The railway ha$ got wor$e, and all that ha$ happened i$ that other people have got richer.

One of the main argument$ again$t public owner$hip i$ 'inflexibilty'. Why i$ a huge company like Virgin a$$umed to be capable of runing a railway, when they made their money $elling record$, and their main bu$ine$$ now i$ phone$ ?

The railways are now in a chaotic state as never before. Privatisation will not work however how many tries the government takes to try to fool the paying public. The Tories should admit their defeat and move on. They won't of course as all of their policies are ideologically (idiotologically) driven.

Today I travelled on Dutch trains and British trains. The difference in quality of service is profound. The British rail experience is embarrassing.

I don’t want shareholders making money from our railways. I want the profits to be put back into improving the service.

Private companies have proved incompetent at running a railway. State run railways work better so take them back now.

The present system is a shambles - many times worse than when it was 'British Rail' in the 1980s (I know, I was a season ticket commuter back then). Privatised franchises put short term profits before long term investment. By contrast, the public run East Coast main line manages to get it right.

I am not a person who believes in public ownership for each and every large corporation. However the Railways are clearly a nationwide concern, dependent on the support of a sizeable proportion of the public. Indeed the latter are stakeholders who have been utterly let down by privatisation, which has seen certain individuals make significant financial gains at the expense of Joe Public, who has also suffered personal distress. The efficiency of individual franchises and the efficacy of national maintenance and improvement works are deplorable.

Some form of public ownership would make it possible to simplify the rail fare system, this would provide more savings and would make it easier for more people to travel by rail. -Good for passengers, good for the environment.

I remember when we owned the railway and sure it was not perfect, but I do know I could get most places with no changes ar only one. The fares were affordable and need to be again.

Its time us being taxpayers get a first class deal for us, not propping up fat cats. and saving so much money will ensure we have a service we deserve

Rail fairs rising and trains services getting worse instead of train been run to the same set of rules for a better price not going into outside company’s profits

The rail network (and other public transportation systems) is as much an essential service as water, healthcare, education and public safety and as such should be owned by the people, admistrated by the state for the public benefit and never be abused by the private sector for the personal gain of fat cats.

The profits from the railways would then be put back into improving the system rather than being syphoned off to shareholders and speculators of companies which are sometimes foreign owned and not even in British ownership. Accountability would also be much more specific.

Railways are a public service and

should be publicly owned and run

Railways run for the public not for profits.

The most successful rail network in the UK is in Northern Ireland & it is in public ownership. They have been able to invest in the infrastructure while keeping fares stable & provide a first class service to the travelling public. This is an example of how public ownership will improve our rail system. I urge you to recommend taking the rail system back into public ownership to take us into the future.

Railway is too fragmented I've work on the railway for 10 years and the best company I worked for was non profit making ploughing all money made into maintainence and giving customer service

The railways need effective management - done for the people and not big companies!! Grayling is uselss and does't seem to be able to run anything effectively!!

Privatisation has clearly not worked. The maintenence of railways is a shambles, cost of travel puts people off using services.

It has been clear that privatisation and fragmentation of Britain's railways has benefitted the Train Companies and not the passengers. Strongly rising prices are met with with poor reliability and punctuality going from bad to worse. Huge sums of money have been paid in dividends to shareholders which with a publicly-owned railway could have been invested in services. Many of the Train Companies are foreign-owned, some in countries which do not have privatised railways and where services are better and fares lower. The saga of the East Coast line where it has been profitable under public ownership but with operating companies unable to make it viable and losing money to the public purse. Industrial relations under private ownership have been lamentable. The much vaunted timetable improvements turned out to be a fiasco. This privatised model is inefficient and poor value for money.

Standing on a train from Kings Cross to Doncaster on a Virgin train shows me privatisation is Not Working.

I commute daily to my place of work, mainly by rail. I have a work subsidised season ticket, which still costs me more than £1600 per year, to travel on substandard services which are overcrowded and subject to delay. This is unacceptable. It is time to return public transport to public ownership and the profits ploughed back into improving the service and infrastructure.

Having private companies running transport for poor people is just not efficient. Making a profit from people's necessity of travelling to work is terrible. Trains if ran properly could reduce emissions, help the environment, reduce congestion, make air cleaner (electric trains) and could improve the commute for millions of people. Currently, trains are unreliable, crowded, out-dated and inefficient. Why would private companies want to invest in the railways? It's not in their interest...they don't use it or more importantly, they don't need it.

I lived in Germany for many years where the railway is nationalised. The system is integrated, reliable and efficient.

Because it is the only way to fix it.

What we have now, is not fit for purpose, successive governments have dodged the issue in favour of letting private companies make obscene profits, without putting anything back in

As a regular user of Scotrail and the former East Coast, then Virgin and now LNER I have seen these service decline in private hands. It's time to call it a day and support the public demand for these services to be brought back under permanent public ownership.

