Bring Back British Rail

1 week ago

This evening the Virgin Trains brand finally disappears from our railways as its contract running our West Coast Main Line ends... Good riddance! But with a PR campaign like this, we doubt Avanti West Coast will be much better. It's time to end the farce of rail franchising and Bring Back British Rail! Join our campaign: bringbackbritishrail.org ...

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Does that include the north Wales coast to Holyhead

Firstly, I'm a big supporter of nationalising the railways again. However, as a regular West Coast mainline user with Virgin over the last 22 years I have to admit a twinge of sadness at them losing the franchise. I've rarely had anything other than very good or excellent service from the brand. The trains were modern and clean. Food was acceptably priced and a decent offering and the staff were almost always super friendly. The quote in the BBC coverage by a rail expert captures it perfectly when it says that Virgin brought a "sense of panache" to the railway. In fact, such was the reputation of Virgin that people were often quite excited at a prospect of a journey with them by comparison to any of the other operators.

They’re not ‘creating a railway’ as the video might suggest. There’s a different name on the train crew payslips and that’s about it. Will they employ an Italian solution to getting the trains to run on time? 🧐

An article in the present issue of Railway Magazine would make me suggest that Branson was much too optimistic.

Part owned by the Italian state railway. That's nice!

Goodbye Virgin who have served me well as a regular long distance commuter for five years between 2010 and 2015, and subsequently. Avanti have a hard act to follow in my humble opinion. Were we to re-nationalise train operations (and none would be happier for this to happen than myself) then I hope we reap from the lessons learned from the Virgin operation. The customer service from on train staff was good to excellent. Punctuality in my experience was better than most having commuted from Birmingham to London with them for a five year period on a daily basis. And pricing was good but relied on the ability to plan in advance to get a good price. Not always possible but Virgin were not unique in this respect.

OK, so you want Boris Johnson running the railways?

Hopefully the talking toilets will be destroyed

Made me feel a bit sick.

the BBC seems to think that Virgin bought all the new rolling stock instead of just leasing it. :-p

Pity Virgin felt they could bypass pension agreements and refused to pay into the pot for all staff. This props up the pensions for staff on the less lucrative lines, the cornerstone of the BR pension scheme. Good riddance to bad rubbish. BBBR

I remember standing on the platform at Coventry station in March 1997 and hearing the announcement that the train that will be taking me was a Virgin train, I thought I'd misheard until the train rolled in with the Greedy tax dodgers name plastered all over it. It is very comforting to know today nearly 23 years later he no longer has his greedy mitts on another asset that he can bleed dry. I'll be raising a glass this evening.

Meanwhile elsewhere the two-car trains packed to the gun'ls, totter and groan their way along whilst 35 MILES of sidings are full of off-lease trains. Well why lease more when you can jam all your 'customers' in a couple old two-cars? Recent trip Yeovil to Bristol was the usual bundle of laughs... NOT!

Getting rid of anything associated with Branson is a huge positive.

Never travelled on West coast but was a regular on East coast and it's a damn site better since virgin lost it .

How many commentators here actually travel regularly by train ? 🤔

What a load of PR guff

Same shit different colour.

#£uqdabranson

Problem with the rancid toilet and chemical smell was because the dumb arse who designed the trains thought positioning the exhaust pipe next to the latrine tank was a good idea.

3 weeks ago

Support the original passenger-led campaign for the public ownership of our railways founded in 2009 🚆 Our #GE2019 Merch Special Offer gets you a Rail Card Wallet, Enamel Badge and Embroidered Patch for just £10 including delivery in the UK. Order at 👉 bringbackbritishrail.org/merch ...

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Order online at www.bringbackbritishrail.org/product/bundle/

Stickers - we need Stickers!

Absolutely- but with much improvement from BR!

Would never happen can’t replace a name costs to much

Couldn’t be worse than what we have now, ..and it was cheaper, the food was affordable, ... I liked the 🥪 ... or is it nostalgia? , it seemed much better 20/30 years ago.. 😐

If this goes ahead, I hope the reincarnated BR is much better than the old one.

Yes,but not the buffet car sandwiches…..

Private Rail has cost the Taxpayer Billions in subsidies. It is subsidised much more than BR ever was, and I wont even start on Taxpayer Bailouts.

The tories stole it from us didn't they!

Nigel Cross

Nicky Nunney

Paul Simpson

Why is the logo backwards? Am I missing something?

God i hope not

Never going to happen - rail is a devolved matter in Scotland.

And lose 100S of millions every year

Oh yes, but all the private companies that run our fragmented over-priced, over-crowded rail network may have to look elsewhere for their profiteering...what a shame !

Bring it on labour

Why are the arrows facing the wrong way ????

bring back dutch branson sauce

I worked for Sealink they are designed to be seen on both sides of the funnel as shipping channels are on the right as opposed to railways. Sealink staff were very proud of that.

