East Coast rail to return to public control
RAIL services on the troubled East Coast Main Line will return to public ownership, the Transport Secretary said yesterday.
Chris Grayling said Virgin Trains’ contract on the London to Edinburgh line will be terminated on June 24 with services run by the Department for Transport through an operator of last resort. He added that he would resurrect the iconic London and North Eastern Railway brand, the LNER.
Virgin Trains East Coast is the third private operator to fail to complete a contract on the route. Stagecoach Group, which owns 90% of VTEC, was “disappointed” by the decision.
But Mr Grayling outraged MPs by refusing to block bids by the private firms for future contracts.
Shadow Transport Secretary Andy McDonald said they had been “gifted” a “£2billion bailout”.
Union leaders welcomed the move but the RMT’s Mick Cash said: “Instead of being a temporary arrangement, Chris Grayling should make it permanent.”
And Cat Hobbs, of pressure group We Own It, said: “We need to be clear the operator of last resort has itself been privatised.”
WE must keep the East Coast Main Line in public hands after it crashed a third time under private operation.
Three strikes and privatisation should out for good when profit-greedy Virgin and Stagecoach will short-change taxpayers billions, jumping the rails just as two commercial predecessors did.
Transport Secretary Chris Grayling would announce today that nationalisation is permanent, not temporary, if he was not locked into a broken privatisation ideology.
Failing Grayling’s incapable of running a railway properly and the latest East Coast disaster highlights a system that is an expensive ticket for passengers and taxpayers.
Forcing tax haven billionaire Sir Richard Branson and Stagecoach to hand over every penny they owe would be a fresh start and both should be shunted off the rails for good.
Asking the public sector to take over after the private sector hit the buffers again is a moment to end this privatisation farce.