NOR4NOR for Nationalisation of Rail Bringing the railways back to the community Newsletter No. 1 Summer 2017, FREE Rail action spreads The railways are at a Several other rail companies crossroads in 2017. The have also been trying to STRIKES, PROTESTS, LOBBIES get rid of guards: Abellio last year has witnessed Scotrail, Arriva North Rail the most widespread and Merseyrail, because it rail campaigning in over & MEETINGS IN EAST ANGLIA, saves them money- some three decades. £350 million. Both the rail trade unions At the moment only and passenger groups have IN THE NORTH, IN SCOTLAND, around 30% of rail services organised hundreds of are D.O.O but all the rail protests across Britain in companies will try to follow an unprecedented fight for IN THE SOUTH, IN LONDON, suit. This is one reason why public ownership to replace the current widespread the chaotic private rail dispute over the retention franchises and to prevent AND AT OVER A HUNDRED of guards is so important: the rail privateers from the fight to have safety imposing cuts in staffing critical staff on board trains levels. Rail union members STATIONS ACROSS BRITAIN is part of the fight for public have gone on strike in ownership. If we want a defence of safety and publicly-owned system it passengers have joined in for their shareholders. must be fully staffed. We their thousands to condemn This is why the Whitehall have to build the case that the rail rip-off. transport chief Peter new trains do not mean There is a deep crisis at Wilkinson called for ‘punch- that thousands of jobs must the heart of the railways. ups’ with the unions and be lost. The rail privateers and their arrogantly declared that But it’s not just guards ideological allies, including the unions should ‘get whose jobs are under companies like Virgin, Serco, out of my industry’. There threat. Ticket office staff on Abellio, Govia, and Arriva, is always the threat that stations are threatened with think that the current form governments will take away having their jobs replaced of privatisation has not their franchises if they fail by machines. This is despite been thoroughgoing enough to perform as happened the fact that passenger because it has failed to bring on . groups have repeatedly said the destruction of trade remains in that people want face-to- union power in the industry, public ownership. face contacts for advice and and has ensured continuous Now the Department for buying tickets. government interference. Transport is attempting It’s time to turn the No matter how hard they to reduce government tables on the privateers. try, the privateers have subsidies. For two years, Throughout Britain we largely failed to slash pay Southern Rail/ GTR services need public campaigning rates, worsen working have been in chaos, a in support of the alternative conditions, sack staff or situation worsened by to a profit-led rail system exclude the unions from the attempt by Southern and to provide the rail collective bargaining. to remove guards and to unions with the backing that They have therefore been introduce Driver-only their members need in the unable to increase profits operation of trains (D.O.O). current disputes.

n STOP PRESS Network Rail plans to axe 1,000 safety-critical rail renewal jobs page 2 Bringing the railways back to the community NOR4NOR An Insider’s View: SAYS All Aboard

here are signs that a national movement around public the Gravy Train Ttransport is emerging in Britain that could draw on a whole range of local groups, unions and individuals. There is certainly more scope for such a movement than at any time in the past thirty years when privatisation was carried out. NOR4NOR was set up in 2016 in response to growing discontent with passenger services in East Anglia. It brings together passengers, transport union members and local labour movement activists who believe that there is an alternative to the rail privateers. NOR4NOR supporters have been at station throughout 2016 ensuring that Greater Anglia (formerly Abellio Greater Anglia) is held to account, that rail improvement of real benefit can be achieved and to encourage a debate about Hello readers. By way of diesel-electric locomotives on taxpayers and let slippery Eels like what future public ownership might be brief introduction, I’m an this train are the newest in the Peter Wilkinson, part owner of like: modelled on the old British Rail, country, called Class 68s. But these ROSCO Angel Trains make a mint employee on the railways, it’s publicly-owned regional rail companies or weren’t built in Britain, don’t be overnight. my job to look after thousands daft! Successive governments Wilkinson just happens to be a employee-owned partnerships? of passengers every day, in a have successfully destroyed the Department of Transport director, entire world-leading research and pushing Govia and Southern Rail safety critical role. I’ve been development and manufacturing to provoke the RMT Union into in the industry a while, long wings of British Rail. So they strike action. Did anyone mention enough to get an interesting were ordered and built in Spain. corruption or conflicts of interest view from the inside. Here’s But they’re sort of owned by you at the heart of government!? Sorry, and me, because they are owned I digress...! So that’s one point the first insider story I’d like by Direct Rail Services (DRS), a to the greedy taxpayer shafting to share with you... government arms-length train venture capitalists! Hurrah! Every week day on the Norwich operating company (TOC) created And to finish it off, the Spanish branches to Lowestoft and because private