RAIL activists targeted 30 railway stations across Britain yesterday demanding that services be taken back into public ownership.

The demonstrations were organised by the trade union-backed campaign for renationalisation of the railways Action for Rail (AfR) and supported by community campaign groups — and plenty of aggrieved passengers.

Barnsley station on South Yorkshire was targeted for two demonstrations.

The first at 8am involved South Yorkshire’s heroic Freedom Riders, who are campaigning for restoration of free rail travel for pensioners.

“We handed out leaflets and postcards to MPs calling for renationalisation,” said spokesman Tony Nuttall. “It was very early, very cold, and we got a good response from passengers.”

Yesterday afternoon the campaigners lobbied a meeting of the area’s transport authority which was setting next year’s budget — including the pensioners’ free travel issue.

AfR organised an evening demonstration at Barnsley.

Green MP Caroline Lucas joined demonstrators at Brighton station, which is in her constituency. She is promoting a private members’ Bill in Parliament calling for rail renationalisation. Its second reading is due on Friday.

“Privatisation has led to unprecedented fragmentation of the railway which is not delivering the best deal for passengers,” she said.

Ms Lucas said the Rebuilding Rail report published by Transport for Quality of Life had estimated that about £1.2 billion is lost each year as a result of the network’s break-up and privatisation.

She added: “This is money which could, and should, be reinvested to improve our services and reduce fares.”

British rail users are hit by some of the highest fares in Europe.

AfR says British passengers now pay up to double the percentage of their salaries on travel than their counterparts in France, Germany, Spain and Italy.

British passengers also help subsidise cheaper rail travel in overseas countries including France and Germany, because the British government has allowed many of Britain’s key rail operations to be taken over by state-owned operators in Europe.

Average ticket prices have risen by 20 per cent since the coalition government took power.

As demonstrations took place at stations across the country yesterday, many services were thrown into a chaos of delays and cancellations through overrunning engineering works and signalling problems.

Shadow transport secretary Michael Dugher was granted an urgent question at yesterday’s first Commons sitting of 2015. He said: "In his new year message, the Prime Minister said Britain faced a choice — competence or chaos. Ministers at the Department for Transport clearly didn't get the memo because we saw a combination of both chaos and incompetence on our rail network, resulting in misery for passengers who have seen their fares rocket by more than 20 per cent.

"Of course it was right Network Rail accepted their responsibility, so too should the contractors.

"But isn't it also time for you to accept your share of the responsibility for what happened?"

Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin replied: "As I made clear at the time of the disruption at King’s Cross and Paddington after Christmas, it was totally unacceptable — passengers deserve a reliable rail service, they deserve clear information and they deserve rapid help when things go wrong.

"I am sorry in this case they did not get this."

Meanwhile, in the real world, travellers at London Bridge and Surrey were held up by signalling problems, while passengers from Weston-super-Mare to Bristol and Middlesbrough to Darlington had to use replacement buses. Broken-down trains caused delays between London and Milton Keynes and between Rugeley and Walsall, and an electrical failure caused hold-ups on Merseyside.