Today, rail minister Huw Merriman insisted the decision to nationalise TransPennine Express shows the Conservative UK Government is 'not driven by dogma'. The best performances were by Greater Anglia (1.0 per cent) and Hull Trains (1.2 per cent), while the average across all operators was 3.7 per cent. That was ahead of Grand Central (13.8 per cent), Transport for Wales (11.9 per cent) and Heathrow Express (7.1 per cent). The company cancelled the equivalent of 16.9 per cent of services in the four weeks to the end of March, according to analysis of Office of Rail and Road (ORR) figures. TransPennine Express has been cancelling more trains than any other operator. The DfT said its decision on TransPennine Express is 'temporary and it is the Government's full intention that it will return to the private sector'. He continued: 'If this Tory government really wants to build a British economy for the coming decades, the first thing it should do is listen to passengers, business and our union, all of whom want safe, reliable rail services. 'We can't trust trains to get us from A to B despite paying some of the highest fares in Europe: at that point, it's time to rethink how we run our railways.'Īnd Alan Valentine, the Transport Salaried Staffs Association organiser for TransPennine Express, said 'fragmented private railways are an abject failure'. 'Passengers are fed up with missing meetings and taking hours to get home from work, or missing out on weekend trips they used to enjoy. He went on: 'Unreliable transport affects our work, our leisure, our lives. Johnbosco Nwogbo, lead campaigner at We Own It, a group campaigning against privatisation of public services, said people have 'had enough of private companies ripping them off and leaving them stranded at the station'. 'The next Labour government will end this sticking plaster politics by bringing our railways back into public ownership as contracts expire, ending the Tories' failing system, and putting passengers back at the heart of our rail network.' Shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh said: 'This endless cycle of shambolic private operators failing passengers shows the Conservatives' rail system is fundamentally broken. In February, Transport Secretary Mark Harper pledged to enhance the role of the private sector in Britain's railways.Ī new body named Great British Railways will issue passenger service contracts to private companies to run trains.įollowing the news yesterday that the Government would take over services operated by TransPennine Express, Labour reiterated a pledge to nationalise all rail services across the UK. The current owner of TransPennine Express, FirstGroup, will continue to run a series of other operators - Avanti West Coast, Great Western Railway, South Western Railway, Hull Trains and Lumo. In September 2021, the Government took over the running of Southeastern following a 'serious breach' of its franchise agreement that saw the DfT find evidence it had not declared more than £25million of taxpayer funding. Northern Rail, the North of England's largest rail commuter service, was then put into public ownership from Maafter services were blighted by punctuality and reliability issues. West Midlands Railway: Transport UK Group.TransPennine Express: FirstGroup, UK Government from May 28.Stansted Express: Transport UK Group and Mitsui & Co.South Western Railway: FirstGroup (70%) and MTR Corporation (30%).London Overground: Transport for London. London Northwestern Railway: Transport UK Group.London North Eastern Railway (LNER): UK Government.Heathrow Express: Heathrow Express Operating Authority.Greater Anglia: Transport UK Group and Mitsui & Co.Great Northern: Govia Thameslink Railway.Gatwick Express: Govia Thameslink Railway.East Midlands Railway: Transport UK Group.Caledonian Sleeper: Serco, moving to Scottish Government on June 25.Avanti West Coast: FirstGroup (70%) and Trenitalia (30%).
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