Bring Back British Rail

4 days ago

🚆 Southeastern is brought back into public ownership today.

British Rail. We’re getting there... ...

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🤗 For those who don't know British Rail's 1980s 'We're getting there' advertising campaign www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU-e2-4hptQ

It's almost as if breaking up a nationwide transport network into lots of pieces and selling them off to the private sector was a really crap idea in the first place

It will follow the pattern of the taxpayers investing to make it successful so that the Tories can sell it off cheaply to their mates who will run it into the ground while extracting maximum profit out of it. Some might call me cynical but...

All utilities and transport should be nationalised including fares.

The sooner we view having a service available is a profit to society and doesn’t have to produce a shareholder dividend, the better.

Why give money to shareholders when you can give it to the service

After the taxpayers and customer have been bled dry of billions. It's now real celebration. Lessons need to be learnt, people need to be held accountable for the extortionate swindle.

Problem is the systems been milked for all the privateers and foreign companies could get out of it and that includes a lot of taxpayers money. You can be sure that all in power, including the still all powerful road lobby will be seeking to deny the Nationalised system the investment it needs.

Only regrouping it all to sell off to their mates for a nice bung in the back pocket. Please don't be fooled into thinking this government has anyone's interest at heart, apart from themselves. Going forward I expect less services, higher fares and complaints of "No rollingstock" because they've sent it all to Sims in Newport. TFW will be the only properly nationalised railway.

Undoing what other governments have done is never easy...they demand expensive compensation ! I'd give them none. Blame for Privatisation lies squarely with the Tories !

Jonathan Gray might as well renationalise the whole network at this point now 🚅

As a long time sufferer of Govia's delights living in SE London... fingers crossed it's TSGN next to be taken... Honestly, I don't understand why they've been allowed to keep TSGN given the reason SE was stripped.

Should never privateise anything that all the country needs gas or electricity rail put more transportation of goods back onto rail too with distribution centres in all towns

The problem I foresee is these lines will be privatised again once they're profitable. Effectively what we're doing here is bailing out billionaires. Privatising profits and nationalising losses. This isn't even capitalism, it's state sponsored monopoly. The same thing is going on with domestic energy. As smaller energy suppliers go bust their customers are transferred to one of the big six, Centrica, National Grid etc. Government is researching ways to help out these big suppliers. Why not help the smaller ones in the first instance and maintain a competitive market?

Great news - let's hope this progresses until the whole lot is back in public ownership as one organisation. But I'm not holding my breath - too many Tory "chums" waiting in the wings for a chance to snap up a bargain if it is offered to them by a cabinet minister they drink with in the village pub.😃

We need a Nationalised British Rail with the commercial freedom & independence from the Civil Servants at the Dept For Transport.

still all being run a separate entities though so pray tell me what exactly has changed a[art from the imminent mass job losses

I remember the last time when then Connex South Eastern was nationalised and stayed so for a fair while and even Conservative MP's said they felt things had been going well with improvement in service from end of Connex and pleaded with the Government not to re- franchise it.

Nationalise the railways. You know it makes sense.

Under the williams (shapps) report there is still an element of TOC involment, until that is removed completley things wont change, they can not let go of the ideals privitisation good / nationalisation bad and it would mean admitting they got it wrong 😡

Great Northern must be next. There'll be street parties when Govia gets the boot.

It used to be the case that if a franchise was taken back in house the operator was deemed unfit as an operator - and thus was required to surrender all its franchises.

It was privately run, not privately owned. While I’m a firm believer in nationalisation, there is a difference.

When we get the whole lot back, we need a flat rate per mile of track pricing system. Cost spread over the whole network so that people aren't penalised for where they happen to be.

We're noy getting there at all. We are getting made redundant!! The tory government are having more control over who has a franchise but this isn't a good thing for staff. Voluntary redundancies have been made available, applications are open now. After that there will be forced redundancies.

Want to fix Britain’s broken trains? Look at Austria

1 week ago

How about this for rail fare reform? 🌍 Austrians have a plan to cut carbon emissions by making trains cheaper than driving or flying ...

www.wired.co.uk

Austrians will soon be able to travel huge train distances for next to nothing – and it’s all part of an effort to tackle the climate crisis

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In a small (in terms of land area) country like ours it makes sense to have a single state-owned and integrated transport system (which we used to have). Privatisation was a stupid thing to do (done for ideological rather than sensible strategic reasons). Now there are also very good environmental reasons to sort out train travel and bus travel too. This won’t happen with the useless Tories in charge.

Problem in this country is that we have a large part of the electorate that is in love with the upper classes, the class system etc, in no other European country would working class towns vote for a useless party full of useless toffs who have luxury villa holidays in Spain and the Caribbean. Until we stop reading the newspapers and get our facts from real life we will always think things like cheap rail travel secondary.

