3 reasons why it's time to break up - with the rail industry

Woman on railway platform

1 February 2017

Have you ever felt trapped in a bad relationship - with a train company? If it helps, you're not alone. 58% of us think that privatisation has been a failure. We want out.

Today the train companies offered, after 20 years of totally ripping us off, to try out ripping us off slightly less. Meanwhile the Association of British Commuters has launched a legal challenge to get the government to take over Southern Rail.

Here are our top 3 reasons to break up with the rail industry.

1) It's just too little, too late

"You say you wanna communicate..." (JoJo)

After being told by the Transport Select Committee that train fares are unfair, complex and not transparent enough, today the rail industry offered us a little something. They're going to do a trial of simpler ticketing. This means you'll save money on some longer journeys because they'll automatically offer you the best ticket for a route - instead of making you hunt out complicated ways to split your ticket (or be ripped off). Why haven't they done this before? Maybe because they were doing quite nicely out of the existing system and its 16 million (yes, you read rightly) different fares.

Of course it's great that fares are going to be fairer. But what would be even fairer than that? Public ownership! We're sick of seeing fares go up above inflation year after year. Public ownership would save us all £1.2 billion and if that money was put directly into fare reductions, all our fares would be 18% cheaper.

2) Baby now we've got bad blood

"Now we've got problems and I don't think we can solve them." (Taylor Swift)

The Southern crisis is out of control. Even Conservatives MPs are calling for the franchise to be brought in-house and there are rumours that the government is thinking about it. Passengers have had enough of having their lives thrown into chaos by Southern Fail.

Today, we're excited to see that the Association of British Commuters has launched a legal challenge to force the government to take action.

"Commuters have long since passed the point of exhaustion, and it is a matter of shame on the department that we have had to go to such great lengths to ask them to finally take action on this failed company.” Emily Yates, a founder of the Association of British Commuters, in the Guardian

Southern Rail are the worst right now but there's not much love lost for the other train companies either. Only 3 in 10 of us trust the rail industry to act in our best interests.

3) Don't you ever for a second get to thinking you're irreplaceable

"To the left, to the left." (Beyonce)

We've done public ownership before. We can do it again. When the East Coast line was run in public ownership, it was the most efficient franchise in the UK and returned £1 billion to the public purse. Trains in many other countries are run in public ownership. (In fact many of these state-owned companies run our railways too but as private operations.) Public ownership makes sense. We don't have to stick with privatisation when it keeps letting us down. We have options!

The rail industry is getting twitchy. Frustration about fares and the Southern crisis are clear signs that this relationship is going downhill. By working with other campaigners like the Association of British Commuters, Bring Back British Rail and Action for Rail, we can stand up for passengers who want to say goodbye to privatisation, and hello to public ownership.

Woman on railway platform

Photo credit: Matt Buck

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