Even if you are not a rail geek, or you are someone who never uses the trains you should still read this. Why? Because your taxes continue to fund the privatised rail companies; to a tune of about 4 times more than when the railways were in public ownership.
Anyone remember the privitisation of BR back in 1994? It was the most cynical of all the Tory privatisations. We heard all the bullshit about competition and private sector investment that would free the taxpayer of the 'burden' of dear old BR. So what has happened? The list is long and woeful: an intergrated system was broken up, with arguably a worse safety record with some notable train crashes; public subsidy has increased massively; we had the Railtrack fiasco; train fares have rocketed and a lot of expensive paint has been slopped about on garishly painted trains. Also, and to their eternal shame, the last Labour Government did little to undo the damage. The end result - as the Tories wanted all along - is that a shed-load of public money has been shovelled into the pockets of their private pals in return for an expensive and crap rail system.
Just this week the great train robbery has continued apace as we have had the disgusting fiasco of the westcoast mainline franchise collapse that will cost the taxpayer anywhere between £40-£100 million, with slimey politicians blaming Civil Servants for getting the sums wrong.
Of course there is a simple answer to this: a publicaly owned, funded and accountable railway.
media-underground.net