Bring Back British Rail

7 days ago

On April Fools’ Day 2015, Abellio - the company owned by the Dutch government - took over running ScotRail 🚆 Last year, after years of poor performance, Michael Matheson MSP agreed to end Abellio's contract three years' early (on 31 March 2022). Sign our #MakeScotRailPublic petition to demand that a publicly-owned operator takes over 📝 you.38degrees.org.uk/p/publicrailwayscotland ...

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Make all rail public ASAP.

To many foreigners taking over key industries and services . Profits are leaving the country in millions but services provided are abysmal. High time all key services were nationalised.

Most of our railways are nationalised. The trouble is it's all foreign nations. How on earth did our government let that happen? No replies please, I know.

It already is, the Dutch public own it.

Nationalisation is here to stay !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not the best climate at the moment but they can now see what Northern & LNER achieve in public ownership before anymore decisions

That's the SNP's plan.

No Tim, we will not ‘give it a rest’. We will continue haranguing you tories who want a privatised railway but continually demand that the public bail you out with subsidies, and are somehow happy that every single franchise is foreign-owned. Two faced hypocrisy.

We can't wait till 2022 - needs done NOW.

The franchise system is past its sell by date

I'm all for nationalisation in the bigger picture. But dont we subsidise the Scots enough. Thanks to us they already get,free prescriptions, tuition fees dentistry and all. So no let them pay for something themselves and generate their own income

In fact, people should be doing maths, not rocket science. The importance of passenger revenue under privatisation has declined. In the last ten years of BR, it averaged around 64% whereas in the first ten years of privatisation, its 55%.

Timing of this post is appalling. Give it a rest during this worldwide crisis.

SNP and Alex Salmond?

any train company should be public

Abeltitio more like

Can't nationalise it as Westminster /network rail are in charge of the tracks points and signalling and some Scottish stations

Renationalise all railways

Nationalise the lot 👍

Sam Hayward

Ed Henry

Phil Taylor Rio was the first name down

Shug Cumming

Covid-19: government suspends rail franchise agreements

2 weeks ago

A momentous day 🚆✊ 'Britain’s trains have effectively been nationalised' amidst the coronavirus crisis. This proves what we've been saying all along - public transport is an essential public service, not a cashcow for private operators. ...

www.theguardian.com

Emergency measures will be in place for six months to avoid train companies collapsing

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More on the story here: www.citymetric.com/transport/has-government-just-renationalised-britain-s-railways-4969

Call me a cynic but I see this as the Tories protecting their friends from losses associated with this crisis. The public purse will cover the damage. When this is all over the franchises will resume and we’ll be back to square one.

Let's try to make it permanent (although I think an arms length wholly owned organisation (ALMO) would be a better prospect in the long term).

When JC proposed re-nationalisation the howls of derision were ‘where’s the money coming from?’ Now the toryscum do it when there’s hardly any revenue coming in, so either this is an excuse to axe lines in favour of their beloved money pit HS2 or there really is a ‘magic money tree’ 🤔

Now they need to do the same thing with the water companies, it should be a public utility too.

Hurrah hurrah hurrah! I hope this crisis sends us back towards public ownership of all essential services x Responsible leadership is what's needed, not profits for shareholders!

Radical socialism is what's needed after all. The media & ruling class demonised Corbyn for suggesting such a thing. Funny, that.

The problem is, socialist nationalisation is without compensation to shareholders and pulls down the fat-cat managers’ salaries and bonuses to reasonable levels. Capitalist nationalisation protects the shareholders and executives at the expense of the tax-payer - remember the banks in 2008-14? They’re gonna give the railways back to the privateers. No joy here then, unless we fight to keep the railways public (RMT/ASLEF/TUC?).

Sorry, but let them go bust. The trains, track, and staff are all going to still be there, ready and waiting to be managed for the public benefit, not foreign nationalised train operators.

Michael Walsh

They are just 'socialisng' the losses. Moment the trains are back in profit they will privatise them again.

Paul Banks

Let's make ssure they stay in Public hands when this chaos is over!

Tories protecting their friends again, I guess when this is all over them get their franchise back for one pence.

Socialism saving the country.

Hmm.. you could almost wonder if they'd be better run by The State?

Terrible decision, the franchise holders should be made accountable and bail themselves out with the profits they have made. If not they should surrender the franchise. The government should commence an emergency nationalisation of the railways and rolling stock due to the pandemic. Forcing the discharged of all the private rail franchise contracts due to frustration and bringing them under the control and operation of the government.

