EAST COAST ‘OPEN ACCESS’ THREAT

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: june 2014 :: RMTnews 4 R MT has slammed the government for handing the Southern/Thameslink franchise over to a consortium involving the French state operator SNCF. The union warned that fares in London would go up to subsidise fares in Paris. RMT acting general secretary Mick Cash said that once again the logical and popular option of bringing the franchise into public ownership had been ignored. “This government is quite happy to have state ownership of our railways as long as it isn't the British state. “Regardless of who won this latest round of the great rail franchise lottery the bottom line is that those taking charge will have the green light to axe nearly five hundred safety-critical guards and move the entire service to driver only operation, all in the name of greed and profit. “Commuters forking out up to £5000 a year will end up paying through the nose to travel on de-staffed, unreliable, overcrowded and unsafe trains. “The only safe and sensible option is to bring the whole lot under public ownership but this rotten government would rather carry on with the great rail privatisation rip off,” he said. German state railway company Deutsche Bahn is seeking to benefit from a “back door privatisation” of the East Coast mainline which could threaten services and cost the taxpayer money. Deutsche Bahn, through its Arriva subsidiary, has set up a company called Alliance Rail Holdings which has applied to be an ‘open access’ operator under the name of ‘Great North Eastern Railway Open Access’. Under EU rules an ’open access’ rail operator is not part of a franchise agreement and simply needs the permission of the rail regulator to run services. Deutsche Bahn already owns another open access operator on the East Coast route, Grand Central Open Access. East Coast has warned that the proposals would damage passenger services and hit the taxpayer. In a letter to Alliance Rail holdings East Coast has said the plans “would undermine the overall integrity of the ECML timetable, reducing connectivity, extending journey times to other destinations and further reducing the value of this franchise to the government”. East Coast has also said that the proposals could result in the “cherry picking of services”. RMT research has revealed that if Deutsche Bahn is successful it would mean that 70 per cent of UK rail services will be run by overseas rail companies. RMT acting general secretary Mick Cash said that it was an indication of the nonsense of rail privatisation that while the German state rail company was being given the opportunity to cherry pick on the East Coast our own publicly-owned rail operator on the same line was threatened with being kicked off by this government. “This is despite the fact that the public sector has transformed the service and delivered hundreds of millions of pounds back to the British taxpayer. “It is clear that the ConDem administration is happy for rail services in Britain to be used to subsidise state-run services in Germany and other parts of Europe,” he warned. FRENCH HANDED THAMESLINK FRANCHISE EAST COAST ‘OPEN ACCESS’ THREAT German state railways launch ‘open access’ attack on publicly owned East Coast mainline to cherry pick services