MANY PEOPLE found returning to work after Christmas even
more gruelling this year. Rail users faced fare rises of up to three times the
rate of inflation, together with both new and continuing delays on many lines.
Even the government seems to be getting angry with the rail
bosses and the dilapidated rail network, privatised in 1995, which they see as
being out of control.
Rail privatisation was very profitable to the
‘entrepreneurs’ who took over the network at knockdown prices. With the
connivance of successive governments, they split it up and ruined it. Now
Transport Secretary Alistair Darling is taking powers away from the Strategic
Rail Authority (SRA) which governments relied on to keep an official eye on
Britain’s divided and profit-driven rail system, and handing them directly to
the government.
After last year’s takeover of Railtrack, is the entire
network now being renationalised? Not quite. Railtrack was replaced by the
not-for-profit Network Rail, which proceeded to take action against private
firms such as Jarvis and take all maintenance back in-house.
But the private sector is keeping a big say in the rail
system, still controlling the train operating companies and rail renewals and
keeping a large interest in the London tube.
The SRA and Network Rail are widely seen as incompetent
mainly for aiming to run a decent public transport system while at the same
time trying to ensure that the privatised rail companies get colossal profits.
Network Rail bailed out shareholders of the bankrupt
Railtrack by offering them only slightly less than the value when Railtrack
went bust, owing £3 billion. The shares would probably have been worthless if
Railtrack had not been taken into administration. But who’s been underwriting
the amount that Network Rail has to borrow off the banks to pay off Railtrack’s
debts? The public, that’s who.
Sack the profit-grasping pirates! The entire rail industry
should be renationalised and run as part of an integrated public transport
system under the democratic control of those who work on the system and those
who use it.