Like the Post Office, the railway system was paid for from Government funding, for the people. The Government got the money with which they paid for the railway from taxes, from funds from the people. It was never theirs to sell. So, since the private zone is not working, it is a good opportunity to give it back. Other state run railways like Holland & japan, have huge success. In fact, I m guessing they are able to be so efficient because they pay for the best in all areas, and therefore it works well, and everyone is happy. It is inevitably more efficient to use profits to improve the serives offered.

Many of our railway companies are owned by European public bodies and their countries railways are, very sensibly, in public ownership. Railways are essential parts of a country's infrastructure and should be planned and owned in the public, rather than shareholder interests.

Already commented on this. Time to re-nationalise the railways!

I want to see joined up railways, instead of fractured franchises. I want the money paid on fares to be spent on the railways, not to line the pocket of shareholders!

Because the railways are an integral part of both social and economic infrastructure. They shouldn't be a political pawn, to be milked as a cash cow by shareholders. They are essential for the public and should be in the public's hands, and make fares not only cheaper, but also the same for journeys of the same length, regardless of area.

Line closures, crippling lack of investment, continually inflated fares, attempting to phase out guards for the sake of savings on wages and massive public money bailouts when fudged numbers make franchises "unviable" - the rail system has dreadfully mismanaged for decades and is still moving in the wrong direction. Privatisation has demonstrably given worse value and worse service. It needs to be reversed for the sake of the public good.

The Railways should have not be sold off private sector taken profits out to share Holders fat cat it was run better under British Railways it should no run for profit

Public transport is a public service. It should always be run for the benefit of its users, never for remote shareholders or investors. Public ownership is the only justifiable and sensible formula.

Public ownership is in the best interests of all concerned.

Private franchises simply dont work to benefit the public or the economy. Why? Because subsidìes from taxpayers are needed to ensure safety standards are met. This finance is clearly not being used for intended purpose thereby not benefitting service users passengers in case of railway services.

Margaret Thatcher revolutionised Britain by making state monopolies no longer assume the people by having competition from other companies so if people were ripped off they could vote with their feet and wallets and it worked, BT, Electricity and Gas were great examples and she deserves salutation for what she achieved. John Major as her 'consolidator' turned the motivation of privatisation from competition to solely the profit motive which was a corruption of her genius. Then New Labour came in and simply suppressed debate whilst starting privatisation of the NHS on the basis of the profit motive and Dutch auction bidding rather than any option for patients to choose anything. Rail is based on this, not letting customers use their wallets on the same section of track by making all franchises monopolies. How Margaret cries in heaven, she would allow at least two operators on any one route and whilst she would allow the private sector we would also allow state franchises. Put them in competition, let the people decide.

Amplifier public service which should be run for public benefit, not profit.

On three occasions last year my daughter was amongst the unlucky people left on the platform to wait nearly an hour for the next train on her daily commute. For the full duration of her season ticket she never got a seat.

The lack of investment in railway moving stock and track, efficiency and scheduling is pathetic compared to the amount the consumers regularly pay and are expected to pay in every price hike. This has to change.

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Having ,ived and worked in Europe and experienced first hand just how much better publicly owned railways operate there, I really don't see any other option. Actually all public transport should be publicly owned and properly integrated if we are even to have a chance of responding to environmental issues.

Public transport should be run purely for the benefit of the public and not as a profit making exercise

All the best run railways around the world are publicly owned . Privatisation of the railways has been a big disaster

Railways are meant to be a public service and not just about private profit.

The private sector has proved to be disastrous for the customer.

Neo-liberal corporate government has had its day. It has produced a fragmented, poor, expensive service for increases set by HM Government.

National Rail was deliberately thrown to the wolves in the late 1980s by the same Tory policy, in particular Oliver Letwin who wrote the blueprint in his disastrous 1988 tome "Privatising the World" where the general public were deemed consumers who could seek choice. Sadly this was not the case as the railway providers became state monopolies whereby the tax-payer didn't get the profit but received all the risks. The crisis set by the devious Tory party need not have happened but they let it to create the need for privatisation.

The train services are slower today than in 1966. They are often late or not running at all. They are infrequent and unreliable and beset by problems with basic infrastructure.

As fares increase and people's wages decrease, the ability to use this essential service becomes impossible and then the whole system stops.

If you continue with this ridiculously bad political ideology which has seen living standards fall and corporate profits rise, this country will be at war with itself.

It is essential that the railways are taken back into public ownership as soon as possible to end the disaster of privatisation

railways should be a benefit to all instead of increasingly coming to be exclusive to the most wealthy and run primarioly for the benefit of shareholders