for a year certainly on the East Coast mainline and possibly two other National Express franchises get ready for the quality of sandwiches to drop instantly
agreed selling the family silver and all that more importantly powerless to stop ridiculous above inflation price risies
Plus, if we're serious about climate change public transport should be cheap to encourage people to use it - even if that means it has to be subsidised. I use East Coast Mainline a lot and it certainly isn't cheap!
RE: Plus, if we're serious about climate change My biggest problem is with everything being broken down into regions and companies. So to travel from Barnsley to Wakefield or Leeds you cross from south to west yorkshire. Which means it costs more to get from Barnsley to Wakefield, than from Leeds to Wakefield, even its not as far. And you can't just get one travel pass to make it cheaper. People move a lot further than they used to, the transport infrastructure should be unified across the whole country, not run as local areas in isolation.
The taxpayer has pulled them out of the mire more times.. So no reason why it shouidn't go to public ownership anyway. like most other nationalised Industries, All they needed was shrewd leadership/managment. Not the profit at at anycost privatisation that Thatcherism so eagerly imposed.
RE: The taxpayer has pulled them out of the mire more times.. So the theory is competition to pushes privatised companies to give a better service and costs to the public. Railways run as franchises, so they are not being pushed, and are only interested in maximising profit. The only competition is at franchise bidding time, when the government gets more money, but the operators pay too much, and then have to cut costs on service to gain back.
