Since privatization we have this disparate system of routes run by various companies which makes for a complicated procedure for identifying the ticket you need to book. To get a reasonably priced ticket you have to be able to book well in advance and be sure of being able to travel that day and time - no flexibility.

Generally, tickets are overpriced unless you get a cheap deal. Commuters particularly stung. Most, I think, would prefer one system with one pricing programme, even if it missed out the 'bargains'.

Always impressed with smooth running trains on the continent. Our rolling stock is having to play catch up, facilities are often poor and trains are crowded and unreliable often.

The south west line which runs through Dawlish is a disgrace - totally unreliable in the winter months. Investment is badly needed instead of tinkering with short term solutions which are not fail safe even in the short term. The whole economy of the area is hostage to a ridiculously unreliable route.

The railways were privatised to increase competition, but on most routes competition is impossible, and the railway are in hands of a few (mostly foreign-owned) monopoly companies, whose business is to make money by means of running a railway, where the railway is a product (like a tin of beans), not a service. The rot set in when 'passengers' became 'customers'! We need an integrated railway system run for the benefit of the passengers, where the making of money is a means, not an end.

This country drastically needs a genuinely public transport system. For both economic and environmental reasons it is essential that the railway network ceases to be run for a profit and starts to be a offered as a proper, public service instead.

If 'private' industry is deemed capable of providing the system whilst taking a profit then it is equally possible for this service to be delivered by the public sector on a not for profit basis.

This is a unique opportunity to deliver part of our transport system back to where it belongs - in the hands of the public.

We need a joined-up, affordable public transport network

I completely agree with the comments about the East Coast line when it was in public ownership. The fare system is far too complicated and there should be a unified system that makes costs of rail travel the same throughout the country. I am also concerned about the safety of passengers on Northern Railways if the company succeeds in bringing in driver operated doors and can at times travel without a second member of staff on the train.

Private ownership is demonstrably not working for anyone else but the shareholders, let's start running the railways for the benefit of the public and rail users.

Money paid out as dividends reduces the amount available to invest in the system.

Privatisation of the railway network was always an ideological decision and the way it was done made a bad decision worse. The railway system is a natural monopoly and it is essential that it's run in the interests of the public rather than shareholders. The long series of crises and disasters show only too clearly that the private sector can't be trusted and the whole network needs to be reintegrated under public ownership. The East Coast line shows this can be done effectively. This isn't ideology, it's common sense!

The rail network has proved itself unsuitable for privatisation. There are necessary services which ensure remote parts of the country remain connected and this fact does not sit well alongside the profit motive. The government continues to sink money into the network alongside train service providers that are unreliable, unaccountable and hugely profitable, all at the expense of the passenger. Taking the railway back into public ownership would be a popular, vote-winning, move, it would put more money in the exchequer and would ensure that our country remains connected.

It is ridiculous that a ticket from A to B is often restricted to certain train operators. How is the public supposed to know whether a ticket is valid on a particular train when all the ticket says is something like "only available on approved trains". Public ownership is the only way to get rid of this nonsense.

Privatisation of the railways has been a failure. The East Coast fiasco is only the most visible part along with the timetable chaos we have seen this year. elsewhere, fares are high, services are poor and money is siphoned off into greedy "investors". If British Railways had had the investment that the government has poured into the private railways, the service would be much better and fares would be lower - just look at the largely public rail services on the continent to see this

It is a complete and utter lie and contemptible fraud that should make the ministers and the business people involved face criminal charges that a private company is funded by public money to make profits for individuals whilst these same individuals claim there is no money available to finance the public transport system properly and yet they pay themselves fat cat salaries and enormous dividends to shareholders and their buddy mates in related industries and the commuter and the public get the worst services in Europe.

Many members of my family have worked for the railways in the past. We are all ashamed of the shambles it has become, poor and overcrowded services, unacceptable delays and ridiculously high prices. None of us travel by train anymore. My last experience was frightening and I spent hours crushed outside the toilets surrounded by festival goers who also had no seats and nowhere to store their bags. The private sector has no interest in service only profits. The Government has no interest in service only bailing in out failing companies who have already asset stripped the very services they were appointed to run. Public ownership is the only way to sort out the chaos.

The railways were deliberately underfunded in the run up to privatisation but they still performed far better than they do now. Every journey I make on the railways now is a lottery.

