“That’s why we say it’s time we owned our own trains – to get our money back on track, not seeing it leave the station to move offshore, and to get Britain moving on the right lines again.”
By Dave Calfe
At ASLEF, we are pleased that the Labour government, elected two years ago in 2024, has begun to deliver on two of its key manifesto pledges: to bring in A New Deal for Working People, in the Employment Rights Act, the biggest increase in workers’ rights for a generation, and to bring Britain’s railways back into public ownership with the Railways Bill, which is on its way through the House of Lords.
Britain’s railway infrastructure – the track, the signalling, and the level crossings, the bridges, the culverts, and the viaducts, as well as most of the railway stations on the rail network – are publicly-owned by Network Rail, which has been responsible for our rail infrastructure for the last 24 years, after Railtrack, the private company that ran it from John Major’s ill-fated privatisation of British Rail in 1994 until 2002, cut far too many corners in a bid to turn a profit and was found responsible for the fatal train crashes at Southall and Ladbroke Grove.
Britain’s 14 passenger train operating companies, privatised by the Tories, are being brought back into the public sector under the DfT and, eventually, GBR, which, of course, we welcome. Labour will then have put the wheels and the steel of the network back together – the passenger TOCs and Network Rail – a policy for which ASLEF has pushed since 1994.
But there are two glaring exceptions to the new public ownership rule – the freight operating companies, perpetually going after each other’s existing freight traffic, rather than trying to grow the whole business of freight on rail; and the rolling stock companies.
The rail freight sector desperately needs help from the government – support to level up the playing field with road haulage – and we are pushing hard for that. Not just for our members who work in the rail freight sector, but because it makes sense for the environment and the economy.
As for the rolling stock, the privatisation of the RoSCos in 1994 was a disgrace. A few companies picked up public property – the locomotives and the carriages – for a fraction of their true value and a few people became multi-millionaires overnight. It was, and is, a national scandal.
Rather than buying their own rolling stock, the TOCs and FOCs rent their trains on extremely lucrative short- or long-term leasing agreements. Extremely lucrative, that is, for the three private RoSCos: Angel Trains, Porterbrook, and Eversholt (now known as Beacon Rail). In the year 2024-2025, passenger fare income was £11.5 billion (84.56% of operating expenditure), as total train operator expenditure was £13.4 billion while leasing costs for the TOCs were a staggering £4.1 billion (30.6%).
In the last five years the RoSCos have taken £2.9 billion in profits and dividends out of the industry – money haemorrhaging from the network, often shifted offshore to tax havens, which could have been used here in Britain to improve our infrastructure or reduce fares for passengers.
The result is staggeringly inefficient – with trains sitting in storage, not being used, varying types of rolling stock across the network, meaning additional time spent training staff to learn the workings of different types of traction – and means there is no strategic vision or long-term plan, which is what the railway needs if it is to be successful.
In contrast, Steve Rotheram, Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, chose to purchase outright new rolling stock for Merseyrail in the north-west of England. He knows that buying, rather than leasing, the rolling stock will save Merseyrail and taxpayers millions of pounds in the medium- and long-term. It has also enabled much greater control over the design, integration, and maintenance strategy for the rolling stock. Transport for London also initially purchased the trains for its new Elizabeth line with a loan from the European Investment Bank.
Andy Burnham has identified the deindustrialisation of Britain – particularly under the rapacious neoliberal governments of Margaret Thatcher, John Major, David Cameron, Theresa May, and Boris Johnson – as a significant reason for this country’s current plight.
Bringing Britain’s rolling stock back under public control – so that we own, rather than lease, the trains – will not only save us billions but will also help our economy by building the rolling stock we need here in Britain. Using British steel and British workers to build the new British railway. Andy has talked this summer about the problem of de-industrialisation, and the long shadow it casts over our country. Building our own rolling stock, here in Britain, will encourage innovation, create jobs, and re-industrialise the key sectors of our economy.
That’s why we say it’s time we owned our own trains – to get our money back on track, not seeing it leave the station to move offshore, and to get Britain moving on the right lines again.
- Dave Calfe is the General Secretary of ASLEF. You can follow ASLEF on Facebook, Twitter/X and Instagram.
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