2006-03-23 Office of Rail Regulation’s decision on applications for Track Access Rights necessary to operate additional passenger services on the East Coast Main Line (Office of Rail Regulation)

2006-03-23 ORR announces decision on additional services between London and Yorkshire and the North East (Office of Rail Regulation)

2006-03-23 Grand Central Railway Company (Grand Central)

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date 21 March 2006
source Department for Transport
type Press release

BRITAIN'S BIGGEST rail union today welcomed news that the government's review of rail services in the north of England will not result in service cuts or job losses.

"Rail workers and train users alike will breathe a sigh of relief that the shadow of the axe has been lifted from vital rail services and jobs in the north of England," RMT general secretary Bob Crow said today.

"RMT has waged a consistent campaign to defend Northern Rail services and to win support for a growing role for rail, and it is good news that public opinion appears to have prevailed.

"When the government gets it wrong we say so - but when they get it right they deserve to be applauded.

"When the Strategic Rail Authority brought in the consultants last year its intention was to justify axing services, closing stations and lines, raising fares and cutting jobs.

"No-one shed any tears when the SRA itself was axed, but the shadow of this review has remained hanging over huge swathes of northern England that have already had a belly-full of unnecessary rail cuts.

"Our environment and economy are crying out for a strategy that puts a massive expansion of rail at the centre of efforts to get even more people out of their cars and onto public transport.

"That means a critical role for every part of the network, including rural rail.

"The north of England needs more rail capacity, not less, and there can no room for the short-sighted and destructive ploy of chipping away at services to the point that no-one can use them any more and then killing them off altogether.

"If anything wants cutting it is the shameful amount of money that continues to be drained out of the railway industry by the private sector.

"It would have been nothing short of criminal to have wielded the axe on services while the privateers are still shovelling record amounts of public subsidy into their shareholders' bank accounts," Bob Crow said.

Railhub Archive ::: 2006-03-21 RMT-001