Our railways are still state owned but not by the British state. Foreign investors do not have the interests of the travelling public at heart, why would they?

Privatisation was just about political dogma. Running our railway is far too important to millions of travellers for decisions to be left to the profit hunters of the private sector.

As a 72-year-old man, who commuted into London for most of his working life, I've travelled on

British Rail and on the privatised services. Whilst the latter has added some superficial PR polish

to the services, the fundamental requirement of reliable travel at a sensible price and in reasonable

comfort has deteriorated substantially under the disjointed private rail services. Network Rail has

lost most of its skilled resources as a result of the out-sourcing of work to private companies. I

dread to think what visitors make of our the byzantine ticketing system, which serves only to confuse

and extract the maximum profit for the companies. Our Rail Services are being run in the interest of

big business and shareholders not the people.

The rail service in the UK is a national disgrace. We are told to use public transport but if you want to get to work in time, it is impossible to depend on trains. They cancel services left right & centre. You do not services that you have paid for in first class because service is constantly cancelled. I do not know how the make any money because I claim so much back from them. Services in the North are in carriages that should be in museums. When you use trains in Europe including Russia it is the polar opposite. Clean, fast, regular & punctual modern service. My daughter had a case in Derby. Every train she took from Leeds & back over 14 days was delayed or cancelled. Instead of arriving home at 6-6.30 to her 9 month old baby, she was getting back at 7.30-8.30. In the end, I stayed in a hotel in Derby with the baby or she drove. This is the human cost. There are people trying to get home to sick relatives, elderly parents, to see their children before bedtime etc. It is totally unacceptable.

The shysters, spivs and speculators have taken over. The 'Big Four' outsourcing and "accountancy" firms -plus many others- would'nt have given British Rail a second glance. They do now, eyeing profit and solely profit. Civil engineering, one once 'in house' professional railway activity now has more contractors (each with their own bureacracy)'creaming'mouth-watering fees from an inept Government. We need change and that has to be back in public ownership.

In a developed, industrial/post-industrial society railways are a public good, of benefit to the wider economy and society. It is absurd that journeys are cheaper by road when this causes so much pollution and congestion. Rail has been priced out of reach for so many since privatisation in the mid-1990s. The rate of Government subsidy has risen, from memory, I think two or three times what it was for British Rail, as a nationalised industry. Since 2010 the rate of Government spending has fallen and so fares risen beyond the largely stagnant levels of most people's wages. Yet the service is unreliable. If there is a case for not having one, monolithic provider then separate units, or operators within the public sector can provide competition and innovation, without having to privatise. So why persist with this failed experiment? And this is without going into the need for affordable, integrated transport at mainline rail stations, particularly, in rural areas and working out how best to combine the advantages of car use for some journeys with the benefits of rail, to cut congestion and pollution.

Privatisation has been a catastrophic failure for commuters, tourists, people wishing to visit family, disabled people,safety and the environment. Prices rise dramatically year on year while the service and state of the trains and railways continues to decline. It can be cheaper to fly to Glasgow from London via Berlin than take the train; however the cost to the environment of enforced air and car travel is immeasurable. Public transport must be run by and for the public NOW!

Privatisation of the railways has been an expensive shambles and it is time we had a national rail strategy including light rail under public ownership

As with other privatisations the privatised railway is fragmented and confusing. Ministers point to increased investment but this has come largely from the public purse not the private rail companies. There is no real competition here either. Rail companies make over optimistic bids to win the contracts and are then bailed out (East Coast x 2) when they find that they can't make a profit. This Government doesn't like nationalised industries and yet our rail system is run by a number of them, Deutsche Bahn, SNCF and the Chinese state rail company. We Own It! Let's have it back.

The idea that our third-rate, privately-owned railways are a means for enriching shareholders, out of the misery of those who travel on them is truly appalling. We need a publicly-owned, affordable, world-class rail system, with profits ploughed back into it, and which benefits those who pay to travel on it, not the parasitic class which sees it as an investment opportunity.

Politicians are always quick to paint a bleak picture of how British Rail functioned. But any imperfections there were at that time pale into insignificance against the incompetence, the shambles, the con that the current system allows. The government has failed in every sector of privatisation whether probation, prisons, buses, water, and goodness knows how many more. Private rail companies are allowed to get away with practices and treatment of the public that would land other organisations to shutdown or jail. Yet they are permitted by an ideology driven government to continue to suck out money from the public to fund fat cat bosses, offshore investors, to steal money that should remain in the system for the public good. The best way to solve this is for renationalisation of the rail (and all the other sold off services...)

