Evening Standard (page 57)
Thursday 30 May 2013

With ever increasing inequality in this country, the news of Network Rail chief’s big bonuses makes sickening reading for the growing numbers of normal working people who struggle to pay extortionate train fares.

The big question here is not the size of this specific round of bonuses (most alone are more than four times the average UK salary), but more whether such a fundamental public service as our railways should be run by the same loathsome bonus culture that dominates our disgraced banking sector.

This culture has, of course, resulted from the disastrous privatisation of British Rail in 1994, which attempted to ‘introduce a market’ into a sector where it is completely illogical to do so. Numerous private companies running different sections of the railway now ‘compete’ with each other when what we really need to make sure trains run on time, is cooperation.

The aim of a public transport system should be to provide the best possible service for everyone. This is essential in an age where we must drastically reduce our collective C02 emissions by encouraging more people to use trains rather than gas guzzling cars or short-haul flights. The only way we will achieve this is by bringing back British Rail and creating a newly reunified public transport system run for people not profit.

But in the short-term, while we continue to fight for this common sense solution to become a reality, we must demand that these bonuses are not handed out to individuals (who have failed to do their jobs), but are invested back into the railway network for the benefit of all.

Ellie Harrison
Founder, Bring Back British Rail

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There was a huge amount of press coverage for the campaign following the demonstration against rail fare rises at London’s Waterloo Station on 14 August 2012. This included images in The Guardian and Metro (see below) and interviews with Ellie Harrison on Sky News, BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 5 Live.

Metro (p.9) Wednesday 15 August 2012

The Guardian (p.4) Wednesday 15 August 2012

Vanessa Feltz (sitting in for Jeremy Vine) interviews Ellie Harrison from Bring Back British Rail and Stephen Cornish a former British Rail employee.

Gareth Evans (sitting in for Danny Kelly) interviews Ellie Harrison from Bring Back British Rail about the benefits of renationalising our railways.

Wednesday 15 August 2012

Shelagh Fogarty chairs a live debate about the West Coast franchise decision between Ellie Harrison from Bring Back British Rail, Mike Williams a Virgin Trains passenger and three MPs: Gordon Birtwistle (Liberal Democrat), Simon Danczuk (Labour) and Graham Evans (Conservative).

I began the Bring Back British Rail campaign two years ago. After years of enduring delayed, over-priced and over-crowded journeys around the UK, I finally snapped. It was clear from my experience as a passenger, that having so many competing franchises running separate sections of the network was both inefficient and unsafe. It resulted in people like me getting a raw deal, whilst the shareholders in the private train companies (who probably don’t even use the trains!) swanned-off with our government’s transport subsidies.

I’ve found that ‘Bring Back British Rail’ really strikes a chord with the majority of people using and working on the railways – it sums up their cries for a radical rethink of the way the railway system is run and managed. Since 2009, the campaign (based around a lively Facebook page), has gone from strength-to-strength becoming the ‘collective voice’ of this shared anger and frustration.

The East Coast franchise came into public ownership in 2009 after National Express (the company running the franchise at the time), realised it wasn’t quite the money-spinner that they’d hoped. The point the campaign is making is that this shouldn’t be about making money. Having a good, sustainable transport system is about providing a valuable service to the people of Britain and not about running a business. The East Coast nationalisation has proved that it is possible, realistic and could actually save us money. But the truth is that the greatest hurdle we face is not financial, but rather getting the politicians who allowed the privatisation to go through in the first place, to admit that they were wrong.

Ellie Harrison
Founder, Bring Back British Rail

07:37 BBC Radio London Breakfast Show
Interviews with Alexandra Woodsworth from Campaign for Better Transport and Ellie Harrison from Bring Back British Rail.

08:07 BBC Radio Kent Breakfast Show
Interviews with Alexandra Woodsworth from Campaign for Better Transport, Ellie Harrison from Bring Back British Rail and Theresa Villiers Transport Minister.

08:40 BBC Radio London Breakfast Show
Interview with Alexandra Woodsworth from Campaign for Better Transport and David Mapp from ATOC.

09:18 BBC Radio London Vanessa Show
Interviews with Theresa Villiers Transport Minister, Stephen Joseph from Campaign for Better Transport and Ellie Harrison from Bring Back British Rail.