companies can’t built, British-owned and Yarmouth, a train runs which is a be trusted to run high-risk Nuclear crewed locomotive, which pulls literal metaphor on wheels for the Flask trains to Sellafield processing the taxpayer-shafting owned failure of fragmented franchising plant. carriages, operated and crewed and it has us all in fits of laughter, So the DRS locomotives by the Dutch State Railways run because it’s better to laugh than (indirectly owned by us taxpayers) on Network Rail infrastructure. cry! Following an operating are also driven by DRS train Which is, following accounting incident, a three coach Class 170 drivers (sort of employed by us, rules changes in 2015, is now train, or ‘unit’ as we call them, was too). So that’s one point to Spain owned by us. One point to taken out of service. Greater Anglia and two to Britain! But the guard Britain! We didn’t know that the run such a bare bones franchise (at least we can be thankful we Conservative government was that they had no spare unit still have them!) is employed by into Nationalisation, but I think available to supplement the gaps Greater Anglia, a subsiduary of neither did they! that the non-availability of this Nederlandse Spoorwegen, the What’s the score and who wins NOR4NOR supporters at Norwich station on 18th October 2016 train being taken out of service Dutch state operator. And they’re at the end? It’s not you or me, (Photo: Geraldine Scott) created. So they replicated what the ones ultimately responsible or anyone else who needs the was already being done to plug a for the train, too. Two points to passenger railway to provide a Contact NOR4NOR: shortage of trains on the Lowestoft the Netherlands! The coaches, public service! Unless you’re a and Yarmouth lines, where aged confusingly painted in 1980s Dutch taxpayer, Spanish train email: [email protected] and polluting Class 37 locomotives British Rail ‘Blue and Grey’ colours builder or a Hedge Fund manager from the 1960s, which pull 1970s are owned by a private charter with investments in a ROSCO, phone: 07946 284089 ‘Mk.2’ coaches run ‘top and tailed’, operator Rivera Trains. So that’s a you’re getting shafted. write: 15 Wellington Road, with a locomotive on each end of point to Britain! The solution? Immediate, three coaches. The only good thing Well, only sort of. Because progressive-politics inspired Norwich, NR2 3HT is that at least the seats line up those coaches, just like a lot of nationalisation is required right NOR4NOR with the windows in the carriages! the rolling stock in the 1990s now, with the UK Rail network This second train could have been privatisations, found their way run under a partnership model NOR4NOR is supported by: avoided, considering Greater into ‘Rolling Stock Operating which puts all employees at the Anglia gave away several units to Companies’ (ROSCOs), which heart of the system and prevents Clive Lewis MP Norwich South, other operators at the start of their was one of the biggest unreported future governments, the Treasury Norwich Green party, Norwich RMT, GMB N24, original franchise, so it’s a bit of an financial scandals of the 1990s. and corporate greed screwing the Norwich Trades Council, BBBR, Norfolk Unite own goal. Just like the public flotation of whole thing for another twenty Community, TSSA, CATP and We Own It. But take a few steps back, Royal Mail, this stole millions years. and it really beggars belief. The from you and me and all other All aboard the gravy train! Bringing the railways back to the community page 3 FROM BAD TO WORSE!

Protest at Liverpool St station on 16th August 20 Momentum Disabled Caucus and CATP The guard is there for everyone’s 35 different safety-crucial competencies. Go basis that non-Disabled travellers trains discriminated against Deaf and The government is encouraging the enjoy. There will be no 2nd member Disabled People and puts staff under protection; terrorist incidents can extension of Driver Only Operation of staff and Disabled people requiring intolerable pressure. only remind us of this. Access to (DOO). Southern introduced an On assistance to board/ exit the train face The DOO dispute has spread from rail services for Deaf and Disabled Board Supervisor (OBS) with just 2 days abolition of the Right to Ride. RMT members on Southern GTR passengers rely on an adequate very basic training. Southern negotiated Private companies are creating to Merseyrail and Arriva Rail North. [with the exclusion of the RMT] an longer trains with up to 12 carriages Momentum Disabled Caucus have been number of well-trained staff and agreement with ASLEF leadership, not and the impossibility of drivers campaigning to “Make Rail Accessible.” accessible facilities. to send an OBS under a high number seeing anyone trying to board at Attacks on the rights of Deaf and Environmental barriers, service of “exceptional circumstances”. the back of curved platforms. Lack Disabled People are often also an provider policies and attitudes lead ASLEF membership voted against this of maintenance staff leads to the attack on trade unionists. We need to our isolation and exclusion from discriminatory deal. break-down of lifts, lack of toilets, to work together for a socialist work, education, volunteering and Southern has announced 33 stations Help-points which don’t work, etc. Labour Government, led by Jeremy involvement in our communities. where Disabled passengers can no The 2 minutes time allowed at many Corbyn, whose pledges include public Guards have months of training and longer arrive on the same Turn-Up-&- stations for all passengers to board/exit ownership of public transport.

