full article at: <http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,413286,00.html> Time to backtrack If the government can think the unthinkable on the tube, next it should return Railtrack to public control Special report: transport in Britain Ros Coward Tuesday December 19, 2000 What would be the public response if an electricity supplier declared they had let their pylons rot, so electricity would now only be available sporadically? Would we passively accept this because "not everyone depends on electricity"? Would the government give the supplier until Easter to sort itself out? Would the newspapers relegate the story to back pages? Not likely. A private company failing to deliver a public utility, especially over Christmas, would be a national scandal. So why treat the railways differently? The crisis is damaging business, driving travellers to distraction, and now preventing people from reaching families and friends for Christmas. So far, all the government has done publicly is give Railtrack a "dressing down" and initiate a forum to make the companies coordinate responses. The media have merely given the public space to complain. It appears we've all accepted railways are no longer a public utility but one transport option among others, standing and failing by their own business acumen. If you listen to those complaints, however, it's clear the public never abandoned the belief that railways are a public utility. The public has protested about every aspect of the whole dysfunctional privatised structure - about fares, about ticketing, about safety. Most people were disappointed that New Labour never planned to take back control of Railtrack (at £3bn it would have been a snip) and outraged that it took three years to produce a transport plan. In fact, the industry and politicians are also ambivalent about the status of the railways. The industry's overreaction to Hatfield is precisely because it understands the railways' symbolic importance for the public: we expect it to be run in our interests, meeting health and safety standards that truly private activities don't. No one protests about annual car fatalities, which run to thousands. Driving is seen as a private activity where we assess our own risks. Implicitly, the government also acknowledges the railways as a public utility. The 10-year transport plan promised £60bn for the railways, of which £30bn is to come from public taxes. Until now, it has insisted this is a "subsidy" to passengers - nothing that would entitle it to take control. Politically, renationalisation was seen as too much of a poisoned chalice.