Page 11 of London’s Evening Standard on Tuesday 16 August – the night of the demonstration at Waterloo. A massive plug for Bring Back British Rail!

“Rail fares are set to rise by 8 per cent in January, heaping yet more misery on passengers following reports that privatisation and fragmentation had needlessly cost the taxpayer £6.6 million extra since 1997.

New inflation figures pushed up the regulated fares, with July’s retail prices index rate of inflation used to determine the annual rise in January 2012 for regulated rail fares including season and saver tickets.

Campaigners launched a demonstration at Waterloo station in London today following news of the rise, coinciding with the rush hour.

Fair Fares Now activists handed out leaflets and spoke to season ticket holders who are likely to be hit hardest by the rise.

Rail union RMT president Alex Gordon told the Morning Star that the fair rise was “socially unsustainable” and that the union would be “upping the ante” at Parliament in October to call for public ownership of the railways.

Pressure group Bring Back British Rail founder Ellie Harrison said that the fare rise would spell misery for millions of ordinary people who use the railways.

She said that she founded the group after becoming a “pissed-off passenger” under privatisation and “wanted to do something about it.

“It’s about reminding people that we used to have public ownership of the railways and other industries. And that we can have it again,” she said.

Passing commuters agreed with Ms Harrison’s sentiments.

“An 8 per cent rise is not good news. I think the fares are already too high,” said Sharmaine Mackin, who had just travelled in to London from Bracknell in Berkshire.

But higher fares were only the tip of the iceberg for hard-up commuters who face the prospect of yet more money being bled out of the struggling rail network over the next 10 years.

A report commissioned by RMT has revealed that profit-taking and fragmentation costs were £883m in 2009 alone and more than £6.6 billion between 1997 and 2009.

The union predicted that profits to private rail companies could lose the railways £6.7bn over the next 10 years, while public subsidies are set to rise by 300 per cent.

RMT general secretary Bob Crow said: “This independent report proves that privatisation is robbing our railways of £670m a year and RMT has calculated that this would equate to an annual 10 per cent cut in rail fares or free bus and rail travel for all children under the age 16.

“McNulty and the government are forcing through inflation-busting fare increases and savage cuts to maximise private train company profits. The whole policy of rail privatisation is exposed as an economic and social disaster.”

Help support the campaign and spread the word by grabbing some of our stylish merchandise today! The campaign t-shirts and the enamel lapel badges (available exclusively to those joining our membership scheme), both feature our now famous ‘back-to-front’ double arrow logo designed by Fraser Muggeridge studio.

“Who remembers the glory days of British Rail (BR)? I’m proud to say I’m too young, but I do remember my father complaining about BR (especially waiting for ‘the engineers’ to be called out – no rail replacement buses in those days, or mobile phones).

Perhaps it’s our unstoppable nostalgia for everything ’80s, or perhaps our current rail network is just such a shambles, but either way, a campaign called Bring Back British Rail is generating a surprising amount of support.

The campaign has generated over 2,000 signatories to a petition on the Number 10 website. It’s even commissioned a stylish update of the iconic BR logo, reworked to point forward (get it?). “The logo caused loads of controversy,” says Ellie Harrison, the founder of Bring Back British Rail. “To be honest, there are a lot of people out there who care a lot about trains, and they like things to be just so.”

Harrison, who at 30 is also too young to really remember waiting for the engineers to be called out, insists she’s not talking about bringing back that British Rail. For anyone fearing delayed trains, soggy sandwiches and strike action, she points out that the old version of BR was willfully under-resourced.

In its place, she argues, we now have one of the most expensive railway networks in Europe, tied to an evermore confusing fare structure which seems to be steadily growing in price as the economy shrinks.

“I travel a lot on trains and it became obvious to me that since the railways were privatised, we’ve endured an expensive and confusing 18 years, pretty much in silence,” says Harrison. “Bringing our trains back to an integrated, central point which is run for public gain rather than private profit would solve the problem.”

She hopes that the campaign will catch the attention of vote-hungry MPs as the election approaches. To support Ellie’s campaign, visit bringbackbritishrail.org. Mullet haircut optional.”