Maybe we should have a state rail company modelled on Germany. It is crazy that the German state is allowed to run British railways and take the profits but the British Govt is not allowed to

You'll also notice that during the year most Train operators offer heavily discounted ticket prices. There's always a massive demand, which tells me one thing, they don't need to have rail fares as high as they are it's just corporate greed. If the train fares were a fair price they wouldn't need to knock fares right down. Next week for example I'm travelling to Lincoln courtesy of the Northern £1 ticket sale it's cost me £8 return in total for myself and the Mrs. That is good value for money. I'm not saying make ticket prices a £1 but at least make them affordable.

Unfortunately ideology and dogma and private profit won't allow for the common sense of a mixed economy as happens in the successful European countries, same goes for utilities. It seems ok for othe Government to own our infrastructure but not our own Government and people!

I drive my car for a day out to the coast for one reason it is cheaper than the train .

Not a chance. Too much profit to be made by the private sector.

Sadly I can’t see that happening here; not whilst we’ve got staunch Capitalist Johnson running the show.

No chance of that here, chances are that they have an interest in our Railways.

no doubt their railways are state run unlike over here where they are privatised and more concerned with lining the pockets of 'fat cat' share holders over offering the public any kind of low cost travel

that’s how you change habits make it cheaper and easier to do the right option. not try to make the easier and cheaper option harder to use and put up the prices of trains like the uk

When have you heard of anything getting cheaper in the UK?

It's a crazy idea.. but. it. might. just. work..

It could easily be achieved but that would mean no profit for tory party donors who have vested interests in the companies that run the franchises. Whilst capitalism is king nothing will change in this country.

The trouble is that if we did that here the train price wouldn't change, they would just make driving more expensive.

A levy on domestic flights and private jets would go a long way to helping reduce fares and increase investment.

Cheaper fares will unfortunately lead to overcrowding. - just an observation.

Every other Country except ours seems to own our Railways unfortunately

At present it excludes Vienna’s extensive network which is where a large proportion of the population live but it is an excellent idea and well worth replicating. But it requires big government which is anathema to our esteemed govt.,

I lot of people only compare the cost of the train to the fuel they use; so a lot of the time they are not thinking about how much their car is really costing them at all.

A few years ago needed to go to Inverness from East London. Checked costs by car with 1 overnight stop each way. Train and 4 day hire car. Coach and 4 day hire car. Fly and 4 day hire car. Car all the way worked out far, far cheaper. Flying was next cheapest.

I suggest making all local public transport free.This would reduce poverty and divert many towards a sustainable form of transport.

And yet they still have a massive coal industry which exports to China and other places so money talks there as well

Government subsidised and look at the income tax rates to pay for it !

I never go anywhere by train as the price is horrific

Southeastern: Government takes over services after 'serious breach'

3 weeks ago

Another one bites the dust! Southeastern will be brought back into public ownership, and the private company running it is under investigation for serious fraud. Says it all really, privatisation is broken #BringBackBritishRail ...

www.bbc.co.uk

The government says it will consider options for more action, including financial penalties.

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With British Rail I could simply rock up to a station, buy an AFFORDABLE ticket from a human and travel to where I needed to alight. It was run as a service not a profit source for shareholders. Very occasionally the train would be full and some of the journey involved standing. No big deal!

Privitise profit, socialise loss. Always the Tory way.

As soon as it’s running well again they’ll just give it back to one of their mates!

Bring it all back in and stop subsidising well lined pockets

i lost most of my pension with tory privatization of british rail

Yet Kier Starmer won’t commit to say the word re-nationalise!! I’m sure there is a public appetite for the railways to be taken back into public control!

My dad spent his whole life, working for British Rail and reached a very high level in his career. His father drove the Royal Train ... dad said that UK would regret privatising what used to be a wonderful railway!

Nationalise British rail - wasn’t that a Corbyn manifesto pledge ??? 🤔

I thought privatisation (WE WERE TOLD) meant Competition wou;d keep prices down! instead many of the Brirtish RAIL Companies are run by European GOVERNMENTS, and the European Rail networks are VERY MUCH CHEAPER (anf in some ways BETTER) than ours!

While the fraud office is at it, they should look at the Great Western electrification and the HS2 farce. There has always been a whiff of dodgy dealings with HM government, particularly with defence procurement, and having worked in the NHS can certainly attest to shady practices. But it seems fraud is the new national industry.

Time to renationalise..... enough of this profit driven obsession and couldn't care less attitude regarding the travelling public.

I'm sure sombody not to long ago said he would bring back the railway back under government.. The tories and there media SKY NEWS and BBC NEWS said he was a crack pot... Mr corbyn I believe 😕

There is only one thing for it, Bring back British Rail

He's effectively punnished them for doing what members of the cabinet have been doing all through the pandemic, filling their own coffers- i am not condoning it i am just saying it strikes me as a bit of a double standard.

