THE GREAT RAIL RESET

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: september/october 2024 :: RMTnews 8 Over 30 years ago the Tories introduced the 1993 Railway Act to break up and privatise this country’s rail network with disastrous, costly and often deadly results. The private train operators have often claimed that they have delivered a doubling of passenger numbers due to privatisation. But as RMT has exposed in its reports, this is nonsense. The reality is that passenger numbers are correlated closely to GDP growth, that numbers were already rising under British Rail and that the privatised railway got lucky by coinciding with a long period of economic growth. The private operators know this and admit as much outside lobbying documents. The business model of the private train operators has been intensely parasitic as they risk almost no capital. Just one per cent of money invested in the railway since 2006 was advanced by the train operating companies and over 90 per cent of all spending has been from the taxpayer. The only way that passenger services could ever be made to turn a profit was by removing most of the costs of the railway from their cost base. Train operators made a small contribution toward infrastructure costs in the form of Track Access Charges paid to Network Rail. However, these were held at an artificially low level by government subsidies to Network Rail. Had the train operating companies had to pay the real costs of their reliance on infrastructure they would all have gone out of business overnight. The private operators often stress their small profit margins, but as a percentage of the capital they risk they are making good returns. These profits represent more than THE GREAT RAIL RESET The new Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill will contribute to rebuilding rail industry in Britain Y O U R U N I O N Y O U R V O I C E