An intercity express train pulled out of King’s Cross station late last night to become the first long-distance passenger service in 15 years run by the Government.
At one minute to midnight, the country’s busiest — and most troublesome — long-distance route was in effect renationalised.
Passengers dozing on the Newcastle service and another train thundering down the East Coast from Glasgow may have been unaware of their status as pioneers in a new era of state control — and that is exactly the way Whitehall would have it. “This is business as usual for customers and staff,” said Elaine Holt, the head of the government company set up to run the East Coast Main Line.
Yet, whisper it softly, there is a groundswell of support for extending government control to other parts of the railway. Unions are leading the chant, but some of the most influential voices in the railway world have taken up the call. The Times met passengers across Britain who thought that the temporary renationalisation of the East Coast line might be a model worth following elsewhere. A “Re-Nationalise the British Railway Network” group on Facebook has thousands of members.
But Lord Adonis, the Secretary of State for Transport, who was due to take one of the first trains run by Directly Operated Railways to its headquarters in York, is adamant that the move will be temporary. He stepped in when the former operator, National Express, said it could not meet its financial obligations to the Government. Lord Adonis says the line will pass to another private operator within two years.
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“I do want the East Coast to be a beacon of excellence,” he told The Times. “But I am glad to say that none of the other train companies have indicated to me any intention of giving up their franchises and therefore nationalisation isn’t a wider issue.”
The new company will be run as a commercial operation and some of the profit will be turned over to the Treasury.Some rail experts believe the East Coast should become the first strand in a national intercity network run by a government agency.
Roger Ford, technical editor of Modern Railways magazine, said: “You can’t do anything sudden, but the nationalisation of East Coast does give you the chance to say, ‘This is what we really want for the railway’.”
Bob Crow, the general secretary of the RMT union, insists that the East Coast debacle marks “the beginning of the end” for privatisation. But a move back to full nationalisation is opposed vehemently by the operators and the three main political parties.
Those passengers arriving at Newcastle in the dead of night may yet wake up to find that renationalisation was but a distant dream.
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Gathering steam
1948: Railways nationalised
1994-1997: 25 operating companies created by privatisation
British Rail: 12,000-14,000 trains a day
Today: 25,000 trains a day
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3.5 million passengers a day now, up 40 per cent on ten years ago
Source: Network Rail, Times archives