be found in railway culture since the RMT in 2002 following the members, believes in rank and its earliest days. Bob’s life as a death of Jimmy Knapp. file activity and doesn’t run New book on Bob Crow railway worker, trade unionist, Bob took over when the away from employers. The book and leader of the RMT is union’s situation was not good covers all the things Bob got When the modern history of carefully documented in Gregor and when it faced probably the involved in but makes sure he the railways comes to be written, Gall’s biography Bob Crow: biggest challenges in its history: is located in a political context Bob Crow, the General Secretary Socialist, Leader, Fighter (2017). the privatisation of British Rail within the RMT – a group of of the RMT until his untimely Bob was an NUR rep on and Gordon Brown’s ill-fated activists who effectively took death in 2014, will loom large in Sectional Council 8 from partial privatisation of London the union back to its syndicalist its pages. 1982 to 1992, representing Underground. roots. Not least because Bob was Permanent Way staff and ended It’s partly down to Bob that Go out and buy this book: Bob a product of the railways – the up as an Assistant General the RMT is now regarded as Crow: Socialist, Leader, Fighter London Underground – and Secretary in 1994, aged 33. He one of the most successful A Political Biography by Gregor reflected the Bolshie attitudes to became General Secretary of unions because it supports its Gall (2017, Manchester, MUP). page 4 Bringing the railways back to the community Rail Privatisation: A Timeline of Failures the history of railway

1993 RAILWAYS ACT One of the most heavily amended bills in British parliamentary history

SEPTEMBER 1997: Southall rail crash kills seven people and injures 139. Great Western Trains is fined £1.5 million for health industrial relations and safety violations. DECEMBER 1998: National Audit Office report finds the The key developments taxpayers lost £1.5 billion as a result of the government’s NUR picket line rushed sale of shares in Railtrack in May 1996, (in in the post-war period at Stratford 2016, the equivalent of £2.3 billion). are nationalisation and station in 1989 OCTOBER 1999: Ladbroke Grove rail crash kills productivity, followed by 31 people and injures 52. Thames Trains privatisation in the 1990s. poor driver training is cited as a major The arguments for contributing factor. nationalisation which had been OCTOBER 2000: Hatfield put forward by a Parliamentary rail crash kills four and Select Committee in 1918 and a injures 70. Railtrack’s lack Royal Commission in 1930 were of knowledge and failure to now to be made concrete by maintain its track is blamed, leading OCTOBER 2000: the 1945 Labour government. to plans to transform the company into Labour’s manifesto Let Us Face a ‘not-for-profit’ trust. Strategic Rail Authority strips Connex of the the Future argued that ‘co- South Central rail ordination of transport services franchise, following by rail, road air and canal cannot OCTOBER 2001: After sever financial criticism of poor be achieved without unification’ difficulties, Railtrack is placed into customer service and adding that public ownership administration by Transport Secretary financial management. was the only way to achieve Stephen Byers and replaced by the arms- this unification of services. The length public body Network Rail in 2002. TUC had also published The MAY 2002: Potters Bar rail crash kills seven Public Operation of Transport people and injures 76. Private contractor (1945). Labour’s Transport Jarvis is blamed for its failure to maintain Act (1947-8) set up the British points. In 2010, Jarvis and Network Rail Transport Commission (BTC) (having taken on Railtrack’s liabilities) are to run the services. In 1962, charged under the Health & Safety at Work the BTC was abolished by the Act, prompting Network Rail to take its track Conservative government, maintenance back in-house. creating 4 new authorities: JUNE 2003: Strategic Rail Authority strips the British Railway Board, the Connex of the South Eastern rail franchise London Transport Board, the for poor performance and financial British Transport Docks Boards management. and the British Waterways Board. This, alongside Beeching’s The DECEMBER 2006: Department for Transport Reshaping of British Railways, strips GNER of the East Coast rail franchise, was a step towards making the after it falls into financial difficulties. sole criterion for the railways NOVEMBER 2009: Department for Transport is forced that of profitability and the to re-nationalise the East Coast rail franchise after National downgrading of social provision. Express (which had taken over operations following GNER’s Labour’s 1968 Transport Act did failure in 2006) walked away with more than £1 billion of debt. tip the balance back towards social ownership. The history of British Railways AUGUST 2012: Department for Transport awards the West Coast rail was, for its workforce, a time franchise to FirstGroup prompting a legal challenge by Virgin Trains. of increasing disappointment Dave Welsh writes OCTOBER 2012: The West Coast franchise competition is after the high hopes for it as a the emphasis on Beeching, so cancelled at a cost of £50 million to the government. publicly-owned utility. Every beloved of railway enthusiasts, Virgin Trains and many other incumbent franchise holders are decade brought more cutbacks, masks the fact that the railways, agitation and ‘collective directly awarded extensions instead of opening them