All people who work on the railway read this.

Not nationalisation. Just allows them to bail out the franchises as their incomes fall. Branson will probably try to sue HMG for not allowing his gravy train to keep running. (He will just have to depend on whatever he gets from NHS!)

They'll give it back once it's profitable again.

Some good then from all this!

However, the train operators will continue to run the services "for a small predetermined management fee", the DfT said. Private companies will run the trains but the government underwrites it all and, during this exceptional time, carries the losses.

Socialism the only way

I wonder how many don't realise you've deliberately reversed the BR logo? At first I thought you'd 'hung the Union Flag upside down'.

Bloody Northern started arbitrary rolling cancellations on the day I was trying to get to Manchester Airport (March 20th). Had to get a taxi in the end after I'd paid for rail tickets. Good riddance I say, and welcome back BR (permanently I hope).

End privatisation to help 'left behind' areas of Britain, voters say

4 weeks ago

It's the privatisation of public services which has been a key driver of inequality across Britain over the last 30 years. Bring Back British Rail! Join us at: bringbackbritishrail.org ...

www.independent.co.uk

Study reveals reasons why voters support taking services back into public ownership

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When ever anything goes private the service drop and prices go up. Bring everything back as British.

It's the same story in virtually every case. Councils being forced by central government to outsource many services. Those service costs then spiral, there's little the council's can or are willing to do and so on. It's just a huge shit slinging fight where councils and local tax payers get shafted but central government sits there wanking over the scenario.

Be interesting to put a number to the amount of people who voted Tory to get Brexit but in non brexit days wouldn't have voted Tory or wouldn't have voted at all .... It wouldn't surprise me if that was a major factor in the result.

In privatisation the revenue and income earned from the fares appear to have dropped leading to increase in political subsidies. In the last ten years of BR, it averaged 64% while in the first ten years of privatisation, it was 55%, This explains why rail privatisation even with the highest fares in Europe cannot cover the cost

But voters had a chance to say that in the election and they backed the party who believe the railways are working. Labour proposed nationalisation and it was rejected. We must respect the will of the people - the last 4 years have taught not to disagree with the results of votes....

Bit late you all voted Tory

Bring back all the privatised companies that were given away by the corrupt Tory’s,

If you vote tory, the silver wear gets sold, it's comman policy however when there's trouble just dump it and run, and leave the blame elsewhere

You can only take back control of the TOCs, the track belongs to a different company and all the trains belong to banks and leasing companies who have paid out for them.

Actually, voters said the reverse on 12th December.

Far more passenger trains running now.

Which voters? Because clearly not the 13 million that voted Tory They will be put back into privatisation,the Tories will not run the railways as state owned

But they forgot about it in the election ! Spilt milk ?!!

My heart says renationalise everything. It is, after all infrastructure - which is different from 'industry'. My head, however, remembers when my coloured wife was insulted by British Rail counter staff in Nottingham in the seventies, I was ripped off by platform staff (porters) - also in the seventies - and generally an attitude that people turned up their places of employment as a favour. Customers were treated as a nuisance. Civility was rare. Workmanship standards were questionable. British cars were a joke, albeit rusty.

Privatisation has benefitted nobody apart from foreign ownership shareholders CEOs etc and has allowed regular frequent price rises and pisspoor customer service. Anybody who says it is better than British Rail is a stupid idiot

Biggest scam ever,privatisation,conned,gulled all for the rich to bleed the country dry with little or no input back.Crumbling britain except Londonistan gets everything going.

1 month ago

Northern Rail renationalised - a great decision for passengers! ...

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Privatisation has made so many poor decisions since early days. It's been a disaster.

This government's idea of re-nationalisation and our idea of re-nationalisation aren't necessarily the same thing!

This arguing about tory /labour is pointless. Look at the rail and coal industries, more track milage and pits shut when labour were in than the tories. Labour had 13 years and never renationalised the railway. That makes me think that both parties are bought and paid for and the establishment can then control things to suit themselves. If voting changed anything it would have been banned years ago. Just look at the government policies and broken promises since 1958.

I was a Deputy Chief Controller when we lost the supervision of the Great Eastern railways. You can imagine how difficult it was with the stock, staff and routes being under control. It will never work again until we gain ONE CONTROL system.

ive worked on the railway 32 years now. she has no idea what she's on about. its nothing to do with tories or labour because labour were in charge for 13 year and did nothing. lner is now government run. I used it today and it's still shit. another sticker another name changes nothing. the bunch of wankers in charge of the company are the problem

The East Coast route has been taken back into public ownership three times. It's easy to see what the future is for Northern Rail.

but i cannot easily get to southport on a sunday. 6 days a week its a doddle to get notts to southport. sunday twice as long and all over the country. ridiculous

well done Cat Hobbs, that is great!