I am elderly and also disabled. I am terrified to travel by train nowadays. in case I get left on a train and shunted off into a siding for hours! I live in the South, where all the hooha over guards on the train has been going on.The Railways were never the Government's to sell, nor were any of the other industries and Companies which have been sold off since the 1980s.

Private ownership of our railways has been an unmitigated disaster. I travel frequently on trains and it is blatantly, increasingly clear that private ownership has failed to provide a decent service for passengers and is not fit for purpose. There are never sufficient seating and travellers are packed like sardines along the aisles and entrance access. Before privatisation it was a pleasure, the carriages were always clean and more seats were provided.

I am convinced that the only way the United Kingdom can get a truly efficient railway service that aims to serve the public good and help to increase the productivity of this country is to have a fully integrated railway system. This is NEVER going to be possible with a fragmented, privatised system of railway operators and rail track providers.

I have travelled extensively through Europe and in particular the Austrian, Swiss and Spanish railway systems are so efficient that they make ours look like one operated by a bankrupt third world country.

The priority is a single operator for our trains that can at last make sure that, barring accidents, the trains will leave the stations, leave the stations on time and arrive at their destinations on time.

The next stage must be the electrification of the majority of the railway system. At present a huge number of the U.K.'s principle cities do not have a singe electrified line running through them. Discuss this with a Swiss national and you will see them look at you open mouthed with shock and pity.

Not only is this extremely inefficient, but it creates pollution blackspots in those cities where diesel trains pass through and stand with their engines running for many minutes.

There is no possible alternative to overcome these dreadful failings other than a form of state ownership. There are many examples of this throughout Europe and we should learn from them HOW THIS CAN BE DONE.

Rail travel in the UK is slow, unreliable, overcrowded and expensive. Market forces do not apply in a monopoly system and make what should be a public service into a corporate cash cow. The carve up of the rail system makes prevent it becoming a strategic asset to make people's lives simpler, easier and environmentally sustainable.

The price of rail travel in this country is frankly extortionate. Even if I book in advance with a railcard, the fares are still too high for my pocket.

Privatisation has fragmented the railway service so that journey planning is ludicrously complicated, fares are outrageously expensive and seem incomprehensibly random. Worst of all, funding and tax-payer subsidy is poured into the pockets of shareholders while passengers suffer delays, cancellations and over-crowding.

The railways are a public utility which people have no option but to use, like roads, and should therefore not be run for profit. They are also intrinsically a system, which has to be run as such; to fragment a system is a contradiction in terms and counter-productive.

Apart from a greedy private sector, British tax payers are also subsidising foreign state owned railway companies.

So tired of companies who put profit for shareholders & fat cat directors way ahead of reinvestment to improve the trains for their customers, without whom there wouldn't be any profit. Public ownership would bring back the circular system needed for reinvestment & improvements for rail customers, with ticket prices that don't rip us off!

I am lucky as a retired person as I have a 30% off rail card and don't have to travel at peak times, so my experience of UK railways is not too bad. But when I think of the best railways I have travelled on - Holland, Austria, France, Japan for example -they are all publicly owned and they are all miles ahead of the UK in every way, good quality rolling stock, punctuality, cleanliness, better pricing, efficient ticketing system etc. In Germany,where deregulation is spreading, I was surprised to find that not a single train I travelled on ran on time. I have drawn my own conclusion...

Govia-Thameslink do not run Southern Railways properly. I have had delays, cancellations, stopping short of the destination, and excuses like "congestion" which is plainly the fault of the Railway. We never had this sort of trouble when British Rail ran the Railways. On Great Western Railway, we were told to charge trains at Paddington because of a fault on the advertised train and although the substitute train started half an hour later did I get any compensation? NO! Sack then private owners and bring the railways back into public ownership. At West Worthing Station there were plants growing out of the Chimney Stacks and grass growing in the gutters. Have the private owner no shame? Sack them all.

Need I say more than 'Southern'?

The fallacy that the private sector is more efficient has been proven hollow. Excellent management is essential, but public transport needs to be run for the public, not for private and shareholder profit. Every penny possible needs re-invested into the public transport network so that it can deliver for our economy, our communities, and our environment.

