Title: Would it be realistic to renationalise the railways? - BBC News
Headings: Would it be realistic to renationalise the railways?
Would it be realistic to renationalise the railways?
Nationalisation of the railways
Rail services around the world
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Content: The rail industry says about £250m is made in profits by the franchisees each year, about 3% of turnover. image copyright
British Rail
image caption
The British Rail Class 47 locomotive 2
There's also the question of UK and European Union legislation. The Railways Act 1993 states that the public sector cannot bid for franchises. Either a totally new act would be needed to oversee nationalisation or there would need to be significant amendments to the existing act. The EU says it wants to open up national freight and passenger markets to cross-border competition. There are rules stating that the track and rolling stock must be managed separately - an attempt to allow free competition, although state-owned railways across the continent use holding companies in order to abide by this. A new European Commission strategy - the Fourth Railway package - to be voted on this summer by the European parliament could further pressure member states to open state-owned railways to private competition. None of these hurdles are insurmountable, says Ian Taylor, author of Rebuilding Rail, a 2012 report for the trade unions. " The biggest obstacle to renationalising the railways is the prevailing dogma - the assumption that marketisation and competition must be best." So what do the political parties say?