Rail Partners has responded to the news that three London train operators are to be brought under public control next year.
They say that bringing South Western Railway, c2c and Greater Anglia under Government control is a watershed moment, which wont deliver a reliable service for passengers.
‘Publishing the timeline for bringing SWR, C2C and Greater Anglia into public ownership is a watershed moment that means the Government is now taking charge of fixing the railways, but has parked the big decisions about how to do that until next year.
‘Simply changing who runs the trains won’t deliver more reliable and affordable services for passengers, reduce subsidy for taxpayers, or grow rail freight.
‘The key to both improving performance and holding down fares is restoring the railway to financial sustainability. It is counter intuitive to start removing private sector operators from the system, with their track record of delivering growth to reduce subsidy, when the question of what will replace them long-term won’t be answered until further rail legislation is introduced.
‘The government has a mandate for its plans for rail nationalisation, now it must deliver the improvements passengers and freight customers want.’
Rail Partners chief executive, Andy Bagnall
Responses
You can be certain that the politicians making these decisions now, won’t be in place to provide the excuses for why things haven’t improved in years to come. As usual.
Sounds a Great idea doesn’t it ? Trouble is where will the investment come from ? Obviously through more rises in ticket sales ! When the new Rail minister Hedi Alexander was 5his morning on LbC radio she couldn’t even say how much the change would cost so could be Taxpayers again !
I bet the Greater Anglia branding and logo will be retained. Greater Anglia need to sort out some stations including Wickford. And c2c need to sort out Basildon and Stanford-le-Hope stations and a new station at Beam Park.