up to tender. line closures, loss of jobs and, alongside the pits, experienced bargaining by riot’ had vanished. This undermines the very purpose of the franchising process. latterly, productivity deals. The what was probably the biggest British Railways (and British Rail) SEPTEMBER 2014: Network Rail is finally fully re-nationalised railways could have been a model technological and productivity had developed a vast ‘machinery to reduce its borrowing costs, enhance transparency and for a national public service with (dubbed Pay & Efficiency) drive of negotiation’ (1956) with make it accountable to parliament. widespread local and regional in any British industry during the over 1,600 Local Departmental APRIL 2015: East Coast rail franchise is re-privatised, decision-making and democratic 20th century. This was coupled Committees (LDC’s). At a local despite having returned nearly £1 billion profit to HM Treasury and control vested in worker and with a propaganda campaign level, this structure allowed delivering record passenger satisfaction and punctuality, whilst in passenger committees. The NUR suggesting that the publicly- union representatives to become public ownership from 2009 to 2015. did publish a pamphlet called owned railways were inefficient. incorporated and complaisant, APRIL 2015: West Coast Railways has its operator’s ‘Workers’ Control’ arguing for Even in the early years, between causing some friction with the licence suspended by Network Rail amid concerns over the a National Railways Transport 1948 and 1951, the BTC had built local union branches from which company’s ability to perform its safety obligations. College which would give rail up a surplus of £165 million they had become detached. This SEPTEMBER 2016: The government announces a £20 million fund workers the skills to run the but payments of £176 million did not preclude unofficial action to address the crisis with the Southern rail franchise, after it industry. to former rail and road haulage but it did stifle or channel many axes 341 services a day on the London to Brighton route to The slogan of a ‘job for life’ shareholders pushed the BTC’s grievances into manageable make the remaining services ‘more reliable’. Meanwhile Southern’s was not the case on the railways accounts into the red- lending sidings and there was certainly parent company Go-Ahead reports £99 million annual profits. with thousands of jobs being credibility to the charge that never any intention of using such lost in the 1960s and 1970s, it state-owned industries lost committees to discuss the actual was simply that ex-rail workers money. running of the railways! Whist could find other work rather In terms of industrial strikes on passenger services bringbackbritishrail.org/report than ending up on the dole. But relations, the days of syndicalist hit the headlines, it was the rail Bringing the railways back to the community page 5 Railway Lives – Our Common Wealth the history of railway Martin Bashforth recording our history Born in the northern railway class people, I took pride in town of Darlington, before projects along such lines. I listed and researched the names of railways were nationalised, railway workers who served in I grew up with railways as the Great War – a database now part of the warp and weft of searchable on line. I enjoyed working-class life. answering enquiries about We couldn’t always afford railway lives – most famously industrial relations to use them, then as now. It from Iain Sinclair’s mother Anna, was a rare treat to go on the featured in London: A City of from which they had been annual Working Men’s Club Disappearances (Penguin, 2007). excluded in 1919. But conditions outing to the seaside at Redcar I researched and wrote stories for women remained inadequate or Saltburn. Such magical for the NRM’s own journal, and woeful: lack of female toilets, memories are etched in my The Great War magazine and hostility from male colleagues brain to this day. Everyone’s War. and pornography on mess-room As a schoolboy, I witnessed The fragments of personnel walls. At the same time, (male) mass meetings in the town records that survived the union representatives did begin centre when the North Road ravages of the Blitz and the even to support women members and Railway Works were closed down. more destructive vandalism local union branches elected I was impressed as the local of successive ‘reorganisations’ women as officers. union and Communist shop are at the National Archives The railway unions were steward fought to save jobs and in Kew, not at the NRM. But it centrally involved in the major to find new ones. The Works were is amazing what you can find union confrontations with the demolished – only the old clock tucked away in the bound state in the 1970s, with ASLE&F survives on the wall of Morrison’s volumes of company magazines at Thames Haven providing supermarket to remind us of on the Search Engine shelves. It solidarity action for the miners the four o’clock mass exodus. As is a treasure trove of life on and and the NUR spearheading a student working for the Post around the railways from the the destruction of the Heath Office on Bank Top Station one late Victorian era to the 1960s. Industrial Relations Act. Being Christmas, I cheered a battered If you ever visit York, drop able to tip the balance in and grimy steam engine as into Search Engine at the NRM. disputes involving freight (coal- it hauled in a broken-down Browse the ‘Great Eastern Railway’ magazine for stories fired power stations) was still