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Saturday, 21st November 2009

East Coast Main Line 'should be nationalised permanently'

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Published Date: 07 November 2009
By CHRIS MARSHALL
THERE were growing calls today for the flagship Edinburgh-London rail line to be permanently nationalised after the loss-making franchise was temporarily taken out of private hands.
The government announced this week that the East Coast Main Line would come back under public control from next Friday. It is expected the route will be run by the government until mid-2011, with any profit being returned to the public purse.

But
rail campaigners and union leaders today called for the franchise to remain in public hands indefinitely to avoid "gambling" once again on privatisation.

The route will transfer to a government-controlled company at one minute before midnight on 13 November after current operator National Express was forced to give up the franchise.

The company took over the running of the route in 2007 and is widely believed to have overpaid after agreeing to hand the government £1.4 billion over seven years.

Transport minister Lord Adonis stepped in earlier this year after the company ran up huge losses running the route.

In a statement, Lord Adonis confirmed the route would pass into public ownership from next week. He said: "I can assure the travelling public that services will continue without disruption and all tickets will be honoured.

"Staff currently employed by National Express East Coast will transfer to the East Coast Main Line company."

Bob Crow, general secretary of the Rail and Maritime Transport (RMT) union, said there was an opportunity to take the route permanently into public ownership.

He said: "This is the second privatisation failure on the East Coast route following on from the GNER collapse.

"We will be meeting ministers to demand that this renationalisation is made permanent rather than being seen as an expensive short-term fix with a third gamble on privatisation in 18 months' time."

Lawrence Marshall, of the Capital Rail Action Group, said keeping the East Coast Main Line in public hands would help provide a useful comparison with the rest of the network.

He said: "My view is that the franchise should be left with the government and not put back out to tender. If there is money to be made on this franchise, and presumably there is given the amount of interest when National Express took over, then why not let the public purse have the money.

"As a further point of principle, it is useful to have a public sector comparator. That provides a useful basis to evaluate the whole system in the UK."

Links

www.dft.gov.uk

www.rmt.org.uk



Page 1 of 1

  • Last Updated: 07 November 2009 4:00 PM
  • Source: Edinburgh Evening News
  • Location: Edinburgh
 
1

Davy,

comrades 07/11/2009 12:55:10
Well done the rail workers. Our comrades in the rail service will managed a great victory over the capitalists. The money monsters will not be happy.
2

Invictager,

Kent 07/11/2009 13:04:55
Neither GNER nor NXEC were any sort of advert for a privatised train service.

As one of the poor barstewards who took 7.5 hours ( and 4 trains despite it being a direct service) to get from London to Motherwell on 20/10/09 I can assure you that nationalisation can only make things better.

Went back Virgin in 4.25 hours at half the price.
3

Mrs Alex Pinkfoot,

07/11/2009 13:46:49
#2
That,s nothing it took me 8.75 hours to listen to the complaints of co-workers who used the East Coast Main Line last week.
4

Alice Cooper,

07/11/2009 14:00:26
wouldnt say the east coast line is bad,but the rocket was used to take passengers to london
they are still awaiting their arrival
5

leith ronnie in london hfc ,

Barking, in Essex 07/11/2009 14:29:56
hope they drop the price as its £107-80 single or £108-00 return from kings cross to waverley its out of order the cost
6

Aman,

Inverleith 07/11/2009 15:59:01
I can never find on-line any of the low-cost tickets NXEC advertise, for the Edinburgh,London journey.
7

Flitcraft,

Edinburgh 07/11/2009 17:36:49
Things did improve a bit initially with GNER but then nose-dived under NXEC. I travel regularly on this line and have done for the past 7 years. The main problem is the horrific expense. You have to book weeks in advance to have a chance of a cheap ticket - which is impossible for me and my partner as we have business commitments which we can't always predict. You can expect to pay over a hundred pounds for a bad cramped, noisy standard class service with dodgy toilets and an erratic trolley service. It's no exaggeration to say ticket prices have doubled over the time I have used it - way above inflation, and much of that thanks to the government creaming off money from the private operators as part of their contract. Given the environmental importance of people being able to take the train instead of flying, it's a scandal, and a great example of how privatisation of public services scalps the customer.




8

Zemi,

EDINBURGH 08/11/2009 07:53:17
Ach. I had a petition making a case to abolish charges on all public transport and only about 50 people signed it. They're only like lifts in tall buildings or elevators in department stores and you don't pay fares on those. The extra business these facilities make easy to reach generates far more money than they cost. Public transport serves the same purpose. Abolish the fares. They'll pay for themselves and then some.
9

Iain Mac,

08/11/2009 13:09:41
ALL our rail should be re-nationalised. At the moment, tax-payers' money is going to private companies who are also charging higher fares but delivering a substandard service.

First Scotrail's performance in the last month has been asbysmal. Almost every train i've been on has been at least 5 minutes late, some 10 to 20 minutes late - and this is daily. It's not a catastrophe but some people need to be at work on time.

Let's see a unified service under public control.
10

danbob,

08/11/2009 14:37:25
Ironic that the government caused the problem with the high fares on the ECML and now find themselves running it as a consequence.
11

Julian.,

edinburgh 08/11/2009 22:15:04
#8

Agreed. This government keeps banging on about the environmental problems of internal air journeys but does nothing to make the alternative (rail) more attractive. They should be taxing air fuel and using this money to subsidise rail.
12

The Busman,

09/11/2009 11:48:25
#11

As this is one of the few premium franchises (ie it pays money to the government), the DfT relies on its earnings to bolster the rest of the system. The temptation to cut services to improve the net cash returns may prove to be too much.

Air travel is also taxed via the Air Passenger Duty mechanism, and it is not trivial either.

 

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