Privatisation has created a disjointed delivery of rail services, with a confusing array of ticketing options. The return on investment seems to be for shareholders only, even though the public purse heavily subsidises the franchises operating the services.

The current system is broken. It does not work having different rules in different places. Trains are part of our public transport network and should be run for the public NOT for companies to make huge profits.

It has been said that 'ownership is sharing'. And, in this case, that means public ownership of our railways and not ownership by private companies and their shareholders. I look forward to the day when we can say, "We own it!"

It seems totally obvious to me that a privatised system has to take money out of the business to pay its shareholders, and a publicly owned system can plough all profits back into the business, thus IMPROVING it. Why is it that the East Coast Line has done best when under public ownership?

The current state of the railways is shameful, in it's current form it is not fit for purpose,shareholders profits put before the needs of the travelling public, worsening services on the each of the franchises ie Southern, SWR, Arriva North and ridiculous fare increases- the blame for this debacle lies squarely at the door of Chris Grayling whose incompetence defies belief.

The sooner these rail companies are stripped of their franchises and the whole network renationalised the better.

How does anyone expect to have a joined-up railway service when so many different owners are pursuing their different agendas? I remember nationalised railways and they certainly worked better than the current system, even without modern technology to help.

When I first started work in Newcastle in the 1960's, trains were sufficiently reliable and reasonably priced so that I was able to commute on a daily basis from Durham to Newcastle, never arriving late at work. Now that I live in the Cotswolds, it is impossible to plan any commitments in London because the Great Western trains are consistently late, unheated or insufficiently heated; carriages are not clearly structured, the loos are frequently dirty; the automatic announcement systems are often erroneous (eg when the train from Paddington is approaching Swindon on a journey that is supposed to carry on to Cheltenham, an automsatic announcement is erroneously made that the trsain will not proceed beyond Swindon). Moreover, the very short time span between when trains are first notified and the departure is often far too short safely to board the train.

I have used the railways for more than 60 years. British Railways (aka British Rail) was not perfect, but it got lots of people from A to B with a minimum of fuss and for an affordable fare. The theory underlying privatisation was that private companies would inevitably run the railways more efficiently than they could possibly be run if publicly owned. There was zero evidence to support this theory in advance of privatisation, and ample evidence since then that the theory is false. That private companies are more efficient now has similar status, in my eyes at least, to the theory that the earth is flat. It's supported solely by ideology, not by any evidence. In the 21st century. What a sad comment on our society, values and rulers...

Like other posters here, over the past couple of decades I too have experienced East Coast in both private and public hands. The service was probably better when publicly owned (I don't have actual data on this, so am keeping an open mind). And it only succeeded in making a "profit" (I would prefer to call it a surplus) while publicly owned.

So all in all, I would like to see the railways comprehensively renationalised, as soon as posssible.

The RICH Tories OWN all the Companies they have Privatised, They OWN The Majority of the shares and they are the ones who keep increasing prices of everything and they lie to the people of the UK... The RICH Tories OWN all the Companies they privatised like Electric, Gas, Water, BT, Royal Mail, British Rail.... and They Keep increasing prices and the services offered are DIABOLICAL... Working Class Tories of the UK are TOO STUPID & THICK to realise just what the RICH TORIES are doing to everyone.....SAVE THE NHS BEFORE THESE RICH TORIES privatise our NHS completely.....

Ever rising railfares and no better service; rather late or cancelled trains are considered the norm. And this under privatisation - companies allegedly competing to produce the best in rail travel. Could it be that the neoliberal approach to public services doesn't work?

Unfortunately, from the very nature of the current attitude of private companies, they do not always have the interest

in and for the general public, and indeed many of them have other national interests, even controlled by foreign governments.

Also, there is poor regulation and poor governance, and with the UK civil service experiencing a reduction in their level of expertise and knowledge, by the continued policy of outsourcing and privatisation.

An example was Railtrack, having disregarded the engineering experience, in favour of the City, the result was being unable to fulfil their responsibilities and they eventually collapsed.

Indeed, many of our government policies have been seen to be ideological and damaging to the national interests.

I am fed up being crammed onto Trains not fit for purpose, on a railway no longer fit for purpose - all in the name of profit over passengers.

It seems to be that the government do not want to listen to 70% of the public when it comes to national ownership, even if it is the best for all but the shareholders of private companies.