Success! Or is it?

1st June 2018 | Fundraising / Media Coverage / News

London North Eastern Railway

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
• 26 June 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

Help us take Transport Secretary Chris Grayling to court!

17th April 2018 | Fundraising / News

Pledge to help us make East Coast public

We need your support to bring Chris Grayling to court. We can’t do this without you. Please pledge and share today: crowdjustice.com/case/eastcoast

Enough is enough! Our East Coast mainline was a brilliant success in public-ownership and should never have been re-privatised in 2015. Now it has failed for the third time at the hands of private operators: GNER in 2007, National Express in 2009 and now Virgin Trains East Coast in 2018.

Transport Secretary Chris Grayling has admitted that Virgin Trains East Coast “got its numbers wrong” and breached “a key financial covenant” in their franchise agreement. Yet, he is allowing its owners – Stagecoach and Virgin – to walk away and continue running and bidding for other rail franchises. We can’t let them get away with this.

We’re now working with public law experts Leigh Day to bring Chris Grayling to court to account for these decisions. We expect this to be a landmark Judicial Review case; exposing the farce of rail franchising for the shameful waste of public money that it is, and paving the way to a re-unified national rail network run in the public’s interest once again.

Please pledge and share today: crowdjustice.com/case/eastcoast

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Commemorating 70 years since Nationalisation

29th March 2018 | Merchandise / News

Embroidered Patch

New Embroidered Patches available for 2018!

2018 year is bittersweet. We’re commemorating 70 years since our railways were unified and nationalised as ‘British Railways‘, as well commiserating 25 years since the disastrous 1993 Railways Act, which paved the way to the fragmented mess of privatisation that we have now.

These contrasting anniversaries show that times can, and do, change. In the last nine years since our campaign was founded in July 2009, we have been central in transforming the national debate, taking the re-nationalisation of our railways from a taboo topic to mainstream policy. Now we’re sure it’s only a matter of time until we realise our dream.

New Year Actions for the Public Ownership of our Railways

1st January 2017 | Demonstration / News

End the #RailRipOff

On 3-4 January 2017, commuters return to work as train fares continue to rise. We’re teaming up with We Own It and Action For Rail to organise two nationwide days of action (in England on 3rd, Scotland on 4th) to protest against higher fares, reduced staffing and demand the public ownership of our railways now!

Protests are taking place at more than one hundred stations up-and-down the country. Please see the Action for Rail website for details and come out and join us!

Main England Actions
Tuesday 3rd January 2017, 8am
• London King’s Cross Station
• Manchester Piccadilly Station

Main Scotland Action
Wednesday 5th January 2017, 5pm
• Glasgow Central Station