A train in Wales

More than 10,000 people have signed a petition calling for the government to take Britain’s trains into public ownership. The petition, hosted by anti-privatisation group We Own It, acknowledges that the government is in the process of taking the rail operators into public ownership (ie. the companies that run the services), but that under the government’s plans the trains themselves will remain privately owned.

The petition reads: “The government is taking train operators into public ownership. BUT the trains themselves will still be privately owned. In the last decade, the rolling stock companies that own the trains paid out £3.6 billion to their shareholders.

“The government is deciding what to include in their railways bill as we speak. Now is the perfect time to ask Transport Secretary, Heidi Alexander, to take our trains into public ownership.”

The petition is calling for the government to create a publicly owned rolling stock company to “gradually phase out the railway’s dependence on the profiteering private rolling stock companies”.

At the time of writing, 10,636 people have signed the petition.

Image credit: Jeremy Segrott – Creative Commons