Title: Why not... nationalise the railways? - BBC News
Headings: Why not... nationalise the railways?
Why not... nationalise the railways?
The background
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Content: Track, signalling and stations were taken out of private hands, and put into a not-for-profit company, Network Rail, after the collapse of Railtrack in 2002. Labour has yet to reveal its transport policies for the next general election, but they are not thought likely to feature rail nationalisation. Green Party MP Caroline Lucas has launched a private members' bill to allow the train companies to "fall back" into public ownership, which is supported by a number of Labour backbenchers and Plaid Cymru MPs. The train companies insist the debate about nationalisation is solely driven by the unions. In 1993, Britain's railway was broken into pieces and handed, mostly as local monopolies, to profit-taking companies. The cost of the railway to the taxpayer has subsequently more than doubled in real terms, a rise out of all proportion to the 33% increase in train services over the same period. The cost rises stem from wastage as shareholder dividend pay-outs, other inefficient private sector financing and inefficiencies created by fragmentation of the railway. The wastage amounts to over £1bn per year, enough to cut fares by 20% if the railway were reunified as a public company. Instead, fare increases on the privatised railway threaten to turn it into a "rich-man's toy", as this government's first Secretary of State for Transport put it. Unbeknown to most passengers, one portion of our railway, the East Coast mainline, is still run by a publicly-owned company, Directly Operated Railways, which picked up the pieces after its two private sector predecessors walked off the job.