility for that too many objections and fines for delays. Best let govt take it as Great British Railways then get contract to run it ..repair it ..after it's built at massive cost the govt could. upgrade all of the railway for that price new trains the lot ..jobs..just like the channel tunnel we build. it.. they run it that is the privateers philosophy
The IEP revolution has left rail in the red. Shows that trains aren't always perfect even if you buy or don't buy British. The number of Hitachi carriages amounted to large quantities. I wonder how will they fare with the warranty repairs. Window seating position is quite good but a bit cheap and nasty, it was Great Western's choice. Note that Transport of Wales has purchased large number of surplus Mk 4 coaching. Actually there's 45 of them on their books.
I agree we have to put an end to franchisee
It's pathetic....they never will doing anything else!
Correct
Not yet
XX
It's all a load of bollocks & bullshit
Yep pathetic
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Bring Back British Rail
1 month ago
"This rail reform doesn’t go far enough, we’re still going to have the same private companies running the services: Arriva 🇩🇪, Govia 🇫🇷, Abellio 🇳🇱, Avanti 🇮🇹, MTR Corp 🇭🇰 So much for #GreatBritishRailways!" Listen to Bring Back British Rail's Ellie Harrison on BBC Radio 2's The Jeremy Vine 👇 ...
20 May 2021: BBC Radio 2 Jeremy Vine on 'Great British Railways'
www.mixcloud.com
Listen to 20 May 2021: BBC Radio 2 Jeremy Vine on 'Great British Railways' by Bring Back British RailShare on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Linked InShare by Email
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British Rail bad? The only complaints I remember were about the cheese sandwiches. Privatisation has been an exercise in irony... subsidies doubling immediately under privatisation, private railway companies being owned by foreign publicly-owned railways, etc. etc.
Arriva, Govia, Abellio, Avanti etc. etc. Chucking the name Great British Railways on top of names that sound like energy drinks or online banks is just putting lipstick on a pig.
Nationalisation in name only just like the NHS
Private companies will provide the trains and staff, but everything else : tracks, timetables and fares will be in public hands.
Pete Waterman sure likes the sounds of his own voice. Even when he's talking bollox.
The global coalition for transparency and anti-corruption has put the UK "under review", heightening concerns about the government's commitment to openness following a series of scandals. news.sky.com/story/uk-government-censured-for-a-lack-of-transparency-and-accountability-12234248?... TOP UK JUDGE CALLS FOR CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE - [ ] www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/sc-judge-calls-for-mass-civil-disobedience?fbclid=IwAR2LU0_2p... Trading Freedom for 'Security' "If people are sufficiently frightened, their craving for security will make them submit to almost anything," Sumption remarked, explaining that "the Hobbesian bargain" — based on Hobbes' belief in the absolute State where people "resign their freedoms unconditionally and permanently into the hands of the State in return for security" — is "a very striking and very sinister development."
Still subsidising foreign state owned railways
Old story. Never trust a tory
We got to keep letting Foreign state subsidiaries keep running our Railways so they can cream it off and send it back to their homeland.
It’s just a flag shaggers name change that’s all
Isn't Great British Railways to be operated only in England? Something tells me the name for this new operation mainly had Daily Mail readers in mind.
wouldn't give ear space to Vine the privileged tosser
When Jeremy Corbyn stated he would renationalise their rail network, MSM and tories said this was ludicrous and Corbyn would bankrupt the country and the “easily influenced” brits bought into that notion and elected johnson. Today the tories have suggested a “re-nationalisation, of sorts” of the rail network, NOT to ensure lower fares and more reliable clean service for passengers, who are also British citizens, but to cut a huge slice of the “money cake” and again benefit themselves! The losers in this new policy will continue to be the “great British public”.....
On a related note, has anyone noticed how much harder it is to find bargain advance fares currently?
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