The North East has a long and proud connection to the railways. In 1825, George Stephenson’s engine – locomotion, became the world’s first steam locomotive to carry passengers, and the public railway was born. In the years following thousands of miles of rail track were laid connecting every part of the UK, as the industrial […]
Posts Tagged ‘rail’
State ownership of rail is only the start
May 1st, 2014 by Michael Meacher.As the 31 Labour parliamentary candidates are demanding in their letter to Miliband, the case for returning rail to the public sector after the botched privatisation of 1996 is overwhelming. Private ownership has produced for the UK the highest fares in Europe, extensive overcrowding on commuter lines because of giving priority to dividends for shareholders […]
The false logic of the privatisation of the East Coast mainline
Mar 29th, 2013 by Michael Burke.The Coalition government has announced its intention to privatise the East Coast mainline rail network. The network was nationalised 3 years ago when the previous private operators discontinued their franchise because they could not make a profit. The re-privatisation of the East Coast mainline highlights a key fallacy of the current government’s failed economic policy. […]