Patience, a virtue essential to all public transport passengers! We'll get British Rail back once we have a Government that works for the public good.

Only if they bring back the 'Treacle Tea'. That was gorgeous. Like thick syrup in a paper cup. Needed an electric whisk to stir the sugar in it. :)

All right but promise not to bring back the sandwiches.

I see the waged tory trolls are on here too🤣

Northern rail could be renationalised, says transport secretary

2 months ago

'Northern rail could be renationalised, says transport secretary'. It can't come soon enough! Join our campaign for a publicly-owned railway run for people not profit: bringbackbritishrail.org ...

www.theguardian.com

Grant Shapps says it is not OK for trains to fail to arrive or for Sunday services to be lost

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Who are you expecting to believe this nonsense, re-nationalisation will never happen under a conservative government (where have you been for the last 35 years) there is an election coming, ministers will say yes to anything that might win them a vote.

Doesn’t matter who has their name on the trains, if the manufacturers can’t deliver there are no new trains. Also won’t accelerate infrastructure problems causing delays such as two new platforms at Piccadilly, Extension of platforms at Leeds, completion of electrification in Manchester suburban and Stanage route or replacement of some pretty grotty I accessible stations.

No no a tory suggesting nationalising the railways!!! What next a tory buffoon as PM!

Interesting to see ifcunions attitude changes if nationalised. Would prove that theyvhave had a poloitical agenda all along if they go quiet

It was already nationalised, just not British. All the railways now belong to foreign state operators.......

Yes please. And for goodness sake get rid of the godawful units pictured. Seasick after 10 miles...

Renationalising it will solve what? Network Rail can't deliver projects on time ,CAF can't deliver rolling stock on time, the DfT vice like grip on everything will still be there, still at the mercy of th he idiotic local.transport executives like tfgm who couldn't run a bath.

Will be acid test for whichever government is in power. Make a success of nationalisation of this franchise and carry on. Fail and the call for further change will disappear very quickly. With cost of improvements the public will demand it will mean that money needed for HS 2 will be diverted and that project will open up in about 2040

What has happened or where has the 1billion pounds Northern were given to improve services etc three years ago ?

Interesting read it says that half their trains are always late how do the government think they're going to improve on that when they gave Manchester half the railway they promised but still sent twice the traffic.

If so, I wouldn't mind travelling on any of their trains if I were visiting the north of England. Maybe the Pacer trains could be scrapped once and for all!

You know I received similar arguments from privatisation fanatics citing that the Nationalised parts of the network have failed. Amazing how many think that when we gather hard facts from this page.

Seems to of got worse since Serco lost it and that says something, as Serco are not the greatest firm on earth.

Arguably has the shittiest rolling stock in the country.

Well, if the Tories can renationalise one or two, Labour will have no trouble renationalising the lot.

Should have been sorted out before now, but with Failing Grailing at the helm what chance did we have.

Operator of last resort??? Should be operator of first resort!

The 150s brought up from GWR are now as old as the stock BR built them to replace!

What about the rail network that links the South west to London? Re nationalise THE WHOLE NETWORK and not just the north.

And hopefully ditch those 142’s

Not renationalised, a management company like Southern takes over. There is a difference

Didn’t nationalisation lead to beeching axe etc. Would renationalisation avoid that fate again

And then the rest

And back to running pacers

Followed by #Govia

Bring Back British Rail shared a photo.

2 months ago

Check out this display from the Museum of Neoliberalism, showing all our country's rail franchises now run by different foreign governments. Time to Bring Back British Rail! Join our campaign at: bringbackbritishrail.orgPrivatised UK train operators owned - in full or in part- by foreign governments. A display from the Museum of Neoliberalism, which we're crowdfunding on Indiegogo in order to open it in London next month. 11 days left and we're at 34% of our goal 😬. Still a way to go! There's a bunch of rewards for backers so please check it out: www.indiegogo.com/projects/museum-of-neoliberalism#/

Neoliberal theory presumes that the state should not intervene in or direct the free operation of markets. Yet in reality when new ‘free’ markets are created, they find themselves at key points subsidised, maintained, propped up or bailed out by national states. The display above shows which foreign states own significant amounts of British rail services since they were privatised.

In effect, since privatisation, our expensive but underinvested rail networks subsidise more efficient and cheaper public train services around Europe.

www.museumofneoliberalism.com

#museumofneoliberalism #neoliberalism #classicalliberalism #hayek #thatcherism #reaganomics #privatisation #nationalisation #privatization #privatisedtrains #privatisedrail #networkrail #britishrail #nationalised #bringbackbritishrail #virgintrains #arriva #crosscountrytrains #UKrail ...

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Forgot to say, a lot of this was done before the last Labour government came into power and they just sat on their arses.

Whilst Keolis is majority owned by SNCF (French State) the other partner in Transport for Wales is Amey which is owned by Ferrovial S A who are a Spanish infrastructure and transport company. Still a sell out mind...