For how long,Capitalism does not like nationalisation,tax payer will put it right again for privatisation.

We need to own it AND control it

But it needs to improve.

Slowly but surely

Now do the other franchises!

About bloody time. Northern are a bloody disgrace.

I really want to know just how much First Group are bunging the Tories to keep hold of Trans-Pennine. How they are somehow being portrayed as a victim of Northern Rail’s issue is disgusting. Northern never regular boot off a whole peak hour trainload of passengers at Stalybridge so the train can be reversed and avoid delay fines later in the day...

I don’t mind if others want their local or national lines renationalised but, current ticketing difficulties aside, please don’t change C2C it works better, far better than it ever did under BR

RIP BR's Mr S & C (Settle & Carlisle) Ron Cotton.

Network Rail is state owned. The DfT sanction what train operator's do. The Government is at the core of what goes both wrong and right with the railway. It was also Government interference that scuppered British Rail.

JEREMY CORBYN is right again 👍⭐🌟

1 month ago

Today Northern rail is re-nationalised. That’s two franchises down, only eighteen more to go! Join the original passenger-led campaign for a re-unified national rail network run for people not profit 🚆✊ bringbackbritishrail.org/franchises ...

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LNER are not exactly a good example are they? I support nationalisation wholeheartedly, but they have not improved the London to Leeds service plus it's now even more expensive than before! It needs to be done properly!

Let’s face it. This government is only nationalising these lines to pump public money into them and then, when they’ve got them up to spec, they’ll sell them, on the cheap, back to the public sector.

Will they ever learn the railways are for people to get around to see loved ones and visit places and earn a living not to fill up pockets of shareholders and foreign investors it's time for Change

But the same trains, same people running them, empty promises from the Dominic Cummings led government of overdue infrastructure improvements.

The common factor with the failed franchises is the DFT, yet renationalisation will involve the DFT and politicians even more. How exactly will that work? Get rid of political interference and safeguard freight paths and I would be all for renationalisation.

A lot of the reason it's shit is the billions wasted reducing capacity and the legacy of stupid short MUT rubbish. Marples totally fucking the system and the endless real cuts after were done by governments of both flavours.

maybe you should look into LNER and see who is actually running it , you maybe surprised , or maybe you just dont want to say !!!! simple fact is no part of the railway is run on a nationalised basis its all contracts

Unfortunately it will make very little difference until network rail get off their arse and do some serious work on the infrastructure, with proper skilled railwaymen.

Needs to be re-organised. Publicity runned Northern Ireland Railways and mainland Europe Railway are working.

You do understand that under either a nationalised or privatised railway the industry is run by the government irrespective...

Strike some more and South Western Railways is next. A total shambles of a train company.

Still.needs a lot of common sense building into the system.

I do hope the r m t ballot calls for all out strikes time to rid us of johnson

Get rid of first class coaches. They have no place in the modern world.

You forgot Railtrack. Easily done - it’s just all the infrastructure. www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/oct/08/Whitehall.transport

South Western Railway next?!

This needs to happen on the K&WVR.

Please let Southwestern be next.

I was in Brighton last weekend. Sunday 1530 to London was 12 carriages. Compare this with 3 or 6 Edinburgh to Manchester service at peak times!

I can honestly see GWR doing this very soon

Southeastern next please, 14 years of misery for us now...

Capitalism is just one success after another 🤔

I hope we can renationalise South Eastern rail soon!

When the railways were built in the victorian times. Their was not so many people to transport around. In comparison to nowadays a lot more people. Nothing has changed a lot over the years of improving the rail network. Still in the yeara of the victorian times. Its not easy to get trains in the right places to go if its unworkable. It needs good planning to make it work.

On this site I’d like to know which part of BR you want back, you have to remember things were very different in those days, for example PPE was absolutely dire. The H&S was often non existent, there were a lot of dead-wood staff. Even the sandwiches were horrific!!! It was run on a shoestring budget, so the equipment was clapped out and skinflint ideas are still about such as the Pacers. Sadly we still have equipment although nostalgic is costly to run all legacies of that should have gone ages ago. Unfortunately the words future proof are low on priorities except for the busiest main lines, despite the vast numbers of new housing developments going on and the over-congested roads.