Second time that franchise has had to be taken into Government control.

Another “money pit” goes to the wall. Yet another failure of the Thatcher philosophy.

"I'd like to reassure all passengers that this is very much business as usual with no immediate changes."...what a joke.

There should be prosecutions, just as I would be prosecuted for committing " serious fraud"

I don't remember it be a wonderful railway. Dirty dusty carriages with dangerous doors when opening them, badly lit platforms and dry sandwiches.

Dont hold your breath waiting for Starmer to agree to this.

Privatisation guaranteed to destroy anything it touches.

With regard to passenger services, but the privatisation of freight is very successful.

And the public don’t know the half of it. There are are managers currently trying to reduce platform staff because they know that cuts are coming and they’ve suddenly burst into life trying to make themselves look good by saving money. What they are actually doing is putting the public in danger and breaking disability laws because it means there are less people to assist those that need assistance. One station in particular that I know of where a manager is trying to do this has many problems with people worse for wear especially on a Friday and Saturday night. Reducing the staff there will not only put the public in great danger but the remaining members of staff as well. This is from managers that have been virtually unobtainable during the pandemic. This is not an isolated case. Frontline staff get a bad reputation but what people don’t see is that they are out there every day getting abuse, being attacked and spat at but they turn up for work and do it all again the next day. To provide a public service more frontline staff are required not less and certainly not multi levels of management hierarchy where they’ve brought their friends in on the old boy network from previous employers.

This line was taken back into public ownership in the early 2000's. It will be the same story as then the public ownership will improve the line and once it's really good it will be sold off again. 😡

EDF Energy De France owns 45% of our electricity supply !! The Tories are thrives and always have they are partially way through privatisation of the NHS . Everything the public own gone or going!!🤬🤬🤬

3 months ago

"Privatisation... has delivered a service that is expensive, unreliable and dysfunctional" 🚍🚊💷 Don't miss former UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston's & Bassam Khawaja's devastating critique of UK bus policy. Read the report: bit.ly/AlstonBusReport Watch the full video here: bit.ly/3i08jLo ...

Play

Britain's Bus Crisis: Privatisation, Poverty & Human Rights

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Watch the full video of the Britain’s Bus Crisis: Privatisation, Poverty & Human Rights event: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrAnhTTbjMM

Read the full 'Public Transport, Private Profit' report: bit.ly/AlstonBusReport

Privatizing has buggered up the electricity industry, the gas industry, the water industry and the waste disposal industry too. Some things should be considered a service and run to provide just that at an economic cost not a way of milking the end users.

I sympathise with their sentiments and agree for the most part. However I have seen far better written reports than this. I note with interest the total lack of integration across the public transport network, it is of course a universal truth, a result not just of operator competition, but of competing modes. The great shame in all of this is that once upon a time, all of the large and many of the smaller urban areas had their own bus or occasionally tram networks provided by the local authorities. They offered usually a high quality service tailored to local needs, Manchester (mentioned in the report) being a classic case.

The buses and trains need to be put back in public hands we at the moment subsidies them ever since the Tories sold them of so how can you tell me that they are private companys

As with everything else the Tory’s de- nationalised

Has the government's decarbonisation policy hit fever point?

but as it doesn't affect them, they don't care

......I was up in Edinburgh a couple of months ago. That parts of Britain's railways are publicity run, I noticed that this organisation keeps things moving more.

Britain's Bus Crisis: Privatisation, Poverty & Human Rights

3 months ago

📢 Next Weds 21 July, 7-8pm – don't miss Britain’s Bus Crisis: Privatisation, Poverty & Human Rights – the launch event for Philip Alston’s new report examining the devastating impact of bus privatisation across the UK 🚍🚏💸 Register to attend here 👇 alstonbusreport.eventbrite.com ...

alstonbusreport.eventbrite.com

Join us for the launch of Philip Alston’s new report examining the devastating impact of bus privatisation in the United Kingdom.

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When young I could get a train from Leven to Dunfermline.Beeching stuffed that.Then they let private companies loose and it went downhill.Buses were much better as well but they let the private companies loose there and the same route followed.Private companies want profit above service.

Bring back the corporations, metropolitan undertaking and regional state owned companies. The only private services should be those like the Delaine in Lincs who have been around for a long time and have given sterling service. The big groups need to be renationalised and broken up.

This makes me angry another Tory fuck up and they get away with it..grrrr

Covid19 has seen passenger numbers on both trains and buses at a very low ebb and could mean number of train rolling stock being made increasingly surplus to requirements.

Bus deregulation far more scandalous than rail privatisation ever was. The absence of anything resembling a minimum service requirement at the heart of that.

Nicholas Ridley, need I say more!