It’s exciting that the government is delivering public ownership of our railway, backed by 3 out of 4 people in the UK.

As Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has said, “We’re going to wave goodbye to 30 years worth of inefficiency, waste, passenger frustration, and we’re going to step really confidently towards a new future for the railways.”

But there are huge risks for the government here too. Without the right package of broader reforms, the results could disappoint passengers. Public ownership must be a clear success and it must be seen as such.

This vision for the Railways Bill therefore has three demands for the government's upcoming rail legislation:

• Be ambitious for our railway, investing at the level of other European countries like Switzerland, expanding lines and reducing fares so that taking the train becomes the easy option.

• Deliver the benefits of public ownership – cross subsidy using profits to provide more services, integration, collaboration, efficient planning and a vision for the whole network. The reforms outlined in this document rely on the government recognising and choosing these benefits instead of continuing with disintegration and chaos. This means saying goodbye to competition law from 1993, and instead prioritising economic, social and environmental benefits like increasing services for rural communities and providing access to disabled passengers. It means saying no to continued private profits for rail operators and rolling stock companies.

• Listen to passengers as we kickstart this overdue conversation about what public ownership should look like, and give us a new democratic watchdog and representation in Great British Railways.

The vision has been created by bringing together rail experts and campaigners to call for a range of policies that will get this country to its final destination: a successful railway that we can all be proud of.

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