3 in 5 rail trips on foreign services

AROUND three out of five passenger journeys on Britain’s rail network are on foreignowned services, an investigation has found.

Almost one billion such trips were made in the 12 months to September, which is 57% of all journeys, according to Press Association analysis of industry data.

This is predominantly made up of companies from Germany (23%), the Netherlands (15%) and France (7%).

Campaign group Railfuture’s spokesman Bruce Williams described the figures as “perverse”. He said: “It does raise the question about what is the point of privatising the railway if it’s then going to be owned and operated by the states of other countries. It’s okay for the French government to run our railways, but it’s not okay for the British government to run our railways.”

Passengers, who lost at least 3.6m hours due to significantly-delayed trains in 201617, will be hit with an average fare hike of 3.4% on Tuesday.

Bringing franchises back into public ownership when current contracts expire is a key policy of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

London Overground is the busiest rail company fully or partly owned overseas, with 189m journeys.

It is part of Arriva, a subsidiary of German state-owned Deutsche Bahn.

Northern, part of the same firm, is the second busiest operator under foreign ownership with 107m journeys in 2016-17.

The totals are based on the number of journeys made with each company according to Office of Rail and Road figures, and adjusted by the proportion that firms are owned overseas.

The proportion of services run by foreign companies increased in 2017.

Mick Whelan, general secretary of train drivers’ union Aslef, said: “It is splendidly ironic that the Tory Government believes in state ownership of Britain’s railways, as long as they are foreign stateowned companies.

“The only state that cannot, under the Tories, run our railways is the British state. That’s why we believe in bringing Britain’s railways back into public ownership, a policy now popular with Conservative as well as Labour voters.”

Office of Rail and Road figures show £4.2bn of taxpayers’ cash went to the rail industry in 2016-17.