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Rail campaigners will be protesting today (Friday) at stations up and down the East Coast Main Line against government plans to re-privatise the service later this year.

Rail campaigners will be protesting today (Friday) at stations up and down the East Coast Main Line against government plans to re-privatise the service later this year.

Campaigners will be at 11 stations along the line – including London King’s Cross, Peterborough, Newark, Doncaster, Durham, Newcastle and Edinburgh – giving out postcards and talking to commuters about the campaign to keep the East Coast public.

Last October ministers announced plans to re-privatise the East Coast Main Line – the only remaining publicly-owned railway in the UK. Since then more than 60 MPs from the Labour, Liberal Democrat, Green and Scottish National (SNP) parties have signed an early day motion (EDM) calling on the government to keep the line public.

The protest is timed to coincide with the Lib Dem spring conference in York this weekend. A recent poll by Survation found that 68 per cent of people who voted Lib Dem at the last election want to keep the East Coast Main Line under public ownership – a higher proportion than any other political party.

There will be a photo opportunity at York station from 1.30pm today (Friday) to coincide with the arrival of delegates to the Lib Dem Spring conference. Rail campaigners will be at the station with posters featuring the names of the Lib Dem MPs that support the campaign to keep the East Coast Main Line public, and calling on others in the party to join them. If you would like more information or want to attend the photocall call the TUC press office on 020 7467 1248.

The East Coast Main Line has been in public ownership since 2009, after two previous private train operators were forced to bail out of the franchise for financial reasons. Directly Operated Railways (DOR) – the public operator of the line – has achieved record levels of customer satisfaction, provided the highest returns to the taxpayer while receiving the lowest public subsidy among all the train operators, and received 35 industry awards since 2011.

In October DOR’s annual results showed that the East Coast Main Line paid £208m in premium and dividend payments to the Treasury in 2012/13. Its turnover increased by 4.2 per cent and it carried more than 19 million passengers, up one per cent on the previous year.

Figures from the Office of Rail Regulation show that the East Coast Main Line received the lowest public subsidy of any rail operator by some considerable margin. Last year Virgin Trains on the West Coast Main Line received seven times as much in taxpayer subsidy.

Action for Rail spokesperson and TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Privatising the East Coast defies all logic. Since it was re-nationalised the line has gone from strength to strength. This decision shows the government is clinging on to its outdated faith in privatisation at all costs and is determined to remain blind to the fact that public ownership has been a success for taxpayers and passengers alike.

“By taking the East Coast out of public ownership the government will be passing the income the line raises into the pockets of corporate shareholders, when it should be using the cash to reduce rail fares and improve services for passengers.”

RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said: “The fact that the Lib Dems are lined up with their Conservative coalition bosses on the plans to take a wrecking ball to the highly successful, publicly-owned East Coast rail service helps explain their collapse in the opinion polls, as the British people see them as nothing but voting fodder for this rotten, right-wing government.

“This Conservative-led coalition will allow any nation state to run Britain’s railways other than the British people themselves and the idea that East Coast, delivering the most successful and cost-effective rail services in the country, should be smashed apart in the interests of private greed will haunt this mob right up to polling day.”

ASLEF General Secretary Mick Whelan said: “It’s about time the Conservative-led government, rather than rushing to privatise the East Coast Main Line before it is voted out of power next year, listened to the views of the travelling public and stakeholders in the industry, and left the East Coast in successful public ownership, returning money to the Treasury, rather than being siphoned off as private profit.”

TSSA General Secretary Manuel Cortes said: “Nick Clegg should be ashamed of himself for supporting the Conservatives’ crackpot idea for re-privatising the East Coast line on purely ideological grounds.

“As a publicly-run line, it has paid over £600m to the Treasury and costs less to run than all the other private rail firms who rely on public subsidies to make profits. This decision is the economics of the madhouse and the Lib Dem conference should send that message to its leader, loud and clear.”

Unite National Officer Julia Long said: “Today protestors are urging the government to keep the East Coast Main Line in public hands. The success of the line is more proof that privatisation fails commuters while publicly-owned rail services benefit them. It is time the government had the bravery to act and look at alternatives to privatisation.”

NOTES TO EDITORS:

- Rail campaigners will be at the following stations today (Friday): London Kings Cross: 7.30-9am; Doncaster: 7.30-9am; York: 1-2pm; Durham: 8-9am; Newcastle: 8-9am; Edinburgh Waverley: 7-9am; Berwick-upon-Tweed 8-9am; Hull 4.30-5.30pm; Keighley 7.30-6.30pm; Peterborough 7.30-8.30am, and Stevenage 8-9am.

- Action for Rail is a campaign involving the TUC, and its affiliated unions with members working on the railways – ASLEF, RMT, TSSA and Unite. Its aim is to work with passenger groups, rail campaigners and environmentalists to campaign against cuts to rail services and staffing and to promote the case for integrated, national rail under public ownership. For more information please visit www.actionforrail.org

- The Survation poll is available from the TUC press office.

- The EDM on the East Coast Main Line is available at www.parliament.uk/edm/2013-14/58

- The TUC is organising Fair Pay Fortnight from Monday 24 March to Sunday 6 April. It will be a series of events across England and Wales to raise awareness about falling living standards. www.fairpayfortnight.org

- All TUC press releases can be found at www.tuc.org.uk

- Follow the TUC on Twitter: @tucnews

Contacts:

TUC media enquiries:
Liz Chinchen   T: 020 7467 1248    M: 07778 158175    E: media@tuc.org.uk
Rob Holdsworth    T: 020 7467 1372    M: 07717 531150     E: rholdsworth@tuc.org.uk

Rail union media enquiries:

ASLEF Keith Richmond    M: 07977 498 794    E: richmondk@aslef.org.uk

RMT Geoff Martin    M: 07831 465 103    E: G.Martin@rmt.org.uk

TSSA Tom Condon    M: 07894 390 480    E: condont@tssa.org.uk

Unite Ciaran Naidoo    M: 07768 931 315    E: ciaran.naidoo@unitetheunion.org

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