NO TO MCNULTY!

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: november/december 2013 :: RMTnews 16 O n November 5 RMT and the TUC-backed Action for Rail campaign marked the twentieth anniversary of the passing of the Railways Act which condemned lifeline transport services to fragmentation and exploitation with protests against McNulty plans for further cuts. RMT also launched fresh research exposing the privatised rip off which has left passengers paying the highest fares in Europe to travel on overcrowded, unreliable services. New research from RMT shows that: • Private train operators and rolling stock companies paid out dividends of over £359 million in 2012-13 alone – money that could have been invested in the maintenance, upgrading and capacity increases that are so desperately needed. • Since 1995 over £3.5 billion has been paid out to private train operator shareholders in dividends – hard cash siphoned out of the railways that could have held fares down and financed a modernisation programme. • Privatisation has hammered British passengers more – average ticket prices have increased by over 23 per cent in real terms since 1995 leaving us with Europe’s highest commuter fares for both day returns and season tickets. • Rail passenger fare revenue in the UK increased 150 per cent between 1994-95 and 2012- 13 while investment has been effectively frozen. While passenger numbers have increased by 60 per cent carriage capacity has increased by only three per cent. Passengers, paying through the nose, are crammed into trains with many on the busiest routes unable to get on board at all. • The taxpayer is subsidising this racket with huge sums in corporate welfare. The most breath taking example being the halving of track access charges, the money the private train companies pay publicly-owned Network Rail to use the infrastructure, from £3.19 billion in 1994 to £1.59 billion in 2012* - robbing Network Rail of £1.6 billion which could have covered the maintenance deficit, financed upgrading and wiped out the lethal level crossings. Meanwhile, foreign state- owned operators have been cleaning up, using the extortionate fares and the taxpayer subsidies in the UK to underwrite the running of cheaper, modern and more reliable services in Paris, Berlin 20 years of rail privatisation marked with protests around the country against the McNulty report NO TO MCNULTY!