diesel express that had frozen about this region. However – part of the ‘Victorian’ arsenal of solid. The experience came full check in advance when it is open railway union power. ASLE&F circle in my last job as assistant [email: [email protected]. with its left-leaning leadership archivist at the National Railway uk or visit http://www.nrm.org. and highly class-conscious rank Museum in York, from which I uk/researchandarchive/about]. and file played a key role in retired in 2010. Like all publicly funded pushing a reluctant TUC into The greatest pleasure was museums, the NRM is strapped leading the revolt against state working for two years on the for cash and Search Engine coercion. At the same time, project that opened up the no longer opens seven days racism, which had emerged Library and Archives, now known a week. Just another bit of on the railways in the 1950s as ‘Search Engine’. Instead of half a dozen spaces, booked cultural vandalism that a more with attempts by some union enlightened and progressive members to exclude ‘coloured in advance, a few days a week, for those in the know, anyone society would put right. It is not labour’ from the industry, was could drop in unannounced, merely ‘heritage’, it is part of our challenged by black workers seven days a week, over 360 days common wealth like the railways and fascism came under attack a year. I organised volunteers themselves. One day, I hope, we from the NUR’s London District to catalogue tens of thousands the people will decide what are Council in its fight against the of photographs, engineering our priorities, what we need to NF’s Railwaymen’s Association. drawings and collections afford, not some bureaucrat in The formation of Rail Against of papers. As someone who Whitehall or Brussels, nor some the Nazis in the 1970s was an believes family history can open accountant in a boardroom in important milestone. up the past lives of working- Germany, Holland or France. Despite winning other gains, such as the closed shop and the Dave Welsh writes check-off system, the unions Women made up 4% of came under massive attack Can you help? railway staff in 1950, partly in the 1980s with the forced unions’ strategic hold on freight because of the abolition of the introduction of flexible rostering, My name is Richard Temple. I am interested in the NUR’s (especially coal) that conferred marriage-bar for white collar the Traincrew Concept, one- response to railway closures in the 1960s, particularly after the real power. Craft unionism still workers. The RCA struggled person-operated trains, and election of the Labour government in 1964. Despite Wilson’s dominated the industry with to express opposition to the moves towards privatisation. pledge to halt major closures, these continued unabated under ASLE&F engaging in frequent marriage-bar and conditions The 1989 series of six national Labour. The NUR’s response was relatively passive: there was battles with the BR Board over (and lack of equal pay) for rail strikes by the NUR in the no national campaign against the Beeching cuts. I’m looking for pay (often over differentials women carriage cleaners run-up to privatisation showed evidence of dissent within the union against the cuts and the or as a result of technological were abysmal. It was still only that the workforce was as NUR’s leadership’s failure to campaign properly against them. innovations such as diesel/ 10% of the workforce in 1982. combative as ever. This has In particular, I’m interested in the records of national sectional electric traction) and conditions Women were largely confined continued to be case despite conferences (eg goods guards, signalmen etc), and branch notably in 1955. At the same to cleaning catering and clerical the sell-off of publicly-owned secretaries conferences, c1962-70. These minutes of these time, railway wages generally roles reinforcing the rigid grade services between 1994 and 1996 national conferences were definitely sent to branches but they stagnated, with the Guillebaud segregation in the industry. whilst governments with the are proving remarkably elusive to find in the archive repositories Report (1960) finding that most Women began to re-enter the private rail companies have which hold the NUR’s records. railway employees received grades of guard and driver in failed to smash trade unionism Please let me know if you know of any records which might on average about 8% less than the late seventies, at Old Oak on the railways. As Mike Berlins have survived, [email protected]. National archives workers of comparable skill and Common and Waterloo depots has noted, ‘British Rail, a by no of the NUR have been deposited at the Modern Records responsibility in municipal, in London, forcing the unions means perfect but truly national Centre, University of Warwick and local NUR records have been engineering and other transport to review their policies. On the transport network, was shattered deposited at local record offices. More advice generally on trade sectors. Many workers began London underground, women in a hundred pieces in pursuit of union and labour archives may be found here, http://www.sslh. to rely on overtime to reach a now became guards, (later a completely spurious notion of org.uk/perch/resources/download-docs/society-for-the-study- decent weekly wage. motormen), re-entering a grade competition’. of-labour-history-keeping-your-records.pdf page 6 Bringing the railways back to the community Our correspondent ‘Red Wheels’ comments on the East Anglian Rail Franchise (2016).

