STOP THE GREAT RAIL RIP OFF!

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: november/december 2013 :: RMTnews 10 The re-privatisation of the East Coast Mainline will be the third time that the private sector has been given a shot at running these essential inter-city services. GNER, the first private operator to hold the contract, went bust mid-stream. Their failure paved the way for National Express to takeover but by the summer of 2009 they had thrown the keys back leaving public ownership as the only game in town. Yet Directly Operated Railways turned a service that was teetering on the brink of collapse under the private operators into the most successful railway in Britain which now easily outstrips on every indicator the comparable long haul routes West Coast and Great Western – not least on the financial returns and cost to the taxpayer. Since 2009, DOR has paid £602 million into public funds, over £200 million more than National Express did, and £209 million more than Virgin Rail – the franchise-holder for the west coast mainline – has managed during the same period and DOR is on course to top the billion pound mark before the government pulls the plug. Its public subsidy is an absolute pittance compared to its competitors, seven times less than that paid last year to Virgin. Its record on safety improvements is unbeatable with "major customer accidents" down 81 per cent since 2009. The most recent reports show customer satisfaction and punctuality are at unprecedented highs and that the route is carrying more passengers per mile than any of the other long-distance operators. By any measure this is a stunning success story that we should all be proud of. However, that doesn’t suit this right-wing government who believe that private is good and public is bad no matter the weight of evidence. And so they have had to go to extraordinary lengths to try and airbrush out of the prospectus the public sector triumph on the East Coast. Before the formal launch of the franchising timetable, RMT obtained a draft, internal working copy of the prospectus for the whole process which exposed a cynical plan to smash apart the highly successful public DOR operation, returning the inter-city route to the private sector on lucrative, profiteering terms that will enable them to reduce the quality of service, introduce a new band of third class travel and hack back on performance levels on a new gold-plated, eleven year deal. The leaked draft is a deeply sinister document as it contains the changes and alteration considered necessary to make a systematic and politically motivated de-valuation of the performance and achievements of ECML in the public sector in order to justify a third gamble on the private option. Nowhere is this clearer than when the prospectus originally highlights that ECLM is the carrier of the highest number passengers per train mile than any other franchised UK operator. This killer point is then redacted as is the crucial commentary that East Coast is not only ahead of Virgin and First Great Western – the other inter-city franchise holders - but the that East Coast under public ownership is also amongst the highest performers in Europe for passengers per mile. The issue of passenger satisfaction is also downgraded with the original draft detailing the ECML’s 92 per cent score in Passenger Focus’s National Passenger Survey published in Autumn 2012 but with the revised and redacted version scrubbing it away as it simply doesn’t fit the script. All of this is down for the sole purpose of trying to kill off British state ownership of the East Coast service. However, in a parallel with the energy industry, it is a different story when it comes to foreign state ownership. Among the top bidders for the franchise is a consortium split between Eurostar and Keolis, both majority-owned by the French state firm SNCF. As well as Virgin, another contender will be Arriva, the British train company wholly owned by Deutsche Bahn, which is in turn wholly owned by the German government. So, the prospect for users of the East Coast is one of paying higher fares to travel on worst service to subsidise rail travellers in Berlin and Paris. That is nothing short of a scandal. It seems that politicians have learnt nothing and are happy to tear apart a successful operation we should all be proud of. This fight isn’t over yet and RMT will continue to battle to stop what amounts to the greatest rail-rip off. STOP THE GREAT RAIL RIP OFF! RMT general secretary Bob Crow exposes the multi-million pound con trick of re-privatising the East Coast rail operation before the next election