art The historic journey occurred this week, if the first repeated South Western Railway (SWR) service from Waterloo woking. However, in sorrow, passengers should ride in Survey and board a bus to replacement rail as a result of engineering work.
The event is highlighted that it is a time of the fastest vulnerability to push for more nationalization in Britain. SWR is the first national train company under this labor government, with a subnationalise plan almost all services in England at 2027. But to launch, the Secretary of Transportation, Heidi Alexander, he said cannot promise that the nationalization will provide lower fare. If services do not improve and the fares do not fall, critics have the array of the attack line: “We tell you the nationalization that doesn’t work – just look at the trains.”
Critical that public ownership is detected better value for money, lead to reinvestment to improve services and truly achieve Britain transportation requirements. Success or failure shapes the attitudes into it in the coming years. Success can build momentum for transporting other important services under democratic control. Failing to give bullets for each sector’s privatization advocates.
The case for change is too much. Since privacy, railroad fare raised by the fifth In real terms, while analysis of the common wealth of 2023 is found passengers in the UK Five times As far as per kilometers as those in France, where the public is owned. Overall, privaticized railroad costs of taxpayers £ 1bn more than years than the public ownership. It’s getting, not healing.
Between 2006 and 2022, one Estimated 65% In profits to operate the train is paid by parts of the shardowners, while passengers have survived the cancellation of services and increases in eye fare. Our rails turn into profit machines for investors and state businesses outside the state, with the Italian, French and Hong Kong methods to ensure that nationalization provides cheap benefits instead of failure.
First, the government should never stop train operators. Of 2022-23, stock stock companies, leasing trains and carriages of operators, seeing their We are trebowith more than £ 400m paid by shareholders and profit margin rising a whopping 41.6%. As the RMT Union was found, 87% of Britain’s rolling stock controlled by only three companies. If no nationalized stock companies, operating companies have been carried by public payments to private companies, as we saw between 2016 and 2024, if such a payment rose to 78% In real terms (compared with staff costs, which attract more controversy but only grown by 11%). These firms take a lot of income while the public sector brings danger. Nationalization should mean carrying the whole system under democratic control, including trains.
Second, passengers should feel real benefits easily. Travelers traveling on these trains do not first notice any difference, because changes are important – again rather than getting, repair the service progress services. Meanwhile, any delays, cancellations or increases in the fare will be given publicly, regardless of their real reason. Plans for Automatic refund For later trains a start, but the change for commuters does not end there. The new public operator must freeze fare immediately and introduce simplified, integrated ticketing across the network. We have previously drawn shareholders must improve service – more staff, better cleaning and extension time opening stations. The visible changes build public support for wider changes.
Third, the government cannot replace private civil servants. This means recruiting railroad professionals and make a decision made by regional teams, instead of being able to center all in London. Most importantly, it means to participate in passenger representations and worker involvement from one day.
There are signs that working understands the scale of challenge. The party motivated to establish many British rails as an integrated public body, acting beyond the broken structure that strikes the network since privacy. But the conjunction of paper is not enough. It should translate into coordination investment, simplified passenger experience and democratic accountability. Only if the entire system moves underneath public control can judge the passengers to do so.
The Labor Railroad nationalization represents more than transport policy – this is a test case for the 21st century in public possession. In order to succeed, passengers must pay less for better services, workers must have a voice of their future and communities who need to benefit from profit.
As common wealth Research showsThe economic state for railroads is clear. Now comes the most difficult task of doing this practice work. This requires the courage to challenge interests of interest, repair operations to improve services and democratic innovation to ensure public possession.
If national operators carry visible improvements while preventing costs controlled, public support grows and the support of the opposition will waste hollow. But if it’s business like usual in a different logo, we will scandal at one time in an in-a-generation to prove that public possession.
The prize is strong: cheap, reliable train transport served with communities instead of shareholders. The risk is similarly important: discovering public ownership of many years comes. The job should get it.
