The latest figures show that a season ticket, including tube travel, from Woking in Surrey to central London cost £3.268 last year. A similar 22-mile journey in Italy from Velletri to Rome cost just £336. In France the 24-mile journey from Ballancourt to Paris costs £924. The RMT argues that the vastly higher costs of rail travel in the UK largely reflect the fragmentation of the rail system into a myriad pieces. Removing complex interfaces, transaction costs, increased debt servicing and private profit, and dividend payments from the industry could save more than £1bn a year, leading to lower fares and less public subsidy. Altogether they believe that since privatisation more than £11bn of public funds hsve been mis-spent on debt write-offs, dividend payments to private investors, fragmentation costs , including profit margins of complex tiers of contractors and sub-contractors, plus higher interest payments to keep Network Rail’s debts off the government’s balance sheet. Not a way to run a railway.

The Tory rationale for privatisation – that it would be more efficient – has been shown unequivocally to be false. State subsidies since the system went private have more than doubled. On the East Coast mainline two previous private operators have collapsed. But the service then run directly by the State has been strikingly successful. Directly Owned Railways significantly improved pre-tax profits, increased passenger journeys, and raised customer satisfaction and punctuality performance. Continue reading →