The East Anglia franchise is Greater Anglia Annual Accounts Franchise developments to watch The extension of the Norwich to unusual in that it generates profit as The 2016 franchise agreement contained Service to Stanstead Airport Retained profit 2013 £4,335,000 a number of commitments that with an earlier first train and additional opposed to requiring subsidy (as of 2014 £22,439,000 would be useful to watch in terms of evening service 2014) and pays into the Department their implementation, (which will be for Transport. The new franchise £218,000 HIGHEST PAID presumably in December 2017). DIRECTOR The most important opportunity in deal requires a continuation of £885,000 PAYMENTS TO Main line commitment Norfolk is to change the operating pattern the principal to “pay in” with a DIRECTORS Three trains an hour will run between of the Breckland Line. The service on the total of £3.7 billion to be sent to (9 Directors) Norwich and London all of the day, line provides a cross-Norfolk opportunity (currently two trains). Will the third train between Norwich, and the A11 the government over the nine-year Angel trains Annual Accounts market towns. The service is currently franchise deal. stop at Diss? £76,000,000 Profit (2014 Full year figures) set in a way that the two trains an hour If we assume that Nederlandse operate within 15 minutes of each other. Spoorwegen (Dutch Railways) was £700,000 PAYMENTS TO DIRECTORS How this implemented may actually To recast the service to be an even requiring the company to generate and (only 4 of them) decrease accessibility within Norfolk. The spaced half-an-hourly service would retain profit at the same rate as 2014 (the optimum way to increase accessibility provide the maximum accessibility with first year that Abellio operated without to 20% of Angel trains total passenger would be to implement a 20 minute the resources. UK government subsidy), we can see that vehicles. service (evenly spaced). It may be this represents £200 million in profits If profit continues in the same pattern implemented where Diss loses its evenly diverted from the British taxpayer. If we for Angel trains, this would represent at spaced thirty minute service, increasing The extension of the Norwich to take the 2013 profit figures of £4 million last an additional £90 million over the the generalised cost of travel, and Yarmouth peak hour frequency of we can assume that £36 million would lifetime of the East Anglia franchise, decreasing accessibility. two trains an hour during a greater be saved to re-invest or diverted to the this will on fact be much more as the part of the day. Spend the money treasury. minimum lease term for rolling stock instead on: Broadland Business The real story of the franchise is the vehicles tends to be 21 years. Regional commitment Park Station cost £6.5 million; build rolling stock deal by Angel trains as part Later services from Norwich to Great new stations at Trowse, Harford and of the award of the contract. The £1.4 What difference a nationalised or a not for Yarmouth, Lowestoft and Sheringham. Cringleford at a cost of £20 million each? billion rolling stock deal signed as part of profit company? Spend it on buses! the deal between Angel trains and Abellio. The saving from a Directors being The higher value “Flirt” units which recompensed at a conventional level We would want a time later than 23:29 represents nearly a quarter of the order of a public-sector organisation would for the arrival of the 21:30 from London will be built outside the United Kingdom be alone £8 million over the life of the Liverpool Street and allow for a post 23:00 departure for the entertainment market in in Switzerland. Rail rolling stock in this contract. The profit on the rail operation (below) Protest at Waterloo station in 2016. Bring Back country is owned by one of the ROSCO’s would be a figure between £36 and £200 Norwich. British Rail is a national organisation campaigning for and this order will represent about 15% million over the lifetime of the franchise. public ownership of the railways. Bringing the railways back to the community page 7 Rail Users’ Organisations in East Anglia BY Trevor Garrod

Rail users in Norfolk and Yarmouth station to the seafront have been organised and up to Hemsby. It sees this as the first step towards an all-year for more than four decades service. Otherwise passengers to protect and promote their arriving in Yarmouth by train services. have to walk half a mile to Under the umbrella of Market Gates to catch a bus. the Railway Development The Peterborough – Norwich Society, now Railfuture, an Rail Users, Group, as well as independent voluntary body, promoting the interests of users local associations on regional of stations such as , lines were formed in the 1970s and Thetford, and 1980s and nearly all of them has also campaigned for the still exist today. retention and development Steve Hedley (above), Assistant General Secretary RMT, was one of the speakers at a packed public meeting in Norwich in January 2017. of the service from Norwich With Caroline Lucas MP (Green),Clive Lewis MP (Labour), Oliver Lewis (BBBR) and Dave Welsh (NOR4NOR), Steve made the case for public At that time, much of the ownership and also described the RMT’s fight against DOO. The rail unions, TSSA, ASLEF and Unite, are committed to public ownership and emphasis was on lobbying for to Manchester and Liverpool, have supported the RMT’s campaign. The meeting was chaired by Sarah Lark (Norwich Trades Council). new trains and modernisation originally started by the including electrification nationalised British Rail in save the Ipswich – Lowestoft the demand. The buses from was too busy. Railfuture and from Colchester to Norwich, the late 1980s and a definite line from closure in the 1960s Norwich to Southwold call at its affiliated local associations finally achieved in 1987, and success story. The Fen Line and also now campaigns for the Halesworth rail station, and want to see adequate staffing, Cambridge to Kings Lynn, Users Association was one of Lowestoft – Norwich service. ESTA has worked to promote particularly in customer-facing completed in 1991. Bus/rail the bodies putting the case for These services have all seen and improve this integration. roles on trains and at stations, integration, one of the aims of electrification to Kings Lynn and increases in usage in recent Another aim of NOR4NOR is to help passengers and guard NOR4NOR, has also been a key now wants to see a half-hourly years and more capacity is to have adequate staffing, and against fare evasion, as well as part of the work of these local service to cope with increased needed – such as more and/ this was brought home vividly in performing their obvious safety groups. demand and provide an or longer trains. As NOR4NOR ESTA’s most recent survey, which role. For example, the East Norfolk alternative to the motor car. says, the case must be put indicated that up to one in eight n For details of the national Transport Users, Association The East Suffolk Travellers’ to Network Rail to invest in passengers were not having their body Railfuture and the local rail has lobbied successfully for Association (ESTA) was formed further modernisation and tickets checked or could not buy users’ organisations, log on to a summer bus service from during the successful fight to increased capacity to cope with a ticket because the conductor www.railfuture.org.uk Talking