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A KEY northern rail service is to be taken into public ownership — but it won’t be the British public in control.
A shortlist of three foreign state-owned rail firms bidding to run Northern Rail was revealed yesterday by the Department for Transport. It includes Dutch Abellio Northern, German Arriva North and French Govia Northern.
Another northern rail franchise, Trans Pennine Express, is for sale, with a French firm among three shortlisted bidders.
Huddersfield University’s Professor Paul Salveson, a former rail worker and now an authority on transport, said: “It’s ironic that — especially with Northern — the shortlisted bidders are almost entirely foreign state-owned railways.
“Let’s hope that we get a Northern railway system which bears comparison with the excellent services enjoyed in Germany, the Netherlands and France.”
Prof Salveson is secretary of the Hannah Mitchell Foundation, which campaigns for northern devolution. The foundation wants a new approach to operating railways in northern England, with a directly elected northern assembly supervising a publicly owned rail network.