An absolute national disgrace thanks to the greed and irresponsibility of the Tories. WE should own it😡

Absolutely ridiculous that the taxpayer subsidises rail travel for other countries state-owned railways to make a profit. Complete madness! If there is room for profit, then it should be used to lower ticket prices and improve quality of service

This is totally unacceptable that we cannot have a state ran railway but other EEC countries do and take massive UK tax handouts to run their own state railways. This is another EU tax on the UK.

Oh dear oh dear no train operator/franchisee owns the their part of the rail, they have a licence to run the trains for the area... trains are leased by ROSCOs/finance companies and the DfT has the ultimate say what can be done or not.

Our railways, whoever runs them, are still better than those in the US. My American friends told me that but I didn't believe them till I tried them for myself. As for 'dinner in the diner, nothing could be finer than to have your ham and eggs, etc' oh no...terrible food on AMTRAK...we had an inedible chicken burger on our way to Chicago, and we joke about British rail sandwiches! Our local station provides free bottled water during the summer months and we have book exchange shelves.

We have literally sold ourselves off. This is just one aspect and it has happened in many other industries.

Very odd - I thought the Tories were patriots and didn’t like Europe? Oh yes of course, they’re hypocrites...silly me! They’d rather another country ran our railways instead of this country running them as public services. The organisations mentioned are all publicly-owned in their countries of origin. How does that work? They must consider us a laughing stock. 🐀

Tory privatisation in the 1980s was accompanied by the statement that to compete in the world we had to follow EU rules by privatising assets, as apparently the EU wouldn’t let State owned organisations compete abroad. Hence selling our assets off. Which proved a) they lied about the EU, and b) we got well screwed by the Tories. Again, and again, and again......

At least they are state-owned, unlike e.g. VTWC.

Yet people think Brexit will "bring back control". The EU was never the problem, privitisation is!

Well, that's one way of sort-of staying nationalized and in the EU...

Let's make Britain British again, and take Britain's transport into public ownership and all the rest that have been privatised!!

This is so so wrong if when we get out EÚ the government need to take back our railways , as we paying for other countries get cheap train travel ..

No need to list LNR and WMT as two different franchises, it’s one franchise with two different “brands”. WMT being the franchise with LNR & WMR as the brands. Oh and Stansted Express doesn’t need to be listed either as it’s part of the GA franchise.

My dad worked for BR back in the day. Im so glad he is not here to see this, it would have killed him. Just mortifying. Time to renationalise once and for all.

Pan-European public rail now!

Who owns Great Western? They're not on the list

Are we the only country with privatised rail?

Nationalisation is fine with everyone else!

WE want our country back. lest own our own railways again

Did no one want Southeastern?

Put it back to BR, Build loco again, create jobs, get rid of all the money grubbing franchisees.

I blame the EU they made our government sell off the railways. L o l

UK rail industry reaches key political junction

3 months ago

Keith Williams' Rail Review is due to be published this autumn. Will it recommend we Bring Back British Rail? ...

www.ibtimes.com

Overcrowded trains, especially when strikes add to disruption, are a common complaint by those who must use British railroads

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And...Electric/Gas/Post Office/Pilot training for the RAF/Water/buses...in fact everything that has gone to private companies. However...we need proper and knowledgeable managers to run them...NOT POLITICIANS!

NO it won't BUT we wish it would!!!!

And who is going to pay for re nationalising because that is going to be so exppensive thre will be no cash for investment

We already know it's not going to recommend renationalisation. It's just another Beeching report.

The way we are going it will probably recommend bringing back rationing.

I wonder what the average age of UK trains are

One finding will be the urgent need to replace ageing rolling stock with new kit we just don't have

Not a chance. They wouldn’t have commissioned it if there was even a chance of it.

i hope so.

Should do privatisation has failed well done Mr major even Maggie wouldn't touch it

Don't think it will bring British Rail back. Look more likely more money and more maintenance for many years. As long as the Tories stay in power, privatsation likely to continue.

No unfortunately ☹️

Sadly not.

Well we live in hope, I despair at the state of our railways since privatisation..........

Keith William's was a appointed stooge, with the whole point of the review being done for the prime purpose of stopping calls for re-nationalisation and thus 'Bring back British Rail' calls. It could not have been anything else whilst it was commissioned under the Tory's and during Greyling's watch. It will not be worth the paper that it is written on, leave alone the cost of producing a piece of rubbish!

Just because an industry is nationalised does not mean that it has to be run by politicians.

I WISH .....

Fares rising by as much as 2.8% while our railways suffer further in the hands of politics since John Major's White Paper was imposed.

It will if it's not 'stymied' by political interference!

Even if it did why on earth do you think they would listen. Post an example of where the right wing Conservative party have listened!

No. It will say what the Tory government told him to say.

Of course not. Williams is another ten-a-penny private business idiot consultant whose primary interest is financial... "how can I squeeze every drop of blood from this stone?".

No.