THERE are two things that people can predict with absolute certainty each and every year — we will all grow a year older and rail fares will go up.

Outrageously, during the lifetime of the last parliament, fares increased by 25 per cent, compared with average wage growth of 9 per cent — while the wages of millions stood more or less static.

Passengers are sick to their back teeth of being ripped off by private rail firms which have increased fares on the most popular routes by over 200 per cent since 1995.

Yet billions of pounds continue to find their way into the pockets of greedy shareholders, while our support as taxpayers for our railways is more than three times greater than under British Rail (BR).

It’s almost impossible to believe that with such handsome public largesse, we have the highest fares in Europe.

Had BR enjoyed this extremely generous level of handouts it would have probably run services for free.

Only public ownership can stop this gravy train. The money leaking out as profits will be put to better use to cut fares — season tickets could be cut by 10 per cent by 2017 if we started bringing our railways into public ownership today.

Every opinion poll shows the British public are overwhelmingly in favour of a publicly owned and publicly accountable railway.

This cuts across party lines too — a majority of Conservative voters and nearly three-quarters of Ukip supporters want our railways in public ownership.

We recently commissioned a poll which tested our policy of bringing franchises back into public ownership as they expire.

Respondents were asked to rate the policy out of 10 (0 for completely disagree, 10 for completely agree), overall the policy got a 6.6, but 6.8 among voters in the south.

A clear vote-winner and it’s the kind of policy that Labour must urgently adopt to regain the reins of power.

That’s why I was extremely proud to have stood at King’s Cross station in late August alongside representatives from all the rail unions, as Jeremy Corbyn set out his vision for A People’s Railway.

His policy is exactly what our union has been arguing for a long period of time.

Sadly, although this has been adopted by Labour Party conference on several occasions, it fell on deaf ears with our party’s leadership.

To be fair, Ed Miliband did move the debate forward somewhat by stating that Labour would allow public-sector bids for lines as franchises expire.

However, this is costly and completely unnecessary. Running East Coast services in the public sector for over five years proved beyond any doubt that this is the right way to run our railways — in the interests of passengers and taxpayers not shareholders.

Yet, for vindictive ideological reasons the Tories sold East Coast at the fag-end of the last parliament.

They simply swept under the carpet the fact that it was returning record amounts of cash to the Treasury, rather than shipping it off to greedy shareholders.

Passengers also showed widespread satisfaction with its services — far more so that for almost all of the private operators.
That is why the British public has been crying out for public ownership ever since our railways were privatised.

People see the benefits of this wherever they travel in Europe — cheaper fares and a more efficient service. It ain’t rocket science is it?

Together with our sister rail unions, we have consistently argued for bringing franchises back into public ownership on a line-by-line basis as they expire.

We also want to remove the firms that have been making mega-bucks from leasing trains to franchise holders by favouring public procurement.

This will help develop a long-term plan for new rolling stock which can assist in rebuilding our manufacturing base. Lastly, we must put in place greater public accountability for the overall running of our railways.

Let’s be clear, we don’t want a BR Mark II, although we must maximise the benefits that its integrated model brought. We want to see a more co-operative model of public ownership with a greater voice for passengers, workers and local as well as national politicians — a railway fit for the challenges of the 21st century.

Finally, the current fragmented archaic system also puts a block on investment.

We lag behind the high-speed rail networks of fellow European countries such as France or Spain.

An integrated system paves the way for long overdue infrastructure improvements like linking up more of the north of England and increasing accessibility for disabled passengers.

Of course, the current fragmented mess will be made far, far worse if the Tories give the green light to breaking up Network Rail.

Its private-sector predecessor pursued profit over safety. As a consequence, it presided over a series of rail disasters. Further fragmentation and privatisation will simply increase costs, with passengers and taxpayers picking up the tab. Most importantly, it will make our railway far less safe. The record of privateers running our rail infrastructure is simply horrifying.

Let’s face it, Tony Blair did not create publicly owned Network Rail for ideological reasons. His government did it because privateers are incapable of maintaining a safe railway. Sadly, this led to deaths. We can’t have more Hatfields or Potter’s Bars — never again I say.
That’s why I would strongly urge you to continue supporting our efforts to bring our railways back into public ownership.

Manuel Cortes is general secretary of TSSA.