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Campaigners rally against privatisation of East Coast Mainline

Protestors from Action for Rail, We Own It and Bring Back British Rail will meet in London today, headed by union bosses, to hand over a petition to keep the East Coast mainline public.

RMT general secretary Bob Crow and TSSA general secretary Manuel Cortes will be joined by Shadow Rail Minister Lilian Greenwood MP where they will hand Caroline Lucas MP of the Green Party a petition to to coincide with the second hearing of her private members bill on nationalisation of the railways.

The campaigners argue the train line paid £208m in premium and dividend payments to the Treasury in the last financial year (2012/13); its turnover increased by 4.2%.

They argue that Directly Operated Railways (DOR), the public operator of the East Coast Main Line, has been a success for the taxpayer.

A process to re-privatise is expected to take place this month, with a successful bidder to be announced in 2014.

Among the anticipated bidders are French firm Keolis and Euostar, in a joint entry for the franchise.

Caroline Lucas MP from the Green Party said: “East Coast is delivering millions back to the taxpayer. Most other train companies are delivering millions to shareholders. Privatisation has unquestionably been a disaster. The question isn’t just ‘Why is the Government determined to re-privatise East Coast?’ it’s ‘Why can’t we bring the whole rail network back into public hands?’

“The fact is that as long as our railways are run for the benefit of shareholders rather than passengers, people are going to carry on enduring high fares and poor services.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .