by Felicity Collier at Waterloo Station

COMMUTERS will save £1,000 on rail fares over the next five years if Labour is elected next week. Labour candidates joined rail union RMT members yesterday for rallies at their local stations to get the message out to voters.

Batley and Spen candidate Tracy Brabin, who was elected to the seat last year following the murder of Jo Cox, spent the morning at Batley station.

She said: “All too often I hear from those in Batley and Spen that our trains are overpriced, overcrowded and unreliable.

“The Labour Party has a much better plan for our railways. We’ll put passengers first by capping rail fares and saving commuters £1,014 on their season tickets.

“Bringing the railways back into public ownership is the right thing to do and clearly resonated with commuters this morning.”

Fares have risen by 27.1 per cent since the Tories were elected in 2010, despite them pledging to freeze ticket prices in 2015, Labour warned.

Commuters have seen the average cost of a season ticket soar by £594 during the Conservatives’ time in power.

And the Tories neglected to mention rail ticket prices in their manifesto, signalling that prices will continue to rise.

Workers could be forking out £160 extra by the end of the next parliament if fares remain pegged to inflation plus a 1 per cent increase, as they have been.

Shadow transport secretary Andy McDonald said: “Theresa May’s failure to commit to freezing rail fares shows just how out of touch the Tories are.

“Under the Conservatives, fares have risen three times faster than wages, passenger satisfaction is plummeting, punctuality has fallen to a 10-year low and promised upgrades have either been delayed by years or scrapped altogether.

“Privatised rail has failed and it will take more than tinkering around the edges to deliver much-needed improvements for passengers.”

A Public Ownership of the Railways Bill would put consumers’ interests first and bring about accountability within the service, the party pledges.

Other promises include ending expansion of driver-only operations, safe staffing levels, legal duties ensuring improved access for disabled people and free Wi-Fi.

At Waterloo station, the Star spoke to a train driver and RMT member, who wished to remain anonymous, who said: “British Rail was starved of investment. A publicly owned company would do a lot better, as they’d get the funding from taxpayers and fares directly.

“We’ve got £1 billion or £2bn going out to shareholders and the profits going back to companies in France, Germany, the Netherlands. And they’ve got lawyers and accountants — if they all went, we’d save £1bn or £2bn a year.”

He added that South West Trains — which operates from Waterloo — is being “handed over to Chinese companies.

“If the Tories get in, they’ll want to take the guards off the trains. Then there’ll be more industrial trouble, possible more strikes and it will be a worse service for the public.”

RMT general secretary Mick Cash said: “Labour is on the side of passengers while the Tories do the bidding of the fat-cat rail companies.”

With a greatly improved railway service, Labour says there will be less pollution and less traffic on the roads.

The party would also look into reopening some branch lines, and it would commit to buying British steel whenever possible.

Britain’s railways were privatised by the Tories from 1994. Reversing rail privatisation is one of Labour’s most popular manifesto pledges.

Sixty per cent of the public back the policy, a YouGov poll revealed earlier this month.