about the Railways: Tracey Carpenter talks about working as a freight guard at Stratford depot in the 1980s. s a freight guard the shifts and careful so there was a realisation were all around the clock. that we were in quite a dangerous You could sign on for duty environment. anytime from midnight all The NUR became the RMT when around the clock, and that we merged with the seamen’s union stillA exists now. Some depots have no but I was on the footplate and in signing on between midnight and five ASLEF instead before Bob Crow in the morning but where I work now became General Secretary of the RMT. at Bedford it’s anytime…we have shifts I remember Bob as a fellow branch that start at two thirty in the morning secretary in the Stratford area. He used right through till night shifts. The shifts to get chucked out of the engineering are very demanding. And they take no sheds because he was actually a tube account of people aging, even though worker and wasn’t a railway worker scientific evidence shows that you’re so he couldn’t go recruiting round the more likely to have a heart attack from engine sheds and he used to get thrown night work as you get older. Shift work out of there regularly. In 1989 we had can also cause more instances of breast a series of national one-day strikes cancer and all sorts of things. over pay. I was already on my drivers’ Because you’re coupling up trains and course by then so I was in a bit of a there’s oil everywhere. Everywhere was funny position where I was no longer a dirty, every engine stank of cigarette guard but I was still the secretary of my smoke and diesel fumes and there was rain but you kept very fit. about a ladies’ toilet? Where’s the branch, we couldn’t find anyone else to ash all over the desks of the locomotives. [On the railways] I think there was ladies’ toilet going to be?’ even though run it. It was just everywhere and then you solidarity amongst people. There was I was the only woman there. I think But in the run up to this we’d been were getting off in muddy yards, some almost like an extended family sense. they did look out for each other and quite active as a branch with the worse than others. And you would The people were interested in each when I went on the footplate in 1989 introduction of Driver Only Operation. be trying to get lever handbrakes off other and there was a solidarity. I at Stratford I remember this huge West We’d had also to deal with the Train by looking for bits of metal to whack remember we had a strike about moving Indian guard saying in front of all the Crew Concept which had come in, against the pin in the lever that was up to Stratford because there was a drivers ‘She’s still under our protection’ which allowed guards to go driving and stuck because when the brakes were put sense, I think, amongst the West Indian and it was like they were just saying I was one of those guards who went on wagons the air would be out of them guards that there would be a racial thing that they were supporting me. It wasn’t driving. But we’d been involved in a and then as the air came up the pins going on when we moved up there. A demonstrative a lot of the time but it big campaign against the aptitude test would be at an angle and you’d be trying lot of the drivers at Stratford said ‘We was like quietly people were watching which was brought in with this Concept to get this pin out and you’d just end up don’t want the guards in with us because what was going on amongst each other. – it was a completely new thing on the whacking the pin with rusty lumps of they’re black’. And I’ve been told there There was a dreadful accident where railway to bring in suitability rather metal that you found. And so everything had been colour bars on the railway a freight guard got his foot cut off and than seniority. So big changes were was dirty but you kept really fit. As a in the past -in the sixties apparently it that was absolutely horrifying and going on on the railway and part of driver now I find it very hard to keep my was very hard for black drivers. We had people were very aware that this could the reason for it was the imminent weight off but then you were constantly a day’s strike and when we resolved have happened to any of us. The man retirement of the drivers who had been thin, you walked around in the cold and all the issues the guys said ‘Well what it happened to was very conscientious recruited post-war. page 8 Bringing the railways back to the community EU privatisation gravy train departs from Brussels

Pete Wilks explains

European state owned rail the fragmentation of the system. Subsidies from government were companies that have come higher and had risen 100% since to dominate UK’s privatised U.K. privatisation. Despite profits networks are to see major to shareholders of £700m p.a., privatisations of their own the UK had little new investment and an ageing rolling stock. European networks. For passengers, the complexity This follows approval in the of fares and the fragmented European Parliament of a policy timetables, and delays, made initiative by the European journeys more difficult. For rail Council. The policy, known as ‘the workers, the U.K. system led to 4th Railway package’, will open more industrial disputes over up railways to private operators safety and pay than in Europe. and competitive tendering, as No wonder that, 24 years on in the U.K. since 1993. Critics of from privatisation, 60% of the UK the extension of privatisation in public want rail renationalised. Europe were not heeded, as they warned of the consequences But privatisation is to be based on the UK experience. extended throughout Europe! Why? The failure of UK privatised If the UK experience is railways repeated in The EU it will Dr Ian Taylor in his presentation cause a deterioration in the to the European Parliament efficiency of rail networks and (28/5/15) compared the further damage to EU political performance of the privatised UK institutions. Why pursue a rail system to that of state run rail policy which is so obviously networks since 2000, and showed doomed to fail, that the latter out-performed Could it be that there is still life the former. Both systems saw an in the old right-wing dogma that On the other hand, it may be of state railways will benefit * South West Trains will be taken over by increase in passengers, but the Private is good and the Public is that the prospects for investing from the privatisations of their MTR in August 2017) increase was bigger in the state bad? There are those who say that the huge private surpluses held businesses. run systems. U.K. privatised rail UK privatisation never went far by Corporations are so poor In the case of the UK, selling The renationalisation of fares were 109% higher than enough, ‘Competition and private in these times of economic off public assets is driven by the railways may be what the EU systems, and had increased ownership were hamstrung crisis, that only by opening necessity of securing inflows of British public desires, but there by 23% since privatisation. UK by excessive government up Public sector services can foreign investment to balance the are powerful interests behind rail operated at 40% higher cost interference and over-mighty profitable opportunities be trade deficit of uncompetitive UK the juggernaut of further than continental rivals due to trades unions’, they say. created. No doubt the managers manufacturing. privatisation.

