According to the news, in addition to the obscene rail fares imposed on the suffering public this year, we will face additional higher than inflation fare increases in future to assist the rail companies to fund the required engineering works.
Are you kidding me?? The public purse is not the Carlsberg bank for fatcat rail company bosses! Profitability should be dependent on investment in infrastructure and good management. Not a guaranteed profit margin regardless of managerial incompetence. If the cost of engineering works and maintenance is simply to be shouldered by the public purse, then how exactly has privatization benefitted anyone? It’s hardly as though there is an effective open market to enable competition. You take the train or you don’t. If you want to change rail operators, you move to another part of the country.
Cost of rail travel in the UK is already among the highest in the world. If the public are obliged to continue to pay for the necessary upgrade and maintenance which is required, then private contracts should be rescinded and the rail should be returned to nationalized control.
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