While 20 years of privatisation saw overall rail usage increase by 114%, in that same period standard single ticket prices have increased by 208%. In tandem, real wages have been in relative decline since the 2008 crash, meaning that rail journey prices have risen twice as fast as wages. This double burden has meant that rail is now a luxury for those who can afford it rather than a vital piece of public infrastructure.
Firms like Go-Ahead received a £10 billion bailout, yet still managed to record a healthy operating profit of £6.5 million in the second half of 2020. Likewise FirstGroup announced an eye-watering shareholder payout of £500 million earlier this year. These payouts don’t improve services for travellers, nor do scraps fall from the table to workers and their pay packets.
Increasingly, public ownership of failing franchises is deployed as a tool of last resort by the Tories, rather than the common sense policy necessary to deliver improved, zero-carbon rail travel for all. This weekend in fact, Southeastern railway will pass back into public ownership after nearly two decades of sub-par services, and the revelation that it had failed to declare over £25 million of taxpayer funding.
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https://tribunemag.co.uk/2021/10/tory-rail-privatisation-has-been-a-disaster-for-the-public-and-the-climate