Why not become a NOR4NOR supporter? Or get your Transport accounts for about ¼ of climate emissions, of union branch or organisation to affiliate. We are Sustainable transport – it’s which more than half is from currently doing a passenger survey so please contact private cars, with aviation us by email to obtain a copy, or go to this link: http:// easier than rocket science catching up. 70% of flights are inmade by 15% of people, and tinyurl.com/NOR4NOR2017Survey Many people get the absence of VAT or aviation Come to our NOR4NOR Rail Summit in autumn 2017 to BY Lesley Grahame fuel tax is effectively a £16bn sentimental about railways, public subsidy, or 4 times the carry through a debate on public ownership with topics I am one of them. From my support that government gives including: building a network in East Anglia; planning window I’ve seen rabbits, talks about vital national to railways. infrastructure, they should be Only a nationally owned for public ownership; how to fight for integrated rail foxes and the occasional talking – and spending our deer on the land around the company could secure and and bus services. money on – local and inter-city co-ordinate the necessary tracks. My two holidays of rail and bus (not the vanity your investment to re-open or re- NOR4NOR has received generous financial support from a lifetime have been inter- project of HS2) and renewable route closed lines, electrify the the following: Norwich & District Trades Union Council, energy, not new roads or trains with a clean renewable railing when I was 21, and airports. Travelling by train energy source and co-ordinate Norwich RMT branch; Bring Back British Rail, GMB N24, again with my family when cuts our journey’s emissions by fair and understandable Norfolk Unite Retired branch and the TSSA. my son was 21. about 2/3 from flying, or half Between those big trips, I from driving, based on a small ticketing, connected journeys learned about climate change car with one passenger. and safe staffing levels. Green coand decided notmmu to fly except This variesnity according to MP Caroline Lucas has twice in dire emergency. This was how full the train is, and from introduced a Railways Bill to an easy choice for me, but a highly polluting diesel trains to bring contracts back in-house very difficult one for the many non-polluting electric trains, as they come to an end, but Useful contacts: people who have to cross however, electricity is only as sadly this was not supported by n Bring Back British Rail: n Over & Under: an oral history continents to see family. Seeing clean as its fuel source. Clean other parties. bringbackbritishrail.org/franchises of rail, tube and bus workers family is obviously important, renewable energy can be Sustainable travel is a matter in London and the South- and so is seeing family grow up massively scaled up to power of conscience for individuals, n Action for Rail (rail union East Region. Contact rima@ in the kind of world you’d like our rail network, especially and should be high priority campaign): http://campaign. britainatworklondon.com to to leave them, one free from tidal energy, which is always policy for governments. actionforrail.org be interviewed or go to www. hunger, conflict, and forced available. The sooner we cut With the political will, public n Railfuture: www.railfuture.org.uk britainatworklondon.com migration. Business as usual our emissions, the less drastic transport can drive the kind of economy that provides n Campaign Against Tube is making our climate more the descent required to stop n We Own It: [email protected] unstable, and our food supply runaway climate change, and well paid, worthwhile jobs as Privatisation (CATP): janpollock@ n RMT: [email protected] more insecure, leading to the sooner we reduce the a public service, spreading btinternet.com conflict and forced migration. annual toll of 30,000 pollution- wealth by employing people n TSSA: [email protected] n Norwich & District Trades Union The Green party offers a safer, related early deaths. If we can and enabling us to get where Council: www.norwichand n ASLEF: [email protected] kinder vision of the future. do rocket science, we can do we want to go, reliably, cleanly districttradesunioncouncil.org n Unite: www.unitetheunion.org When government clean energy science. and affordably.